\u201cDon\u2019t you dare click that link! Don\u2019t do it! I warned you! You\u2019ll be sorry!\u201d Now admit it. You\u2019re just dying to click that link, aren\u2019t you? Welcome to the world of reverse psychology email marketing, the waaaaaaaaaay out of left field approach which caters to the human psychological quirk called reactance, which is when someone has a strongly negative emotional reaction to any persuasive mechanism and therefore selects the option which is being persuaded against!<\/p>\n
Brussels sprouts are adult food<\/strong><\/p>\n Wise parents have been applying the reactance principal with their kids since time immemorial. All they need to say is \u201cI\u2019m having brussels sprouts but they\u2019re an adult food so you can\u2019t have any,\u201d and the kid will gobble up a veggie that they would ordinarily be feeding to the dog under the kitchen table. You can just see the cogs turning in the child\u2019s head: \u201cIf I can\u2019t have it I\u2019m going to do anything I can to make sure I have it.\u201d Most marketers would argue that if they can get that sort of determination into the heads of their consumers, it would be a massive home run for their brand, and they\u2019d be right!<\/p>\n A secret brand can be irresistible<\/strong><\/p>\n Reactance is applicable regardless of age, as some very savvy marketers have discovered. In a marketing world where everything is available all the time, the creation of a marketing campaign which is in essence an anti-campaign can have some spectacular results. The Japanese are masters of this ploy, creating what is known as \u201csecret brands.\u201d They strategically drop hints of a product through (mostly) shill social media accounts and wait for the seeds to germinate. However, this product has no web presence, no retail outlets, and effectively no readily accessible way to order it… and that\u2019s the trick! Prospective purchasers have to run through a gauntlet of dead ends before they finally figure out how to get it, and by the time they\u2019ve gone that far, they\u2019ll pay just about any price, and tell all their friends where to get the elusive product!<\/p>\n Don\u2019t buy my album!<\/strong><\/p>\n Lady Gaga may be criticized for many reasons including her abhorrent fashion sense, but she was certainly at her best when she recently released a video begging fans to not buy her new album Artpop since she was \u201cno longer relevant as an artist.\u201d Of course, the album sold over 300,000 copies in its first two weeks of release. However, Gaga is hardly the first superstar to leverage reactance for her music, as the late great Freddie Mercury literally cajoled top London DJ Kenny Everett to not play “Bohemian Rhapsody” as at nearly 6 minutes in length it would cause his listeners to tune out.<\/p>\n Want your diploma on a PDF?<\/strong><\/p>\n Whether you\u2019re selling Queen music or Queen size clothing, the applications of reactance can work wonders for your email campaigns: \u201cI can\u2019t get you to buy this even though it\u2019s going to be your favorite X;\u201d \u201cYour wife is going to go ballistic when she sees this X in your garage;\u201d and \u201cSorry, we sent you this email by mistake.\u201d Of course the best reverse psychology works on a subtle level, so don\u2019t hit your email readers over the head with it as they\u2019ll smell a rat and feel they\u2019re being manipulated. In order to avoid this negative result you might want to go reverse on almost your entire email but go back to a strategy which offers a more or less conventional call to action. Domtar, which is one of the world\u2019s leading paper manufacturers, created a video encouraging eco-conscious students to go paperless and then at the very end asked them if they\u2019d like their diploma on a PDF.<\/p>\n You can learn the lesson from Brer Rabbit who escapes the clutches of Brer Fox by pleading with the predator to \u201cplease don\u2019t fling me in that briar patch!\u201d Of course the fox can\u2019t resist and the rabbit gets away. If you want to appeal to your email customers\u2019 irresistible urges then the reverse psychology phenomenon of reactance might just be your best marketing strategy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cDon\u2019t you dare click that link! Don\u2019t do it! I warned you! You\u2019ll be sorry!\u201d Now admit it. You\u2019re just dying to click that link, aren\u2019t you? Welcome to the world of reverse psychology email marketing, the waaaaaaaaaay out of left field approach which caters to the human psychological quirk called reactance, which is when…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":12191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2186],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2186"],"yoast_head":"\n