I was walking along the corridor near my room in college when I noticed an advertisement on the board with the headline “Please, don’t read this!“. It made me became curious and I stopped to read what it was. And then I realized – it was a business advertisement, offering product for students. And I got interested in the few last lines – “If you don’t want to get this special offer, don’t message/call this number: 01x-xxxxxxx!”
I smiled and asked myself how I had been pulled to the ad although there are so many advertisements which offer various products and services all over the college. And I believe it must because of the headline which says “Please, don’t read this!”
It made me remember to a post by a blogger a few years ago said that “Rohaizad adalah scammer!” (Malay language – means that “Rohaizad is a scammer!”
* Mr. Rohaizad is a problogger in Malaysia and he always shares tips on blogging and making money online with his blog, Rohaizad.com (in Malay language).
I believe a lot of people in Malaysia know Mr. Rohaizad as a successful blogger and it pulled me to read the post. And yes, it’s just the headline which pulled me to the post. The blogger mentioned that he just doing an experiment and got a huge increase in traffic to the post.
I guess it’s a human nature to see something which other people say “Don’t” and it make use feel curious to see it. And a page with an extreme warning title such as “Please don’t read this or you will die!” might get a huge traffic as well. I see some marketeers are doing it to sell their products however I don’t know whether it works for them.
Telling people not to read something will (sometimes extremely) builds curiosity especially on the Internet where people can access to any particular page with a click. However in my opinion this tactics has a negative effect too where some visitors will regard this as a disgusting trick and could ruin the blog or site reputation. Another group of visitors might love this as an interesting strategy.
Do you have any idea or opinion about this strategy? Or do you have any experience or results from doing this? Let us know what you got.
Credits to Shannon Primicerio for the image.
you got me.!
gotcha! 😀
It’s human nature to defy what others say they cannot or should not do.
By saying “Don’t try my book!”, people will be more curious, as you said, and actually try it.
Also, congrats on having a faster website! It’s pretty fast, now! Good job! 😀
Yes, you’re right. I guess this is a good way for manipulating our human nature but hopefully we’re not bringing it into the negative side.
And thanks Joe! 🙂
It has always been my aspiration to master the craft of getting the attention of people by engaging their curiosity. In my observation, stating anything controversial is effective in getting the attention of people. 🙂
Yes, and it’s one of the nice strategy to pull traffic and readers to your site! Controversial element is a nice one, but we have to keep in mind that different people have different opinions. Controversy is attractive, but we might get bad results if we overdo it.
This is a great tip. It’s like when you tell a child not to do something, they will always try and do it! I’m going to give this a go on one of my sites and see if it works!
Yeah, it’s the same concept and good luck! 😀
It makes me to read more =)
Yes, you should! =p
Ahh good old reverse psychology, He He!
Shame it doesn’t work with the lottery……
“I don’t want to win, I don’t want to win…..”
I saw some ads like that.. yeah.. reverse psychology method should be not too obvious, right?
Reverse Psychology is obviously a good marketing technique 🙂
Yeah.. sounds interesting but I never try it. Have to understand it first before applying or you might get negative outcomes.
Ha Ha. Yes it worked.
Hey… Don’t think of pink elephants.
gotcha back.
Haha 😀