Real World Interactivity Part 1: Scratch-N-Sniff

Any marketer worth their weight knows that digital interactivity is the latest craze in driving engagement and conversion rates, but why is interactive content in the digital realm so successful?

In order to examine the efficacy of digital interactivity, we decided to first take a look at its predecessor… real-world interactive campaigns. In this series, we examine real-life examples of interactivity and what makes them work, as well as translating those strategies to the digital world.

In the first installment of this series, we wanted to look at one of the most ubiquitous forms of real-world interactivity – scratch and sniff campaigns.

You don’t have to look far for proof that scents hold a powerful sway over human behavior. Not only is our ability to smell one of our most primal senses, but research shows it’s also closely tied to memory production. If you can get your customer to associate a certain scent with your products, their brand loyalty will grow exponentially.

One of the most famous examples of scent marketing comes from the adolescent clothing brand Abercrombie and Fitch. By pumping their signature perfumes and colognes through the ventilation systems of their physical stores, the create a memory link between their scents and your in-store experience. As a double whammy, the brand also uses their scents on the actual clothing itself, meaning when you leave the store, you take that smell (and memory) with you!

So why do scents create memories? Well, odorants (or things that smell) stimulate receptor cells located within the olfactory bulb of our noses. These receptor cells converge into the olfactory tract. Most of the scents that enter your olfactory tract end up in the piriform cortex of your brain, but some also terminate in two other destinations: the medial amygdala (involved in pairing events with emotion) and the entorhinal cortex (implicated in memory).

To put it in simple terms – When you smell something, the parts of your brain related to emotion and memory are triggered by that scent. That’s why when you think about Grandma’s house you might smell cookies while reminiscing about the dentist’s office brings the smell of rubber gloves and fluoride to your nose.

Not only to scratch and sniffs harness the power of scent to boost brand recognition, but they also add a layer of interactivity that is psychologically proven to help customers invest more. When you ask someone to put forth work to obtain a message, they automatically assign more value to that message than if they had received that information passively. This phenomenon is known as The Ikea Effect, and it explains why you value your cheap Ikea furniture that you built yourself more than your fancy pre-assembled pieces.

The act of requiring your customer to scratch the advertisement in order to release the scent invites their participation, therefore increasing the value of your message.

So now that we’ve established physical scratch and sniffs can help in memory creation and brand recognition, how does that translate to the digital interactive world? Since your smartphone can’t emit scents (yet), how does smell play into digital marketing?

Well first, the Ikea effect remains relevant, even when discussing digital effort that your customer must put forth to access your marketing materials. Interactive experiences like Zembula’s Scratch-it allow you to simulate the act of scratching a customer might perform. Just due to interactivity, the customer will automatically value your message more.

Next, digital interactivity is built upon many of the same principles as real-world interactive advertising. That means there are digital strategies you can use to boot memory production too, no scents required! One of the most effective methods of ensuring your reader remembers your marketing campaign is to utilize the psychological principle of curiosity.  It’s proven that when a reader’s curiosity is satiated, the same areas of the brain related to memory production become activated. That means if you can utilize interactivity and Scratch-it technology to pique your reader’s curiosity, they’re more likely to remember whatever information you serve up at the end of your campaign.

We might not be able to make a digital scratch and sniff yet, but you can achieve the same memory-creating results by pairing marketing psychology with interactive digital experiences like those offered by Zembula!

nicolecordier

Nicole Cordier is a Marketing Intern at Zembula. A Journalism graduate from the University of Oregon, she is a Portland native who loves coloring, dogs and all things outdoors.

Grow your business and total sales

Book a Demo

5 Ways to Use Neuromarketing

If you’ve never heard the term neuromarketing, let’s get you up to speed. Neuromarketing refers to the effects marketing messages and campaigns have on our brain chemistry. Utilizing marketing psychology and neuromarketing in your next campaign can help boost engagement, drive click-through rates, and enhance feelings of brand loyalty in your customers. It’s easy to work neuromarketing principles into your next campaign. Let’s discover 5 easy ways to utilize neuromarketing concepts in campaign creation.

1. Reciprocity

Reciprocity is a fundamental part of human nature and even our neurological functions. The idea that if I give you something, you’re now obligated to give me something back is a fundamental tenet of our entire society and especially our social interactions. You can use this idea in your marketing by providing your customers with something of value on your website, in your email, or in your text communications. Providing them something that they feel holds value will make your consumers far more likely to trust you with their business, based on the neuromarketing principle of reciprocity.

Not only that, but reciprocity is also key for curation of backlinks and for business to business relationship building. When you link to another brand’s website, they’re more likely to link to yours in return, building your brand image and furthering the reach of your marketing messages. 

2. Appeal to Emotion

It’s been proven through a variety of studies that messages which appeal emotional and psychological aspects resonate more with consumers than a campaign based on simple form and function does. When it comes to writing copy for your next campaign, try to play up the benefits your product or service can offer the customer, instead of focusing on features or technological details. It converts better when you demonstrate how your product or service can change a customer’s life, rather than to explain to them how your product works.

There are many emotions you can appeal to, but happiness and fear seem to be two of the most effective. Appealing to someone’s fear of missing out (FOMO) can drive conversions.

3. Make Exclusive Offers

When you’re able to promote a feeling of exclusivity surrounding your product or service, your consumers will feel a boost in their self-esteem in the fact you’ve included them in your “secret club.” It’s a principle of neuromarketing that people like to feel important, and like they belong to an exclusive group. For your next campaign, appeal to your reader’s sense of exclusivity with a sneak peek and new products or access to some limited information.

Not only can exclusivity help you foster feelings of brand loyalty in your customers, but combine that exclusivity with interactive content, and you’ve got campaign gold that will drive engagement like never before.

4. Ask your Customers to Invest in Your Message

A study out of Harvard Business School has proven that the more effort we exert into an activity, the more value we place on it. The school dubbed this neuromarketing phenomenon “The Ikea Effect.” It holds true that consumers tend to value their Ikea furniture more, simply because they put forth the effort to assemble it themselves. In your marketing campaigns, you can utilize Reveal Marketing to achieve this same effect.

Revel marketing refers to a special kind of interactive content that requires the reader to interact with your message by sliding, swiping, or tapping, in order to uncover a hidden portion of your campaign. By asking your consumers to work for the information you serve them, they are psychologically wired to value it more highly than if you simply told them the entirety of your message from the beginning.

5. Utilize Near Miss Theory

If you’ve ever gone to a casino, you know the feeling of watching a slot machine spin and spin before it settles on the line directly above or below the one you needed to win big. Somehow, this failure makes us more likely to continue playing, instead of to quit. Why is that? Well, according to neuromarketing, it’s because of Near Miss Theory. Our brains are wired to be compelled by that feeling of being so close to a win, that we’re willing to stick around and try again and again.

In your campaign creation, you can use Near Miss Theory in combination with Reveal Marketing and a discount offer to hit the jackpot of all neuromarketing techniques. The interactivity of Reveal Marketing will utilize psychological principles detailed above, while the offer of a discount will trigger the neuromarketing principle of Near Miss Theory to ensure your consumer interacts with your next message as well.

Now that we’ve covered some basic neuromarketing principles, you’re ready to create your next campaign today. For more inspiration check out the Zembula Academy, where we have lessons to teach you about every aspect of marketing psychology and neuromarketing.

nicolecordier

Nicole Cordier is a Marketing Intern at Zembula. A Journalism graduate from the University of Oregon, she is a Portland native who loves coloring, dogs and all things outdoors.

Grow your business and total sales

Book a Demo

The Psychology of a Great Subject Line

In email marketing, it all starts with a subject line. That small line of text is the first thing subscribers read, and it often dictates whether or not your message is opened.

About 47% of subscribers say they weigh the decision to “read it or leave it” based on the subject line alone.

Given the importance of subject lines, it’s easy to see why marketers work to craft the perfect ones. To help in your quest for the perfect subject line, here are four tips that use psychology to compel subscribers to open your email:

1. Get personal

One of the best ways to get subscribers to open your email is to personalize the message. You need to convey your connection to a subscriber right away in the subject line.

Personalization helps subscribers focus on what’s important to them and tune out the rest of the noise. Psychologists call this the “cocktail party effect.”

At a cocktail party, people are able to focus on one, personal conversation without being distracted by the mass of people in the room. The same holds true for email. Subscribers pay attention to the messages that are personalized and ignore the rest of the clutter.

Here’s a great example of a personalized subject line and email from Flight Centre. Not only does the subject line contain the subscriber’s first name, but so does the body of the email. In addition, the suggestions inside the email are based on the subscriber’s most recent website searches for vacations in Cuba.

Tips to get personal:

• Go beyond adding a subscriber’s first name to the subject line and use personalized content throughout the email.
• Set up data collection points so you’re constantly collecting information about your customers that can strengthen your email content.
• Personalization is hard to do at-scale, so segment your email contacts by interest, past purchases, location, sex, job title or age to send more targeted emails.

2. Ask a question

Try asking subscribers a question in your next subject line. Why? Humans are driven to answer questions. If we don’t know the answer, we’ll search for it.

Not knowing the answer to a question causes “a sort of irritation and tension that begs for closure,” according to a psychological concept known as the Zeigarnik Effect.

For example, what do you do when you hear a song but can’t remember the artist? You grab your phone and look it up, right? You had to find the answer to your question. If you didn’t, it would bug you all day.

You can apply that same kind of psychology to your subject line. Ask a question that subscribers have to open your email to answer.

Here are some great examples. Both eBay and CoSchedule pique curiosity with these questions and provide the solutions inside their email.

Tips to ask a question:

• Keep the question short. Research shows 65 characters is the sweet spot for a subject line.
• The subject line asks the question, while the body of your email should provide the answer.
• Asking a question in the subject lines requires pre-planning. Think of the question first and design the rest of the email to fit.

3. Use social proof

Consumers make decisions based on what others are doing. In other words, subscribers are compelled to buy something because “everyone’s doing it.” It’s a psychological phenomenon called social proof.

How can you weave social proof into your subject line? Focus on testimonials.

Show subscribers what their peers think of your product by highlighting positive reviews and customer feedback.

Psychology aside, there’s research that shows how powerful testimonials can be. Eight-eight percent of consumers trust product advice from friends and family and 66% say they trust online reviews written by customers, according to Nielsen Research.

Create an email that focuses on what others are saying about your product. Here’s a great example from Revolution Tea that highlights four reviews from customers. The subject line might read, “See what your friends think of Revolution Tea,” or “Why our customers love our tea, and you will too.”

Tips to use social proof:

• Highlight reviews from real clients. Never make up reviews.
• Consider using images in your email of clients actually using your product or service.
• Use your subject line to promote the testimonials inside your email.
• Try to get reviews or testimonials that speak to specific products rather than general feedback. Specifics help subscribers make decisions.

4. Offer exclusive deals

Exclusive deals make consumers feel special; like they’re part of an elite group. This sense of belonging is a psychological necessity, according to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Maslow says humans are wired to meet certain needs, one of which is being part of a group or social network. You can appeal to subscribers’ urge to belong in your next email.

Try creating a VIP club that receives special promotions or gives a certain segment of your subscribers insider access to new products or discounts.

Wayfair, an online furniture company, used this subject line to offer a one-of-a-kind-deal to a subscriber.

You can also incorporate an interactive experience into your email to really double down on the psychological effect on your audience’s interest. Offer them an exclusive, mystery deal that they have to interact with to reveal, like the Scratch-it seen below. Tips offer exclusive deals:

• Make the deal or offer worthwhile. An exclusive offer should live up to the hype.
• Use words like “exclusive” or “VIP” in the subject line so subscribers can identify with it immediately.
• Use exclusive offers sparingly. If you send too many “exclusive deals” it will lose its effectiveness.
• You don’t have to send exclusive deals to everyone on your list; segment your contacts and spread the deals around.

Wrap up

Crafting a must-read subject line isn’t easy. Marketers have spent a lot of time and effort dissecting tactics that work, but understanding a little psychology can put you on the right track.

As you create subject lines, take the time to test them. See if your psychology-based subject lines are more effective than those without. Run split tests before you email an entire segment to make sure subscribers respond. Eventually, using psychological concepts in your subject line will become second nature.

Andrea Robbins

Andrea Robbins is a Demand Generation marketer at Campaign Monitor. Her favorite things include getting outdoors, writing, emojis, & cats. Follow her on Twitter @andirobz

Grow your business and total sales

Book a Demo