Simple Ways To Keep Your Audience Hooked ‘Review’
The boy with his short and dust covered sneakers walked down to the school verandah. His next words he knew by heart, with the wooden bell held with his right hand. He was certain as he stared the wristwatch his father had presented, hesitating for a minute would get a scolding. Teachers, students alike strained their necks and ears waiting for his words. He did not have to read minds to know that patience was no virtue. He imagined how he would go ahead to eat the hot rice and stew in his food flask.
‘Gbagun Gbagun Gbagun, breaking time’.
With that, like every other day, the flood of children passed him as they rushed into to get their food baskets. The sound of the school bell has gotten many hooked.
Habits often are performed in the absence of evaluations, intentions, and goals. “I can’t help it, it’s just a habit,” is an excuse that people might offer for their bad habits (e.g., chronic overeating) and for action slips of inadvertent habit performance(e.g., accidentally driving to work when intending to go to the store). That is why getting the school bell ring has formed a habit simultaneously related to eating or relaxing in between school lecture periods.
Habits move the mountain. They’re the little soldiers on the ground that are making your life easier as you strategize where to take the troops next.
Without habits, you go in circles.
With habits, you get things done.
Cognitive psychologists define habits as “automatic behaviours triggered by situational cues”: Things we do with little or no conscious thought — Nir Eyal
Getting people to like your products and services sure take a lot of efforts. Storytelling and content marketing may help to reduce the process.
When you instinctively no longer wait for a notification push up from Facebook, or you visit your Facebook page right before your daily devotional, you know that you are hooked with Facebook. This means that your interaction with the app has become habitual. As a content writer, you must ensure that your 20 million potential customers do not leave after an interaction with your product but you can turn them into your number 1 fan.
According to Nir Eyal’s Hooked, there are several ways to get your audience hooked to your content.
To create a habit-forming product using the Hook Model, we must design for the sequence of four critical phases:
A. Trigger
B. Action
C. Variable reward
D. Investment
When users go through all four phases of the Hook Model, they will begin to associate the product or service as the source of relief. And that is when the habit is formed.
Trigger
The first phase in the Hook Model is the trigger, which can exist in the environment (external) or the self (internal). Eyal describes internal triggers as ‘the root cause of forming habits’. They essentially drive users into repeating behaviors.
Action
The second phase in the Hook Model is the action, which is the key behavior you want users to perform. This could be opening a push notification, entering your daily calorie intake in your health and fitness app, or making your next move in a game like Candy Crush.
Variable reward
The third phase in the Hook Model is the variable reward — an unpredictable, positive consequence of the user’s performed action. For example, you unexpectedly receive a delightful message of praise for completing a task.
Investment
The fourth and final phase in the Hook Model, investment, is critical for building habit-forming technologies.
The more users invest time and effort into a product or service, the more they value it. There is ample evidence to suggest that our labour leads to love — Nir Eyal
Investment is the time, effort, and personal information users contribute to the product to improve the overall experience. When we invest in a product, we anticipate future rewards. For example, Twitter users who have a high engagement frequency will likely receive more likes, followers, and relevant content.
How To Get Your Audience Hooked On Your Website.
I have learnt after studying with CXL Institute, that your content marketing is all about building relationships and trust. It is what moved them from the landing page of the website to the call to action page. High trust comes from experience, credibility and relationship.
1. Write reviews:
Honest and plentiful reviews increase trusts. Getting customers who enjoyed rewarding customer experience should be encouraged to drop their reviews. Reviews are social proof.
Repeat after me: Writing product reviews is very important. Writing product reviews that identify your customer’s pain points is important’er.
2. Create Animations and Case studies:
Demonstrate how to use your product or app to your audience. In the days of the typewriter, I had always assumed it was very easy to sit and type. Transitioning to using a computer was fraught as I spent days relearning the difference in “space bar keys for example”.
Repeat after me: People only trust that you can do the job if you are willing to demonstrate how successful you are in doing the job and provide a manual required to get the job done.
3. Update your Website:
There is no gainsaying, an outdated website would not help in endearing your customers to your products. Talk about keeping your content as fresh as fresh vegetables. Updating your website regularly with quality content provides the value customers often require before making a purchase.
4. Be Real (Trustworthy) Humans.
First, show that behind the screen is a human and not a robot in charge of the content.
Alaye, speak in a language that we would understand. Here are some possibilities to consider in your brand voice:
1.witty and playful
2.informative and knowledgeable
3. Thoughtful and predicting industry trends.
Have a variety of content assets:
Long-form blogs
Testimonials/Customer Reviews
Interview with niche experts
Videos and animation
Infographics
Webinars
Gated content
White paper
Social media links.
Next, ensure your content helps your brand to reveal that you are trustworthy humans and not phonies, scams.
I hope you have gained extra knowledge as I have too this week.
