Headline Psychology: 8 Tricks to Attract User Attention

What makes people click on your posts so often? You probably missed the biggest user attraction: an informative article. Here you can find 8 elements that will help your headlines to become successful and you will find out the reasons for this powerful trick.

How can marketers capture attention?

Markets are a means by which consumers are either bought or attracted to a product. Advertising paid for by advertisers controls the content and timing of advertisements. Paid media are everywhere, but probably the easiest example is TV adverts.

Digital marketing introduces new channels such as Facebook ads, paid searches, and others. A Nielsen survey revealed that 76% of consumers were more confident with their recommendations and 45% were more positive with their reviews posted on social media. It's a form of earned media marketing.

Now, let's look at 8 ways you can grab people's attention.

1. Negatives

Most people are aware of the effectiveness of superlative adjectives like “the best,” “the best” and the most in headlines, and sometimes negative adjectives like “the worst” are even more powerful.

It's possible the reason is that the negative results are unusual compared to the positive ones, which causes some shock. Negative experiences can also help tap into the insecurity of a person. It is always good for the audience to know if something is not right or wrong.

2. Surprise

Surprise headlines are helpful because our brains are curious. Unanticipated pleasant events “turn off” our enjoyment centers more than usual. Surprise is far more stimulating and draws our attention much quicker than something you already know.

This is how people choose an unexpected event more than anything else they desire. Here are a few examples of headlines that have surprises: "What do you think about the money?" Arstechnica is Waiting, I guess. Is that the meaning of it?

3. Curiosity

There's another psychological phenomenon that is effective called curiosity gaps that relates to an individual's curiosity in some way about what the person is interested in. When someone notices gaps in knowledge it can be very hard for them to deal with.

This can be induced by providing a little information. Once you know something, you may want to find out what is missing to help improve it. Try to start the pump by telling your readers interesting information in your headline.

4. Numbers

Numbers are used as news items because people are more inclined to predictability and do not like uncertainty. Numbers assist in allowing expectation management so the reader can find out the exact place where they are going. Additionally, the greater the number on the headline, the bigger the spread is.

5. Tap into Primal Urges

The 'reptile' portion of our body is evolving in an exceptionally specific way. It would mean continually looking at your environment to determine the possibilities it has in terms of food sources or potential danger.

How does the diet affect us? Is this a match? Is that possible? It takes up an enormous proportion of the unconscious mind for a response, and tapping into the instinctive brain can give you quick access.

5.1 Dangerous

Danger has a powerful instinct that captures people's attention. The risks are usually simulated using hypothetical examples of reverse psychology or in real life.

It is a shock factor that is great for influencing the primacy of responses in situations where danger occurs. Nevertheless, it is difficult to leverage this urge in any business strategy.

Some circumstances simply cannot be appropriate or other circumstances make no sense. Businesses in the food, entertainment, hotel industry, tourism, and travel niche will have easy and efficient methods of employing these techniques.

5.2 Food

Delicious food imagery may stimulate such emotions - has anyone seen any food advertising that literally made their mouths water?

The ads we are given help to create a positive experience with these products and are often extremely effective.

5.3 Sex

The most famous marketing technique that taps into these prime desires is images of attractive people with opposite sexual orientations.

6. Take a scientific approach

Teixeira explains how to use scientifically based techniques in the acquisition of customer information for marketing. Mobile marketing uses similar methods to any other marketing channel to capture and attract consumers. He offers 5 tricks that are great for marketing.

6.1 Build an emotional roller coaster

Teixeira said viewers are likely to continue to view digital ads if they feel emotionally upset. These things relate to human adaptation. Children receiving full-size candy bars have noticeably less excitement.

Likewise, the novelty of consuming the candy quickly disappears and the pleasure becomes shortlived. In a bid to understand these changes, Teixeira urges marketers to offer joy and then bring them back.

6.2 Target viewers who will share the message with others

Some users will post content and advertisements if they have a purpose for them. The sending person intends to gain "social capital" for promoting content.

Viral advertising syndrome occurs in cases where consumers and advertisers find the content advantageous to each other's business.

But when people are looking at ads with emotional content they want to see they're sharing their experiences with others with a similar story. The campaign is well-supported and provides good reasons for consumers to share the information with other consumers.

6.3 Immediately create a positive emotional feeling, such as joy

Marketers know how important emotions in marketing are and as today's consumers have a wide variety of brands—including their competition—a favorable emotion is essential to conversions.

Teixeira has shown that surprise and joy can help attract viewers to your website. The immediate creation of sensations will help keep the viewer's eye and this will be best done by creating a surprise that is immediately followed by joy.

6.4 Avoid overly prominent branding

The researchers used infrared technology to find out whether people like being convinced by their friends. The audience reacts instinctively to brands that have a lot of advertising.

The research shows viewers often stop watching advertisements after brands' logo appears on their screens.

Higher exposure to brands and larger logos in the center of screens also result in a lesser visual impact on users.

6.5 Surprise consumers, but don't shock them

Teixeira finds surprise in viewers hinders digital sharing. In fact, 90% of viral advertisements contain funny content. It is a funny story with both pure and frightening elements. Pure humor is the catalyst for the viewer's enjoyment.

7. Capture the eyes of your audience

Attention should be considered as currency. The human race is savvy about the value they provide and they don't want to waste that money. How can you attract your readers by using the right message?

7.1 Squint test

There are simple visual techniques to attract attention too. One simple test you could do is squint. You can just look at your webpage normally and then close your eyes to see what's happening to it.

This should really create a visual effect that is easy to recognize and recognizable by people who look at it. It's clear that humans can only focus on and process a single piece of information in one go. They look around to see what they are looking at.

7.2 Bolding & Colors

It may be necessary to use certain colors to express your message; your call to action will definitely be recognizable using the most vivid colors.

Any manipulation of this article is a legitimate activity. Simply bolding specific info will be noticed by viewers.

7.3 Movement & Animation

A good way in which to achieve such a goal is through creating motion designs. We have a peripheral eye.

We evolved the capability to scan our environment with a microscope to identify potential threats to the environment and our mind, therefore, is attracted to the movement of objects.

7.4 Human faces

One other good technique in promoting a video is using people's faces to look directly at viewers. We have developed a capability to recognize faces that immediately grab and retain attention.

8. Audience References

You can reference an audience using the phrase “you“. When you read such headlines, your readers will immediately feel recognized.

It gets noticed because we focus our brains to find solutions. We need to search for solutions to our problems in our lives to survive.

So if bloggers are targeting an exact target audience in some headline they will probably think: These tips help people promote their personal interests.