Sensory words describe what you see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. They turn bland content into something your readers can experience, and they work in marketing copy as well as in fiction.
Engaged readers are a sign of successful writing. Engagement is what writers aim for when they want to move their readers, whether they write a novel, an advertisement, a campaign speech, web copy, sales copy, or any other kind of text.
But how do you spark your readers' imagination and emotions so that they engage with your content? With sensory words.
What are sensory words?
Sensory words are descriptive, tangible words that help your readers experience what you write about. Research suggests that people recognize words with a strong sensory meaning faster than other words. The brain does not process them as mere words: it connects them with the experience they describe.
Why use sensory words?
When your goal is to show instead of tell, sensory words are the logical choice. When you write a novel, for example, you want your readers to live what the characters see, hear, touch, feel, taste, and smell. Sensory words bring readers into the world of the story. Compare The soup was good with The soup was thick, creamy, and spicy: only the second one lets you taste it. How to write a descriptive paragraph shows the same idea at the length of a whole paragraph.
Sensory words matter far beyond fiction. When you write a persuasive landing page for a business, you want its visitors to take a certain action. You can get there by triggering an emotional response with sensory words in the headlines, the copy, and the call to action.
Of course, sensory words cannot do the job on their own. Pair them with good storytelling to hold your readers' attention.
Examples of sensory words
If you are still unsure which words to use, here are some examples for each sense:
- Sight: blue, blurry, dusty, elegant, fat, filthy, glossy, hazy, low, oval, petite, shiny, sunny, thick, thin, wrinkly.
- Hearing: babble, boom, cackle, groan, grumble, hiss, murmur, pop, rustle, snap, thump, wail, yell.
- Touch: cold, damp, fluffy, gooey, hot, mushy, sandy, smooth, squishy, tender, wet, woolly.
- Taste: acidic, bland, creamy, crispy, delicious, fishy, flavorful, juicy, nutty, sour, spicy, stale, sugary, tangy.
- Smell: acrid, burnt, fragrant, intoxicating, pleasant, putrid, reeking, stale, stinky.
Put them to work
Now that you know about sensory words, use them to spice up your writing and keep your readers engaged. Take another look at your latest text and see where you can slip a few sensory words in.