Brain Hacking, Part 1: The Zeigarnik Effect

Did You Know? Sportique, a sporting goods brand, increased their email sign-up conversion rate by over 200% by changing their lightbox pop-up form to a two-step form, where the user clicked a subtle on-page button which opened their pop-up subscription form. Users who clicked the button and saw the pop-up converted 58% of the time! (Source)

You know that feeling when you get to the end of a chapter in a book you’re reading an episode of a show you’re binge-watching and you feel compelled to keep binging, just to see what happens next?

As the gif above informed you, those are called cliffhangers.

But you already knew that. You’re so smart! 🤓

However, did you know cliffhangers are rooted in a psychological phenomena called the Zeigarnik Effect?

What is the Zeigarnik Effect?

The Zeigarnik Effect posits that humans remember interrupted tasks better than completed ones.

As this article from Choice Hacking describes, there are 3 main ways to use the Zeigarnik Effect to your advantage in marketing:

1. Ask customers to fill in the blanks.

2. Add suspense with cliffhangers.

3. Design experiences that reward completion.

Onto the examples!

1. Ask customers to fill in the blanks.

Take a look at this ad. Can you figure out what it’s selling?

At first I thought it was Burger King, because that sorta looks like a Whopper and I thought they were playing up the '“flame-broiled” aspect of their marketing campaigns, but neither the shape of the burger nor the font of “It has to be” fit Burger King’s brand.

So I pondered some more, and then it hit me.

It’s an ad for Heinz Ketchup.

“It has to be Heinz” is their slogan, that’s definitely their font, the ketchup on the burger lines up with the text, the ketchup is the only “not perfect” part of that burger’s construction, and the burger is in the shape of the Heinz label.

If you saw that ad in the wild, you’d probably stop and evaluate it for a couple seconds. Maybe you’d get it. Maybe you wouldn’t. But the alternative—if it just said “It has to be Heinz” next to a regular burger—would be white noise and quickly forgotten.

I ask you to fill in the blank frequently with the subject line of this newsletter’s emails:

Why do I structure my subject lines (and preview text) this way?

1. Grab your attention with the emoji.

2. Make it easy to digest with the short subject line.

3. Tease the topic of that day’s email to encourage you to open it to see what that subject line could mean.

If you feel like I’m trying to trick you, well, it’s for your own good!

(And for mine. If you don’t read these emails, who will I share all my favorite gifs with?)

2. Add suspense with cliffhangers.

Buzzfeed.

You already know what I’m talking about. The following are actual headlines you can find on the front page of Buzzfeed right now as of this writing at 9:38 am ET on Friday, April 12, 2024:

Buzzfeed uses multiple brain hacking tactics to drive traffic, but the Zeigarnik Effect is chief among them. With every single one of those headlines, you’re left wondering…

• “What could those secrets possibly be?!“

• “What could those brides and grooms have done?!”

• “What are people calling ‘Old People Things’ and does that make me old?!”

Well done, Buzzfeed, you shameless monsters.

3. Design experiences that reward completion.

Yesterday, we looked at achievement badges as a form of gamification to drive user engagement.

Achievement badge programs are textbook Zeigarnik Effect, because once you get your first badge, you have an innate need to get the next one and the next one and so forth.

Before you I know it, you’ve I’ve sunk almost 1,000 hours into a pointless online game trying to unlock more pointless achievements. You’ve I’ve been hooked!

But you don’t need to implement complicated achievement badge programs to capitalize on the Zeigarnik Effect.

One of the most ubiquitous (and effective) examples are registration forms with progress indicator elements as shown in this collage of examples from User Pilot:

Profile completion trackers are another common implementation, like the one shown in this design available on Dribbble:

Sticky notification bars are yet another effective—albeit ANNOYING 🤬—way to drive task completion using the Zeigarnik Effect. I’m looking at you, every WordPress plugin ever.

That stat from the “Did You Know?” section in this email’s opening—about a sporting goods brand that increased their email conversion rate by over 200% using a two-step sign-up form—is the Zeigarnik Effect in action. Once users had begun the action by clicking the subtle on-page button, they were much more likely to complete the entire form and subscribe.

The Zeigarnik Effect’s Partner-In-Crime

There’s another closely related psychological phenomena that combines with the Zeigarnik Effect to amplify the effectiveness of your brain-hacking marketing campaigns.

In fact, I think it’s more important and powerful than the Zeigarnik Effect.

That phenomena?

You’ll just have to wait until Monday to find out. 😉

Everyone say, “Hi!” to Stephen T 👋

Question: If you could make any rule for one day and everyone had to follow it, what would it be?

Stephen T’s Answer: “My rule: You are only allowed to make one special request or modification to your coffee order. No more half-caff with skim, 3 pumps of vanilla, 6 pumps of caramel and a chocolate swirl with whipped cream. You get one.“

Editor’s note (from me, Bryan): The first thing that immediately popped into my mind was the voice of the talking statue from Legends of the Hidden Temple saying, “The choice is yours and yours alone, so choose wisely.” 🤣

ChatGPT-Generated Joke of the Day 🤣

What's orange and sounds like a parrot?

A carrot!

Suggest a topic for a future edition 🤔

Got an idea for a topic I can cover? Or maybe you’re struggling with a specific marketing-related problem that you’d like me to address?

Just reply to this email and describe the topic.

There's no guarantee I'll use your suggestion, but I read and reply to everyone, so have at it!