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Karen Leland
Karen Leland
Consumer Behavior

Email Headlines With Emotional Value

How emotionally impactful is your email headline?

Anyone who has ever sweated over the phrasing of an email subject line has probably longed for a magical marketing solution that would tell them which combination of words would shoot their open rate through the roof. Well the wait is over.

The Advanced Marketing Institute offers a no-cost Headline Analyzer that calculates the Emotional Marketing Value (EMV) of a headline. The program uses special algorithms to quickly compare the words of an email headline with the words from the EMV Impact list. According to the company, the list measures words in three specific categories:

Intellectual Words effective at offering products and services that require reasoning or careful evaluation,

Empathetic Words, which bring out strong positive emotional reactions in people,

Spiritual Words, which have the strongest potential to influence people at a deep emotional level.

"As you know, reaching your customers in a deep and emotional way is a key to successful copywriting, and your headline is unquestionably the most important piece of copy you use to reach prospects," say the fine folks at AMI.

Using the Headline Analyzer is straightforward and simple. Just enter up to a 20-word headline onto the form on their site; select a category from the dropdown menu, such as Arts & Entertainment, Business & Professional Services, Food & Dining and more; and then click "submit" for analysis.

Zip, bang, boom -- you are instantly rewarded with a score from 0-100 that tells you how emotionally impactful your headline is. According to the company, professional headlines contain 30 and 40 percent EMV Words, and the best of class headlines have 50 to 75 percent EMV words. One hint: If you can keep your headline to five words or fewer, your chance of scoring higher is increased.

If you come out below the magical number, you can then try again with other words until you get the score you're looking for. For specifics on how to improve your EMV rating, the company offers a sign-up for a newsletter with tips and techniques.

No plug-and-play analyzer is foolproof, nor is it the be-all, end-all of the topic, but the EMV tool is a good place to start, and worth the few moments it takes to see if your headline has at least a touch of the marketing magic you're looking for.

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Karen Leland is a best-selling author, marketing and branding consultant and president of Sterling Marketing Group where she helps businesses implement modern marketing, hone their business and personal brands, and create winning content. For questions or comments, please contact her at kl@karenleland.com.

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About the Author
Karen Leland

Karen Leland is the co-author of Watercooler Wisdom and many other books.

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