Curiosity is a key element you need to evoke in online marketing. Would you be surprised to know this curiosity is like a soap opera?
There's a soap opera called The Bold And The Beautiful. It's the number one watched dramatic serial in the entire world. It revolves around California and the fashion industry. And Baywatch is not far behind. Why is a soap opera the most watched show? Well, it's dramatic. It's alluring. It's exciting. There are so many cliffhangers and crazy plots. It draws people in because the thing with a soap opera is you never know what's going to happen. It's so crazy. And so twisted. You never know what's coming. I want you to consider that curiosity marketing is very much like this.
So in a soap opera, the whole week goes by and on a Friday they always do a mini cliffhanger. Every week. Think about what that would be like on your Facebook profile, if you could do a mini cliffhanger every Friday... curiosity, right? And then make people wait over the whole weekend to come back on Monday thinking about you and your business. What would that be like? Wouldn't that be amazing? Well, you can definitely do it.
Here's another example. Just think about this. You're dating and going out on a date with two different men you're equally attracted to. You go out with date number one, and that date tells you everything about his life from when he was a baby up until the minute he's sitting in front of you. You have nothing left to know or ponder about him. Then you go out on date number two, and he doesn't tell you much. You're wondering about him after the date. He calls you a little bit and then he kind of disappears. He's mysterious. And you think about him, right? You're not going to think about the guy who told you his life story. You're going to think he's boring, and that you already know everything so there's no reason to stick around. The other guy, you're going to be kind of allured and enticed by. So I want you to consider that when you're using curiosity marketing, think about piquing people's curiosity for a long time versus a short time.
You're in online business for more than a season. You're not here to get in this today and leave tomorrow, or hopefully you're not. So you need to keep people's attention. You're not going to keep someone's attention if you put your product or service all over your profile. If they can look at your cover photo, look at your title, look at your posts and know everything about you, forget about it because there's no curiosity marketing there. You've just failed the test right away. There's nothing to be curious about. I know you're selling something before I ever know anything about you as a person. You also don't want to be providing links in your DM's to people. If you're cold messaging people, build a relationship with them first. Don't say "Hi, Rebecca, by the way..." and just throw out your link out. People won't have any reason to talk to you. Again, no curiosity.
If you're not into soap operas, think about this as a TV series - a nighttime version of a soap opera which is basically any reality show. When you're interested in a TV series like The Bachelor, and you see the previews at the beginning of the season, you're seeing all the juicy drama that's going to come. Of course they don't give you everything, but they give you a lot of hints so you know in the 12 episodes to in that season there is going to be some crazy drama. And you're wondering when is that going to happen? What is that going to lead to? What's going to happen at the end? It's making you curious, and that preview is making you want to watch the whole season. It's the same if you see movie previews. They're sucking you in and giving you a reason to tune in. Back in the day when I was a full-time copywriter, I occasionally wrote the back of the video boxes - the synopsis of the movie - and this is exactly how I did it. You always have to kind of just be hinting at things to come, and you want to do the same thing on your profile. You don't want to give it away.
When I first got started online, I was told to throw my link everywhere, on my page, in Facebook groups. Don't you think you look exactly like everybody else? It's not that you can't do it here and there, but why not do the opposite of what everyone else is doing? Because that's going to make you stand out. People are going to take notice. You hint you have something to help, but you don't use high pressure sales tactics. Nobody likes that. Always leave them wanting more.
Let's say you're a fashion brand and you have a digital course on helping women style their outfits on their own, without a personal stylist. You could start a live video sharing something non-business related, maybe an outing that you're on, and then casually mentioning the outfit you picked out to meet your date. You could hint that learning fashion styling has made you feel so much more confident then say "how are you feeling today? Okay, so let's talk about xyz." You see how I just kind of threw that in there? And then you just start talking about something else. You just drop it in there. And people are going to get curious. So use that kind of withdrawn approach. Don't just spill everything to people because they're just going to run away! In this case, if a woman wants to feel fashionable or more confident on dates, she'll wonder "what was she talking about?" Then, she'll inbox you and say, "hey, I want to feel confident on dates and look stylish too. What's your secret?" She'll be curious to learn more.
Remember, soap operas are notorious for cliffhangers. The story's a little dramatic and crazy. I'm not saying to be dramatic and crazy on your profile, but I am saying use what soap operas use. They're masters at cliffhangers. That's why The Bold And The Beautiful is the most watched dramatic serial in the entire world. People want to be kept guessing. People want a challenge. People want to wonder. They don't want just everything handed to them. We're curious by nature as humans. Even though it might be faster to get something easily, doesn't it feel better when you're searching for the answer and finally figure it out? It's kind of like a game almost, right? It's also that way when you're dating somebody. You have to figure them out. You have to peel back the layers of the onion. It's challenging and kind of intriguing.
If you watch The Bachelor, there's usually one girl that catches his attention, and she typically tells little to nothing about herself. And he says in the interview segment "she's so intriguing... I don't really know much about her." She might even act like a fool. And he'll say "well, she's kind of crazy... she's kind of all over the place, but she's really intriguing. I don't know anything about her." So he keeps those people around versus the ones who act "normal" and share everything about their lives, because guess what? They're "boring."
Hopefully this has given you a new way to think of curiosity marketing. Maybe make Fridays your curiosity day, go silent the whole weekend, and then come back on Monday. If you said something so interesting and then disappeared, that would pique anyone's curiosity.
Want more help on attracting your perfect customer to your social media profile? I go over all that right here in my book.
How do you plan to pique your audience's curiosity?
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