Introducing My Journey In marketing, Persuasion, SEO
Plus Attention Grabbing, Traffic Gathering Tactics
To My Loyal Blog Reader, (If you are not now, you can imagine yourself as one, right?)
The topic of persuasion and influence is an important one. This blog is a journey to teach my loyal viewers the power of influence through various means.
As you can probably tell from the over the top headline and subheadline, a good headline can help to grab attention.
In the internet age, it's often a battle for attention. But attention is only half the battle. A big portion of persuasion that is overlooked is to PRE-suade. In other words, PRIME the viewer for confirmation bias.
For example, in the headline I used the word now which implies taking some kind of action. I used the word announcing implying some kind of important announcement that you probably don't want to miss. I used descriptive words like remarkable, influential and persuasive in describing my headline. These prime you to believe that the headline is, so that the people that do click believe it's the reason they clicked. (it is at least partly responsible for why you are here).
If it had been another headline, you probably wouldn't think too much about it. You were looking for something, you happened to choose to click, and you probably would have clicked anyways, at least in your rational mind.
But since the headline primed you, you are intent on seeing the message's "importance", you are also more likely to be convinced that headlines are important, and that this particular headline is influential and persuasive (afterall, you did click on the article, right?)
It's also useful to know that many headlines have been tested and certain words test better than others on average at converting clicks and buyers. Words like "Remarkable", "Announcing", "Magic", "Introducing", "Startling", "Revolutionary", "Miraculous", "quick", "easy", "free", "special offer" and time related terms like "hurry" or "last chance" and "negative" words like "You'll Miss Out", "loss", "mistakes", etc.
I used both Remarkable and announcing.
A headline must serve more purpose than marketers will tell you. If it doesn't prime the customer or potential customer, it doesn't necessarily do a lot of good just because it tested well in the past. It just happens that a lot of those words tend to both prime AND attract attention.
The mind is always looking for patterns to confirm things. By placing attention on an idea, the mind is actively looking to confirm that idea and it will rationalize anything that could even be confused as evidence as confirmation.
You'll notice that I addressed the message to my Loyal reader and suggested that you imagine that you are. The mind doesn't distinguish between real and imagined events, so the idea that you can imagine yourself as one primes you so that when I suggest bookmarking or signing up to my newsletter, or adding this site to your regular readers, add me on social media or whatever, you have been primed to act in a way consistent with the label to confirm the suggestion and maintain self-consistency.
Even adding "right?" after a suggestion is a confirmation bias "trap". Rather than asking you if you can imagine yourself as one, I first suggested you can, then added, "right"? People tend not to want to be disagreeable (if they are there's a separate strategy).. They also rely on recent information to confirm. The mere repeated suggestion that I was addressing loyal readers and then suggesting you imagine that I'm speaking to you as a loyal reader (after I called you one), then asking for you to confirm what I just repeated creates enough of a suggestion that you are "or will act as one".
It'd be a good tactic to also at the end of an article to ask if you can come back soon as a loyal reader would and continue to address you as such in some form or another or welcoming you back for the first of many times to come.
For example, I might conclude a post with:
"Thank you for reading, I appreciate your continued loyalty as a reader as well as all of the other loyal readers, and I will see you next time. (I will see you next time, right?)"
In your head when you read it, you can almost imagine yourself saying yes as you're asked the question (see what I did there? Sorry, couldn't help myself on that one). But despite the suggestiveness of the last sentence, it is true that when you're given a suggestion followed by "right?" in that manner you tend to accept it.
Perhaps a better tactic is "moving past the sale". In other words, assuming that you've already said yes I could have made another statement to get you to pay attention to an extreme or false equivalency that requires you to accept the premise (or imagine doing so) before you can even debate it. What if I said "A somewhat loyal viewer views a site 1 time a day and spends 20 minutes a day on the site. A normal loyal viewer returns 3 times a day and spends half an hour but my super viewers return 12 times a day and spend over 40 hours a week on my site, which are you?" and had you place a vote and totally rigged the poll so over 80% answered "super viewer". I could even ensure that the poll didn't add up to 100% so that you can point out how clearly erroneous my assumption is and think you've "won".
Even if it's factually wrong, the point is to get you to debate or question the magnitude of how much of a "loyal viewer are you" or what magnitude of loyalty you have.
Another example of moving past the sale is Trump suggesting he's worth $10B or suggesting some very large number of people committed voter fraud that the news anchors and blogs and individuals then have to fact check. Even if people concede he's not worth 10 billion, he still wins in controlling attention and the narrative. If people argue the magnitude of how many committed voter fraud, they're talking about voter fraud instead of the popular vote. People can "fact check him" and say he's wrong, but he's moving past the sale and you're still concluding "he's rich".
It's much better that people say "he's not really as rich as he says" than debate whether or not a rich person should be president. Those who dislike him will automatically want to argue against him. While those who dislike him are busy arguing how rich they've already accepted the premise that somehow his degree of wealth is important, as if you could somehow disqualify him if you proved he was only worth 1Billion dollars. The problem there is that if having less money is less qualifying, you've implied that his opponent is weaker by that standard even if you win the argument.
He talked past the sale effectively and without knowing it many people accepted the premise (or at least implied) that more money is better in a presidential candidate.
Narrative and premises that people accept by engaging in conversation are more important than people recognize.
If a news anchor for example has effectively gotten someone to actually reply to a baseless accusation in a defensive manner, they've moved past the sale. By the person actually responding to the accusation directly, the subtext is that the person who accused them of it is a rational person. A better response would be to respond in confusion and ask the accuser if they've even met you before, suggest that only stalkers and crazy people make such baseless accusations without evidence and asking which one they are? (depending on the charge... if they accuse you of being mean, such a response would confirm their suggestion)
Debates and discussions are sort of a battle for persuasion in and of themselves. Confrontation and ridicule is not always the most persuasive angle, but it can be at times.
Sometimes it's best to argue the opposite position at an extreme. If you know people are automatically going to take the opposite position, reverse psychology works best. It helps if you're a confrontational brash figure with a large percentage of people who strongly dislike you. There was only one example that I ever really saw in the online world of someone insulting people until they bought his product. He marketed himself as the "rich jerk" and basically said things like, "this product is not for losers like you". Rather than trying to sell you, he was trying to say you shouldn't buy his product overtly (even if subliminally he was trying to sell it). Basically he took an unconventional approach which grabbed attention, offended you, and then once you hated him and were ready to say no to whatever he said he said "this product is not for you" and "don't buy this product until you've tried every other one first and failed because everyone else is wrong."
But if you're taking that angle, you also want to sort of move away from that extreme and revise it until you concede what you initially wanted to say. The people you're arguing with feel they've won, but it was planned from the beginning.
Thank you for reading, I appreciate your continued loyalty as a reader as well as all of the other loyal readers, and I will see you next time. (I will see you next time, right?)
Another thing you have to do is actually get something posted, even if it's incomplete. Don't be a perfectionist, be a revisionist. Post ugly initially and edit later. And on that note I have a publish button to press. (click)
note:Perfectionism is an enemy when you look at it as a desintation and not a process. If it is a process that never will end then it is okay to publish a post ugly and then work on it. Have some kind of prelaunch state on a blog before the finished product if you must maintain a minimum standard of quality before posting. You can always go back and test things and edit and add and modify as you go and even retry the ideas in a different format from a different angle and/or on a different website later. Inaction is far more detrimental to your success. You may try say 5 posts on one blog and 5 on another and if there isn't interest you might try a little bit of promotion if you must but focus more of your time on what works and less on what doesn't.
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