We absolutely adore this infographic featured in Social Media Today. We also hate it a little bit because this “infographic” is really just four lists of words, which means this is totally something we could have done (but didn’t). Sigh.

Still, it’s an excellent collection, and it’s sorted into four different persuasive buckets: Imply Exclusivity, Imply Scarcity, Lower Risk, and Power Words. One relevant tangent for each bucket:

Implying Exclusivity — As you employ these words, you should have two goals in mind: (A) creating a “velvet rope” that makes your best 20% of customers feel comfortable spending more money and (B) increasing the perceived value of your brand to the other 80% of customers, plus everyone who isn’t yet a customer at all.

Implying Scarcity — Sometimes you should imply scarcity, but other times you should shout it as loudly and clearly as you can. The language should be gently weighted in the former case, but in the latter case, the scarcity needs to be something naturally-occurring and not something you’ve just conjured from thin air.

Lowering Risk — The words and phrases in this list definitely blunt the feeling of risk, but it’s on you as the marketer to reverse the risk if you possibly can. In other words, don’t just stamp the right buzzwords onto the page; ensure the customer that YOU are assuming the risk FOR them.

(A money-back guarantee is risk reversal because, if it’s enacted by the customer, they don’t incur any losses; you agree to incur losses for them.)

Power Words — It’s a mixture of verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, but what they have in common is some amount of color and connotation. The words on this list are useful not just for their literal meaning, but also for their emotional content.

Get more from theCLIKK