Friday, June 13, 2008

Don't click this or....



So, you clicked it, eh?

Have you ever come up with a headline like this:

"DON'T CLICK THIS"

It's one tactic in the process called 'reverse psychology' or what the ad men would call 'reactance advertising'. This is, in effect, creating an emotional response against ad by imposing an implied restriction, like a child that's been told 'not to touch the valuables', and immediately wants to do so!

Part of the effect is curiosity and the implication of scarcity, but the core reaction is 'why shouldn't I?' By creating a preceived restriction or limit, you challenge the reader's freedom and incite him/her to prove you wrong.

The big problem is that the follow through needs to build on the initial reaction. Some cheesy 'ahh fooled you' type landing page will simply create resentment. The restriction needs to be developed in a way that keeps them interested but returns the reader to a positive view of the product and then creates urgency to respond or buy. Usually this would be with some kind of limited time or limited stock offer. But if you're brave enough, you could continue the challenge - through a questionnaire or quiz or qualification process. The harder people have to work to get to your product the more likely they'll be to commit to it once you finally say 'ok, you qualify. You're one of the lucky few we're willing to work with.'

It's a pretty risky approach. But conversions will only improve with the right strategy behind it.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is a question I had recently been wondering about. Peintros your response made everything clear to me...Thanks!

FYI I have tried this out before years back and the ctr was incredibly high. I think I just added a link that said Don't Click Here!

Anonymous said...

My short (1 hour) experience shows that there is a huge CTR...I am using it for lead generation...and have really to test it because I don't really know if those hits actually sign up.

I guess that a headline that is consistent with what I wrote with probably work like...you're about to learn the forbidden secrets of....

or

people told me not to tell you this... anything that goes with scarcity.

Anyway, there's no way to know, the only way is to test...I'm gonna test this and tell you the results.

Anonymous said...

Very nice tactic, thanks for the tip i will try and employ it as soon as i can.