You probably already use psychology in your copywriting, just by trying to understand your audience and appeal to their needs, motivations, and desires.
But you can take this further with specific techniques designed to cause a particular reaction.
In this article I won’t be covering the more common ones like storytelling, social proof or creating scarcity. The problem is, I’m not especially impressionable; I roll my eyes at lists of ‘emotive’ words, I tend to see most tactics coming a mile off, and I’m too cynical for most ‘compelling’ headlines (more on this later).
Instead I’ll be touching on some that you may not already be using.
The ‘But You Are Free’ Effect
The But You Are Free Effect, often shortened to BYAF, works on the idea that telling people they don’t have to do something makes it more likely they will.
I believe it’s successful for two main reasons:
1. You get people’s backs up when you tell them what to do
2. Encouraging your readers to make the right decision for them increases trust
It’s a bit like impressing a potential client with your knowledge and experience rather than going in for the hard sell.
It’s not just reserved for sales either, it can be something as simple as reminding people they can unsubscribe at any time in your email newsletters.
The Priming Effect
As a marketer I probably shouldn’t admit to this, but I am baffled by the holy gospel that is the call to action. Yes I use them anyway, and yes I understand the importance of making next steps as clear as possible… but the idea that whether or not someone gets in touch hinges on whether you include the words ‘contact us’ feels like an insult to people’s general intelligence.
That’s why I like The Priming Effect – it feels a little more subtle, clever. According to The Priming Effect our actions are influenced by what we saw or heard prior to that situation, even if we didn’t consciously register them. So in a copywriting context, what you say before your CTA matters more than your CTA.
As well as the language you use, consider what you’re actually sharing at this point too. USPs or case study snippets could work well. Don’t forget to consider the impact of imagery at this stage either.
The Pratfall Effect
This one takes the prize for best name. It suggests that we sometimes warm to others when they make, and admit to, a mistake. Not only are they being upfront with their failure, which can be endearing, they become more relatable too.
Now, this one comes with a warning. It works best when the person making the mistake is seen as highly competent. Without this security, you could be doing more harm than good. If you or your business isn’t especially well-known or established it may not be a technique you want to start with(!)
There are two main ways to use this approach. One is to metaphorically put your hand up to flag an error. You sometimes see this in marketing emails where a brand apologises for a mistake and may even provide a discount code to make up for it (FYI, often these aren’t real mistakes but a reason to email you again and grab your attention and your money).
The other, safer, way to achieve this, is to reference a mistake that you made – and learnt from – a long time ago. You’re pointing out a flaw, but it was a former, less experienced you, and you’re all the better for it.
The Open-Loop Effect
Our brains love to close loops. When you can tick something off your list and forget about it, it’s a nice feeling. What’s not as satisfying is when you’ve done 90% of your task but you’re reliant on someone else’s input for the remaining 10%. Or perhaps you haven’t even started yet, but the fact that you know you need to keeps it lingering in the back of your mind.
It’s annoying, but it’s also useful from a marketing perspective. The Open-Loop Effect says that our brains are better at remembering open information than closed information. Anything that hasn’t been resolved preys on our minds. It’s why we love cliff-hangers and it’s also why click-bait exists.
But there’s a way to take advantage of this and hold people’s attention without a clickbait headline. For example, instead of saying ‘5 psychology effects you MUST know about (no. 4 will SHOCK you)’, I might simply mention something early on that I intend to come back to later, using a ‘more on this later’ for example ;-).
Giving readers a flavour of what they’ll learn later on, or providing just snippets of results is a less ‘Daily Mail’ way of luring them in.
The Serial Position Effect
This is a really easy way to have a big impact. In fact, chances are, you already do half of it.
The Serial Position Effect states that people are most likely to remember the first and last items in a sequence. I think we all know to start strong, but I find a lot of people have a tendency to order things in terms of strength – from highest to lowest. On this basis, you should keep some of your best points back for last (see what I did there?!)
This could be points within an article, or it could be bullet points on your site. It might be features, benefits, USPs… the list is endless, but it’s good practice to get in the habit of starting and ending strong.
Whilst perhaps not groundbreaking, these techniques can be really effective, and they’re rooted in common sense. Hopefully you learnt one or two things you didn’t know (or at least didn’t know the official name for!).
