Headline Hacks

The 194 Highest-Rated Sensorial Words for Gorgeous Headlines

How to avoid clickbaiting while evoking sensory experiences in readers

“They lounged against filthy stone walls…talked among themselves as if they had nothing better to do than to suck the acrid smoke into their lungs, expel it in puffs that seemed to harden in the freezing air. Above their heads was a cloudless sky whose glittering starlight turned it into a depthless enamel shell.”

Can you see them? The walls, the smoke, the sky?

In the book “The Bourne Sanction,” Robert Ludlum captures us in the first paragraph with his sensorial introduction.

What place does such a description from a fiction book have in marketing?

A lot more than we realize.

In fact, marketers are realizing the importance of addressing our senses when it comes to presenting their products and services. And non-fiction writers need to get up to speed with the role that sensory words can play in their headlines.

Sensory descriptions are a powerful way to bond with readers. With customers. Sensory words can elevate your writing from bland text that causes your readers’ eyes to gloss over into words that pop out, reaching deep into your readers’ hearts, arousing their minds, stirring their souls.

But not just any sensory word will do.

Do a Google search for sensory words and you can easily find lists of words grouped according to the senses they relate to. But what if I told you some sensory words don’t make your reader feel a damn thing.

You see, not all sensory words are the same.

In this article, I’ll take you on a journey to explore the importance of our senses, how brands are targeting customer senses in their marketing, and research that shares which sensory words evoke the strongest responses. Words we can use to connect more strongly with our readers, our customers, our colleagues, our employers, suppliers, investors, clients, kids…

To recap, we’ll explore:

1. The role of our senses
2. Sensory branding
3. How sensorial words can bring us closer to our readers
4. A look at a Sensorial Experience Rating study
5. Headline examples including highly rated sensorial words
6. Four questions to ask to avoid clickbaiting in your headlines

You’ll leave with a reference to 5,857 powerful sensorial words you can refer back to anytime you need to create a powerful headline. A lot, huh? Don’t worry, I pulled out the 194 highest ranked words for you.

Let’s begin, shall we?

The Role of Our Senses

Our senses of sight, touch, taste, hearing, and smell give us a way of experiencing the world. Linked to our minds, our past experiences, and our future intentions, we may each perceive the same stimulus in a different way.

For instance, the smell of coffee for one person may bring a sense of calmness and relaxation. To another, it may cause a shudder and their stomach to churn.

Our senses help us explore the world. But even more than that, our senses affect our development, our behavior, our social attitude, and our intellectual and emotional intelligence. Our senses connect us to people. They help us avoid danger and navigate and understand our environment. They help us learn.

Perhaps to understand how important our senses are, it helps to find out what happens when people are deprived or limited in sensory experiences.

The book “Sensory Deprivation: Fifteen Years of Research” shares research that found children who are institutionalized when they are infants, with an environment of low social contacts and surroundings, showed signs of low intelligence, abnormal passivity, and dependence.

They couldn’t conceptualize well and had little affection for others. They were restless and hyperactive.

All this brings us to a better understanding of why our senses matter. Next, we’ll look at how marketers appeal to our senses.

An Introduction to Sensory Branding (Including Examples)

Traditional marketing assumes customers are rational. Sensory branding is an approach used by marketers since the 1950s to fill the gap that traditional marketing creates — it recognizes emotions, impulses, thoughts, opinions, and feelings. It understands that physical and functional products can only do so much.

In markets bursting with the same old products and services, customers need more than features to get them to tap their smart cards to make purchases. They’re selective and savvy. When they have the ability to Google product comparisons and reviews within a few seconds, more is needed for brands to differentiate themselves.

In “A Study on the Influences of Senses and the Effectiveness of Sensory Branding,” researchers suggest that brands need to appeal to an individual’s personal and social-life context to be more profitable and successful.

But it’s not just about appealing to senses. It’s the impact on our senses that matters, too. Marc Gobe, author of the book “Emotional Branding,” tells us that positive emotions toward a product should be the aim.

Visa gives us a great example of how this can be done. Many Visa customers associate the Visa logo on a website as an assurance of trust and security. To leverage off that, the company introduced a new three-sensory branding experience when it comes to paying using Visa in-store or online. Animation, vibration, and built-in sound tell customers they’ve had an accredited Visa experience.

Visa’s year-long process to develop their signature sound helped them identify a less-than-a-second sound that signals speed and convenience, qualities important to customers in the purchasing process. They found 83% of participants have a more positive perception of merchants who used either the sound or animation cues.

In “Exploring the Importance of Senses in the Creation of a Holistic Customer Experience and Behavior,” Wanivenhaus shares studies stating that perceived quality can be improved when surrounded by sensory experiences — our senses are a direct connection to memories. So the more senses a service engages, the more memorable it can be.

Singapore Airlines is exceptional at memorable sensory branding. They coordinate visual themes on every flight with outfits, colored seats, and also a consistent scent. Each flight attended wears Stefan Florida Waters perfume, the same scent on the hot towels travelers get at the end of each flight.

So our senses help us experience the world. And sensory branding is a powerful way of connecting with customers. What’s the benefit of using sensorial descriptions with our readers?

That’s what we’ll cover next.

How Sensorial Words Can Bring Us Closer to Our Readers

In 2001, the results of a significant study were published that has great potential for writers and marketers to make more impact on their readers. The study found that tangible words are recognized faster. And words evoke a sensation or perceptual experience in the minds of readers.

Yet not all words evoke the same sensory experience. That’s what lead researcher Barbara Juhasz discovered. She created an index she called the sensory experience rating (SER) scale to rank the strength of the sensory experience evoked by nearly 3,000 mono-syllabic words, including nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.

A look at the Sensorial Experience Rating (SER) study

Participants in the study were asked to look at words and rank the degree of sensory experience each one evokes for them — the actual sensation (taste, touch, sight, sound, or smell) they experienced by reading the word.

Participants rated each word from one to seven, with one meaning no sensory experience was evoked, four for a moderate sensory experience, and seven for a strong sensory experience.

Her team found a word like incense produced a strong sensorial reaction, more quickly than a word like box. Incense was rated 5.90 — it’s a word that may create a mental image of incense, but it also activates the part of the brain related to smell.

I’ve chosen words ranked five to seven and included all 194 of them as a reference for you at the end of this article.

What’s more, to show you how you could incorporate sensory words and descriptions in non-fiction, I dug up a few examples of news headlines and YouTube videos that have gone viral. In addition to that, we’ll look at classic ads using words that also ranked highly on the SER scale.

Real Headlines That Use Highly Rated Sensorial Words

News headlines that went viral in 2019

Hungry (5.09): Livinia Nixon’s weather cross interrupted by hungry rhino

Snake (4.27): Red bellied black snake filmed hunting fish in creek

Mommy (5.18): 5 Minutes in a Mom’s Head

Boy (4.18): 9 Truths ‘Moms of Boys Only’ Need to Know

Climate (4.45): Young Women Are Leading The Global Climate Strike

Attack (4.27): A week after the Easter Sunday attacks, Sri Lanka is no closer to understanding or healing

Baby (5.4): Brazilian police officers save choking 21-day-old baby in dramatic video

Outrage (4.0): Pictures of donkeys painted to look like zebras spark outrage

Gorgeous (5.00): A bride wore her mother’s wedding dress from the ’60s after her own gown didn’t arrive on time, and the gorgeous photos are going viral

Viral YouTube videos

Roast (4.40): Ricky Gervais uses Golden Globes monologue to roast all-things Hollywood

Burn (4.91): Daylight lost in Eden as bushfire burns nearby — 7NEWS coverage Sunday 5th January 2020 | 7NEWS

Food (4.18): Gordon Ramsay’s Guide To Cooking Street Food | Ultimate Cookery Course

Puppy (5.60): Rescue Puppy With Tail Growing Out of Forehead Goes Viral

Christmas (5.40): MOST INSANE FAMILY CHRISTMAS GIFTS OPENING EVER!!

Exam (5.60): 11 Types of Students in an Exam

Rotten (5.60): Eating Rotten Shark | National Geographic

Cleavage (5.45): At What Age Should You Put Your Cleavage Away?

Giraffe (5.40): giraffe sounds

Muscle (5.36): 5 American Bully Exercise MUSCLE training tips that will get your dog SWOLE!!

Classic advertising taglines

Breakfast (5.90): Breakfast of Champions — Wheaties, 1930s

Home (4.00): Don’t Leave Home Without It — American Express, 1975

Pleasure (4.73): Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun — Wrigley’s Doublemint, 1959

Eat (4.64): Betcha Can’t Eat Just One — Lays, 1981

Love (4.82): I Love New York — NY State Dept., 1977

Smile (4.36): Have a Coke and a Smile — Coca Cola, 1979

Die (4.27): No Child Born to Die — Save the Children, 2011

Money (4.80): There Are Some Things Money Can’t Buy. For Everything Else, There’s Mastercard — Mastercard, 1997

Touch (4.09): Reach out and Touch Someone — AT&T, 1979

Pop (4.64): Once You Pop, You Can’t Stop — Pringles, 1990

4 Questions to Ask to Avoid Clickbaiting in Your Headlines

Sensorial words give us a helpful way to entice our readers. We can use them in our headline templates, proven headline formulas, and in creating headlines based on a strong understanding of our readers’ desires.

Yet it’s still possible to clickbait using sensorial words. Knowing how to avoid clickbait is still more an art than a science — it takes judgment. I often have trouble with this. What helps me is reminding myself what clickbait headlines are about — exaggeration and deception.

It also depends on how words are used in a headline. It’s less likely to be clickbait if it’s factual and informative to readers.

There are certain words that are clickbaity in nature. I like to ask myself these four questions to decide:

1. Is a word over the top — am I exaggerating to get attention?
2. Am I deceiving my reader?
3. Am I being vague — not setting reader expectations?
4. Would I use this word in a conversation?

And finally, a final check that I value greatly is the opinion of the editor of the publication I’m writing for.

Editors receive so many articles that they have an in-built clickbait filter. If an editor rejects your article because the headline is clickbaity, they’re gifting you with feedback — and the opportunity to improve it and resubmit.

Below are a couple of words, their SER, headlines, and my rationale for deciding whether the headlines are clickbait:

Explode (5.20)

This one method will explode your readership: clickbait (vague, deceptive, exaggeration — can any one method really do that?)

Will bright star Betelgeuse finally explode?: not clickbait (informative — ‘explode’ is a word associated with stars)

Battle (4.36)

Here’s how to win the battle against Google’s search algorithms: clickbait (vague, exaggerating, deceptive — seems unlikely and illegitimate)

These American firefighters are heading to Australia to help battle the flames: not clickbait (factual, informative)

Summary

Our senses help us create richness in life. They help us connect, learn, navigate, and so much more. When used in your headlines, sensory words can help you initiate a bond with your readers.

We’ve seen examples of how marketers use sensory branding to fill the gap in traditional marketing — consumers don’t act rationally. Instead, decisions are influenced by thoughts, opinions, feelings, and emotions.

Not all sensory words are the same. The Sensory Experience Rating (SER) gives us useful insight into what level of sensorial experience certain words evoke. Using highly rated words in our headlines can strengthen the power of our headlines. Yet we must still use judgment to detect clickbait headlines — ask yourself the four questions.

Finally, below is your reference to 5,857 words and their sensorial ratings according to the SER study. I’ve listed 194 of the most highly-rated sensorial words. Refer back to it anytime you need to create an enticing headline.

Your Reference: 194 Highly Rated Sensorial Words (SER 5–7 )

After Juhasz’s initial study for 2,857 monosyllabic words, another study collected ratings on 3,000 disyllabic words in the same way. You’ll find the entire list of 5,857 words in a spreadsheet on the study webpage under Supplementary Material.

To give you an easy reference, I’ve taken out the words that ranked five to seven. These are words that evoked high sensory experiences from participants — powerful words you can use to bond more closely with your readers.

Word average and SER

garlic 6.56 walnut 6.50 water 6.33 pudding 6.30 spinach 6.10 autumn 6.00 humid 6.00 music 6.00 ocean 6.00 vampire 6.00 cozy 5.90 incense 5.90 snuggle 5.90 sushi 5.90 zipper 5.90 bacon 5.82 winter 5.82 candy 5.80 gravy 5.80 breakfast 5.70 dragon 5.70 iris 5.70 khaki 5.70 nectar 5.70 pasta 5.70 river 5.70 salsa 5.70 traffic 5.70 oral 5.64 abyss 5.60 birthday 5.60 blizzard 5.60 cattle 5.60 exam 5.60 fountain 5.60 hamster 5.60 jungle 5.60 puppy 5.60 rotten 5.60 sauna 5.60 sirloin 5.60 hunger 5.55 amber 5.50 cologne 5.50 nipple 5.50 balloon 5.45 chlorine 5.45 cleavage 5.45 baby 5.40 christmas 5.40 crimson 5.40 disco 5.40 disease 5.40 eclipse 5.40 ginger 5.40 giraffe 5.40 leather 5.40 morning 5.40 parka 5.40 penguin 5.40 rapids 5.40 sister 5.40 sugar 5.40 summer 5.40 tiger 5.40 tuna 5.40 vodka 5.40 whiskey 5.40 muscle 5.36 basil 5.30 bungee 5.30 caffeine 5.30 cuddle 5.30 curry 5.30 flower 5.30 rainbow 5.30 siren 5.30 subway 5.30 woman 5.30 yogurt 5.30 condom 5.27 dinner 5.27 football 5.27 acne 5.20 actress 5.20 anchor 5.20 bitter 5.20 bonfire 5.20 caress 5.20 cello 5.20 cola 5.20 comet 5.20 explode 5.20 flannel 5.20 infant 5.20 mother 5.20 movie 5.20 mucus 5.20 myself 5.20 pillow 5.20 puddle 5.20 spandex 5.20 thirst 5.20 thorn 5.20 trumpet 5.20 beauty 5.18 blanket 5.18 coffee 5.18 doughnut 5.18 hijack 5.18 mommy 5.18 steak 5.18 vomit 5.18 waffle 5.18 alarm 5.11 radish 5.11 bruise 5.10 bullet 5.10 butter 5.10 carcass 5.10 cherry 5.10 fluid 5.10 fracture 5.10 frozen 5.10 grotesque 5.10 hippo 5.10 liquor 5.10 lyrics 5.10 picture 5.10 police 5.10 pretzel 5.10 pus 5.10 shingle 5.10 shoulder 5.10 soda 5.10 squint 5.10 straddle 5.10 sunny 5.10 terrain 5.10 bright 5.09 children 5.09 cookie 5.09 dirty 5.09 drink 5.09 fatigue 5.09 hungry 5.09 meow 5.09 pimple 5.09 rupture 5.09 sandwich 5.09 shoot 5.09 tickle 5.09 trauma 5.09 yellow 5.09 arctic 5.00 bagel 5.00 brisket 5.00 brother 5.00 camel 5.00 cigar 5.00 cliff 5.00 cosy 5.00 crackle 5.00 dessert 5.00 dissect 5.00 entree 5.00 gorgeous 5.00 gumbo 5.00 honey 5.00 hydrant 5.00 ignite 5.00 lion 5.00 lobster 5.00 mango 5.00 maroon 5.00 meadow 5.00 milk 5.00 mustache 5.00 naked 5.00 nature 5.00 nibble 5.00 nightmare 5.00 ninja 5.00 nostril 5.00 outfit 5.00 physique 5.00 poison 5.00 poodle 5.00 season 5.00 spark 5.00 supper 5.00 thunder 5.00 vibrate 5.00 wedgie 5.00