It’s harder than ever before to create content that cuts through the noise. As our analysis of 13.8 Million pieces of marketing content revealed, from January 2013 through December 2014 the output of content per brand increased 78%, but engagement decreased by more than half (60%)!
With more competition for attention than ever before, what can marketers do to cut through the content clutter? There is, of course, no single magic formula, but understanding our motivations for engaging with and sharing content can help.
Here are 9 psychology-backed principles, tips, and tricks to boost the reach of your content — plus a few content marketing red flags to avoid!
1. People share what makes them feel good!
Humans instinctively seek out things that make them feel good. Appealing to a person’s sense of humor can connect to this “feel good” need in a positive way. In a recent study of 100 million articles, researchers found that online content is more likely to be shared if it evoked feelings of awe and laughter in readers. Content that conveyed negative emotions, however, was only shared 7% of the time.
A New York Times study also found that the number one reason participants cited for sharing information online was “to bring valuable and entertaining content to others.” People like to feel good and bring that feeling to others, so why not publish positive content that can maximize engagement and increase value for everyone?
2. Fancy fonts may be hurting your brand.
Unique or ornate fonts may differentiate your brand from competitors; however, it also makes the information more difficult to understand. According to a study in Psychological Science, individuals who read the same instructions in an ornate font estimated that the activity would take nearly twice as long as participants that read the same instructions in a clear-cut font.
If you are trying to persuade a customer to perform a task, you don’t want to lose them by making the action seem taxing. Maximize your success rate by using a simple font and easy-to-read font size.
3. People are willing to listen (if you ask nicely…)
According to social scientist Dan Zarrella, tweets with the words “please retweet” received 160% more retweets than the average tweet. (Our own research also found that spelling out the word “retweet” versus using the abbreviation “RT” also positively impacts tweet engagement.)
According to Hinge Marketing, the number one reason buyers do not refer others to a company or a product is simply because they have not been asked. Sometimes, you can achieve great results and maximize the reach of your content by simply asking your followers to take an action.
4. “Keeping up with the Joneses” is a powerful motivator.
Alex Laskey from Opower conducted an interesting content marketing experiment to understand how the phrasing of a message could change the way people felt about saving energy. In his experiment, people received one of these three messages on their doors about why they should save energy:
- You can save $54 this month
- You can save the planet
- You can be a good citizen
Not one of the messages brought about a change in the energy usage of the people who received them. Opower then introduced a fourth message: Your neighbors are doing better than you. This competitive message was the difference — it resulted in a 2% decrease in energy consumption!
Robert Cialdini, acclaimed author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, conducted research that also confirmed the idea that people tend to emulate the behaviors of those around them. He conducted a study in Arizona hotels to see if he could get guests to reuse their towels instead of having them washed daily.
Cialdini began by posting signs in rooms that told guests that reusing their towels is good for the environment. This message had little impact on the behavior of the hotel guests. But when Cialdini changed the message to say that the majority of hotel guests reuse their towels, the number of guests who reused towels grew by 30%.
The takeaway here is that people respond to social pressures. When they cannot make their own decisions, they tend to copy others. Try create messages that urge your audience to act based on what their peers are doing.
5. Surprising Headlines = Winning Headlines.
Researchers at Emory University and Baylor College of Medicine used brain scanning technology to measure changes in brain activity when subjects were exposed to two pleasant stimuli, water and fruit juice. The patterns in which the participants received the stimuli were either predictable or unpredictable.
Interestingly, the scans revealed that the pleasure center of the brain was much more active when the participants received the juice and water in unpredictable patterns. This shows that subconsciously, people find unexpected pleasure more rewarding than expected pleasure, regardless of their particular likes and preferences.
This complex psychological experience can be expressed as a simple marketing takeaway: surprise your audience with information they’ll love, but wouldn’t expect from you, and they’ll l0ve you even more for it.
One successful example of this marketing tactic is President Barack Obama’s campaign emails during the 2012 Presidential election. The campaign managers sent out a stream of emails with friendly yet unexpected subject lines — ones that wouldn’t shock you coming from a friend, but that caused you to click when you saw that they came from the President of the United States. Subject lines like “Hell Yeah, I like Obamacare” and “Do this for Michelle” were some of the most popular to come out of the election season, and drew huge clicks-thru rates and even larger fundraising totals from donors.
6. Capitalize on FOMO.
People rarely like to miss out on a great buy. Whether it be due to limited time or limited quantity, goods and services become far more valuable to people when they think they can’t have them.
A 1975 study on the “scarcity effect” revealed this to be true: researchers put 10 cookies into one jar and two of the same cookies into another jar. Participants were asked to rate the chocolate chip cookies, unaware that they were completely identical.
As it turns out, the cookies in the two-cookie jar received higher ratings, revealing that people value items that come in limited quantities. Messaging that implies scarcity can be a powerful motivator in getting people to “act now while supplies last.”
7. Frame arguments and incentives with the word “Because.”
Harvard social psychologist Ellen Langer conducted a study that found that over 90% of individuals allowed others to cut in front of them in a Xerox machine line when the people phrased their appeals using the word “because.” If those seeking a front spot in line did not use the word “because,” only 60% of people allowed others to cut them.
Amazingly, it didn’t matter at all what the reasoning behind the request was (i.e. the words that followed the “because”). All that mattered was that they threw a “because” into their sentence.
So what’s the content marketing lesson here? The word “because” can be a powerful motivator in getting people to agree with your requests and messages. Whether or not we agree with the rationale, psychologically we tend to prefer responses and arguments that provide us with a reason we should do something.
8. Words in quotation marks are read and retained 80% more often.
Creating content that makes use of phrases in quotations may strengthen your messaging in the eyes of your readers. Quotation marks signify that a statement or phrase has a higher degree of legitimacy, and is therefore worth reading (and possibly even worth agreeing with).
9. People want immediate fulfillment (so give them what they want with your content!)
Humans tend to seek instant satisfaction. In fact, the brain actually lights up when people picture instant rewards. Using terminology that suggests this immediate delivery of products and services can activate that area of the brain. Words that trigger this instant gratification such as “immediate,” “fast,” and “on-the-spot” can sway customers into believing they are going to receive their desired item quickly.
For more content marketing research, get your copy of The Content Marketing Paradox Report!