You don't have to raise her mood from day 1. There's a chance she might try to escape if she has gladiatrix skill (thinks she might have a chance on her own) but with a collar she'll be returned. So with unhappy slaves the real risk is night attacks (game over if you can't win the battle, but won't happen if she has no gladiatrix skill) or suicide attempts (lost slave, but will survive with injuries if your assistant is supervising her). Aside from escape attempts, none of these will happen if she has no despair. Therefore you can allow her to be unhappy for a few days. The higher her empathy, the faster she'll despair when unhappy. If her mood is pessimistic or better, you don't have to worry.
Explaining position isn't always effective in the beginning. Often it works better to save the explanations until after she has already gained some fear. Some slaves won't be affected even then, especially if the slaver is not impressive. Still, when it works it's a free obedience boost, so consider it a bonus.
If she gains new guilt on top of unpunished guilt, it will lower her taming. Aside from that, you don't have to rush to punish guilt, just make sure it's resolved before you end the day unless you are trying to get her out of a depression spiral and want her to feel relieved for not being punished. Note however that her guilt can reduce if she gains merit on top of it, so if your intent is to raise her fear through punishments then you have to consider that lower-tier punishments will not be effective in raising her fear (though may still raise her taming and awareness). You also have the limit of 2 punishments per day without inducing despair (3, on normal obedience difficulty; unlimited, on easy obedience difficulty).
What she wears can directly affect her motivation, in addition to her mood, aura and attributes. Prioritize in that order, from an effort-to-change perspective. Mood is a sum of parts. She will at first refuse to answer how she feels, but with enough obedience she will tell you exactly what is good and bad. Watch how her response changes after you reward or punish her. If it doesn't, you are probably refreshing a mood factor that is already affecting her. Higher tier rewards/punishments have a longer duration of mood effect before she "forgets" them.
Rewards from different categories will give her more good memories. Punishments from different categories will give her more bad memories. A single interaction, reward or punishment can affect multiple mood factors, depending on what exactly is occurring.
The components of obedience are explained at length in the tutorial lectures. Those same components (her aura) also increase her motivation.
Different types of punishment target those components in different ways. Psychological punishments are focused on making her want to obey for rational reasons -- targeting her awareness. Effectiveness in raising fear through threats depends largely on intellect, how impressive the slaver is, and how believable the threats are. Repetition tends to reduce their impact. In residences with a dungeon, examples of punishment or presentations of torture equipment are other forms of psychological punishment - effectively, threats combined with some evidence to make them more believable.
Painful or restrictive punishments target the slave's instinctive motivation - her taming. Anticipating that the slaver will hurt her or deny her mobility can increase her taming.
Shameful punishments target her pride and awareness, and are particularly effective if she is very frightened. High pride is a barrier to intimacy, and makes her more rebellious, but if she is Aloof or better, you may not see a change in her obedience from lowering pride until you get her all the way to Shameless. So verbal punishments tend to be inferior to shameful punishments which tend to be inferior to painful or restrictive punishments. Verbal punishments have the benefit of consuming no energy and not provoking physical resistance.
Rape is also a viable punishment, but be ready to manage some despair if the slave is not already accustomed (or resigned) to being used that way.
If you reward no merit or above her merit, she will be spoiled. As mentioned earlier, that can be useful if you reach a point where getting her to be more obedient will take a while (mostly not a concern unless playing at "hardcore" obedience difficulty, selectable in the options menu).
The item descriptions hint at their effects.
As you discovered, tutor/school often work better than personal training while the slave is still disobedient. In the Slums your choices for improving hygiene are spa, hot springs reward (3 merit), or going to the beach (3 merit). Each has pros and cons. Regular spa visits will spoil the slave, for example.
Once she's devoted her self-evaluations will get harsher and she'll start feeling guilty even when she does an adequate job. Have fun with that!
Ending the day with unresolved merit will lower her mood and awareness proportional to the amount of merit unless she is fully devoted or a psi-masochist. It's fine to give a reward which is smaller than her merit, she'll still gain benefits. The only thing to watch for there is if you promised her a reward or a gift then if you give her a cheap one she might feel bad until you make up for it.
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