The Anita Siek Blog

Photo Credit: @vanessamckeown

I am a massive nerd when it comes to neuroscience, linguistics, and the understanding of consumer behaviour and psychology.

I mean. Hence this podcast. And hence the fact I studied it back in university days. 

I used to remember reading massive psychology text books about human behaviour during high school, in the library after school because one I was one heck of a nerd, but two because it absolutely fascinated me. And then diving into studies back in University days for my electives in Cognitive and Social Psychology with my jaw on the ground thinking – damn. 

Words are damn powerful. And the articulate choices of them really have the power of changing how the reader feels and sees a particular topic. 

I wanted to share with you 3 very simple yet powerful copywriting tips that you can take away and implement today – that are backed by science in this episode.

If you guys love it I’ll drop more of these in perhaps every couple of weeks.

Let’s dive in.

Detail is in the details

Is about how the devil is really in the details. A pretty damn interesting study from Carngie Mellon University tested how changing even a single tiny word, can affect one’s conversion over the long haul.

What they did in the study was set up a free DVD trial program where clients can sign up to and the two phrases that they tested.

A $5 fee vs a small $5 fee.

What they found was that the second option, increased sign up rates by over 20%. And what else was interesting is that this small emphasis made it also easier for the conservative spenders to make their purchasing decisions. 

Principle of Scarcity

FOMO my friends, is a real thing. And the idea of scarcity is one of the oldest forms of persuasion.

In fact in 1975, three researchers tested the scarcity principle in the form of cookies. You guys know I’m a sucker for anything food. Ha! But The scientists placed cookies in two identical jars. One jar had two cookies while the other held 10.

Even though the jars and cookies were the same, test subjects placed a higher value on the jar that held fewer cookies.

Results further indicated that the “cookies were rated as more valuable when their supply changed from abundant to scarce than when they were constantly scarce.”

Also, cookies that were scarce because of high demand were rated higher than cookies that were scarce because of an accident.

What the heck does this tell us? That as humans we value what’s hard to get and what’s in high demand. One of the oldest forms of persuasion, scarcity can be used to show, influence and motivate your audience to take action.

For example, sales that are time sensitive, words that tell you how many are left or something I myself have implemented on our site? A pop up that shows our 10 latest purchase on our digital shop. 

Learn the Art of Story-telling

According to neuroscientist Antonia Damasio, in his book Descartes’ Error “We are not thinking machines. We are feeling machines that think.”

He gave this theory a name too called “the somatic maker” – which centres around the idea that throughout the occurings that happen each day, our brains stamp an emotion to our experiences. When this happens, it’s like your brain writes another page into the novel of you so that you are able to make a better decision if you are in fact faced under a similar circumstance. 

It’s this idea that we tend to use emotions a lot more than logic to make decisions including purchasing ones to align with who we are, what we do and what we will do in the future. I mean an example of this is this: strawberry ice cream- it sticks more right?

So there you have it. 

3 copywriting tips backed by science. Let me know if you guys love this because I have plenty more up my belt. 

Want to get more copy, brand and content tips? Listen in on Brandfetti and follow me here and the team here.