TIPS 16-20:
Motivators

Prime your audience to take action before they reach your CTA

#16 Rhetorical questions

Do you use rhetorical questions in your writing? You should. They're very powerful motivators. It's hard to make writing an interactive experience, but by bouncing questions regularly back to the reader, you encourage them to engage deeper and reflect on your argument within their own context.

This has been proven in various research projects to boost the persuasiveness of your writing. Why? "Rhetorical questions tend to invite a response from the message recipient, overt or otherwise…[This] may increase the certainty of one’s attitudes through an implicit response.”

#17 Serial positioning

No matter how good your writing is, most people will not read every word. And those that do won't remember the majority of what you wrote. This is why your structure has such a big impact on conversions. For whatever you're writing, you need to place your strongest arguments at the beginning and end of your text.

Experiments in the 1960s found that when participants are presented with a list of words, they only tend to remember the first few and the last few. The words in the middle are usually forgotten. It was concluded that words early in the list entered the long term memory (primacy effect) and words at the end entered the short term memory (recency effect). Displacement forced words in the middle out of the limited short term memory and they hadn’t had enough processing time to enter the long term memory.

#18 Illusory truth

This effect was introduced in the 70s when it was discovered the same positive feeling is released in the brain when we hear information that we know is true as when we hear information that we’ve heard before. Because of this, repetition is often confused with validity. This behavioral bias is used in many industries where public opinion is important, but most commonly in politics.

While you shouldn't be repetitive in your word choice, it's important to reinforce the same arguments multiple times. This is obviously more applicable to long-form content rather than short ad copy, but every time a reader comes across the repeated argument, they're more likely to feel the same way (use this responsibly).

#19 Reciprocity

One of the most universal traits in human nature is our feeling of obligation to give something back when we receive something for free. Before you even think about asking your readers to do anything, your content should offer plenty of valuable information or resources. This gives them the impression that you've helped them get that much closer to their goals, meaning they're more likely to return the favor when asked.

A study at Cornell University placed individual subjects in a room and told them they were going to evaluate art. Some of the subjects were given a bottle of Coke "bought" by an assistant who had slipped out to buy their own bottle. After, all the subjects were asked if they'd like to buy a raffle ticket. It was found that the subjects who received a Coke from the assistant bought two times as many raffle tickets as the ones who received nothing.

#20 Social proof

People are naturally distrustful of marketing copy. Everything you say will be taken with a pinch of salt. An impactful way of lowering that barrier before a call to action is by showing readers how other people have interacted with you before. This can be through the use of testimonials, product reviews, or an endorsement from a trusted authority.

A study by marketing intelligence agency Mintel found that 7 in 10 Americans will seek out opinions from other people before they make a purchase. These external opinions can have huge impacts on businesses. A study by Harvard Business School found that a one-star increase on Yelp translates to a 5-9% increase in revenue.