Increasingly, these “curiosities” are attracting the interest of content marketers and bloggers who are looking to find better ways to attract and connect with audiences online.
If you want to stimulate your audience’s curiosity, as a marketing technique, make them aware of something they don’t know. Find the information you can use to tease their perceptions.
If you want more attention for your content, learn to excite customers’ curiosity.
Curiosity is one of the growing levers successful content marketers use to sell products, services, and ideas in this increasingly noisy world.
Let’s take a look at the research.
What creates curiosity?
According to research by Carnegie Mellon’s George Loewenstein, curiosity occurs when there is a gap between what we know and what we want to know. Curiosity is a kind of cognitive thirst that wants to be quenched.
But that’s only half of the story. Equally important is this follow-up study from Caltech which shows that curiosity increases (to a point) as knowledge increases and then drops off.
The important thing to note is that a lack of information will, in general, create curiosity. At the same time, once a sufficient amount of information is received, curiosity decreases.
Related: 12 Fundamental Laws of Content Marketing
Here are two important principles of curiosity to consider:
To make a person curious create a gap between what they know and what they want to know.
To maintain curiosity we must “leak” our knowledge a bit at a time without giving away too much.
Utilize the curiosity gap.
For marketers, using the curiosity gap generally means:
Introducing something new that existing knowledge or previous experiences can’t explain
Starting a story, pausing at a climactic moment, and delaying the conclusion of it
Introducing an idea or concept and connecting it with an unexpected outcome or subject
Withholding key information for a manageable period of time (not too long)
We receive many questions on whether using curiosity in marketing is a ‘new age’ type of marketing. In our opinion, it is not. Why may you be wondering?
Well, in our opinion good marketing has had curiosity as a marketing technique since the beginning.
The only thing new is the expanded reach and usage that a business has in our new age of the internet, digital happenings.
I love finding brilliant utilization of curiosity in marketing creative that makes me wish I thought of it. And I especially love it, when it’s for a client that’s trying to make the audience think and imagine a little more.
That’s what curiosity in marketing is all about. It can be powerful when done well.
Chances are, you’re either withholding all the specific information or giving it all away.
To get attention and engage the curiosity, look for ways to turn information into a quest.
Strive to make the information personally relevant
Make your missing information tease interesting
Offer the promise of something worthwhile
Use visuals to suggest or create the perception of mystery
Avoid using material that is given away freely elsewhere.
Maybe you need to consider creating some curiosity in your content. Consider these 5 points that will convince you:
Without curiosity
… there is less imagination.
Without imagination
… there is limited creativity.
Curiosity leaves open
… the possibility of surprise, newness, and the desire to explore.
Offering somethingunanticipated
… provides drama, excitement, and anticipation.
Creative curiosity
… can be the secret to improving your social media engagement.
For the sake of curiosity … here are three examples to illustrate this technique:
The first is an interesting promotion from California Pizza Kitchen, one where creating curiosity was used to engage consumers. At the end of my dinner, I was given the bill and a CPK ‘Don’t Open’ Thank You Card.
It’s a coupon with an interesting twist: you bring this card with you the next time you come to CPK. You’ve already won something, from a free appetizer up to $50 dollars (or more).
But you won’t know what you’ve won until your next visit.
The instructions are pretty clear: whatever you do, do not open the card or your prize is null and void! A manager has to open the card for you when you return.
You are guaranteed to get something worthwhile, and this is a critical part of arousing curiosity.
Now I’m curious: which prize have I won?
A second example is from Steve Jobs during his time at Apple. He was the master of exploiting natural curiosity to the company’s advantage.
Jobs would hint at a product demo, would leak a product prototype and then Apple would embargo all official information between the demo and the release.
By the time the product was released the world would be abuzz with bloggers and Apple loyalists interpreting and speculating as to the latest features and design.
This practice consistently helped Apple receive expressions to buy, reaching far into the millions before their products were even released.
The third and final example was from the final episode of the HBO hit series The Sopranos. David Chase, the creator of the Sopranos, used curiosity to achieve what many critics now hail as the most innovative hour of viewing in recent episodic television history.
Fans of the show waited with anticipation to find out the fate of Mafioso Tony Soprano, the main character and from whose viewpoint the story is told. Would he or wouldn’t he be “whacked?”
Debates had been raging for the many months since Chase had announced the final airdate. But instead of a concrete finale, television screens suddenly went black seemingly in mid-scene during the final seconds.
Credits rolled within a few more seconds, and The Sopranos series came to an end.
What is so fascinating about the abrupt ending is not the decision itself, although it was unprecedented and broke new ground artistically.
Rather, it is the aftermath that was most interesting.
No fully-developed conclusion would have engaged viewers with nearly the same lingering depth and intensity. The ending had little to do with the storyline.
What is interesting here is not the reaction itself, for that might have been predictable in this age of satellite and cable TV, but that everyone had the same reaction in that no one saw it for what it was, as the ending.
They saw it as something gone wrong.
And that made viewers stop and think. So it’s what occurred over the course of the next 48 hours or so that is worth noting.
Realizing that every frame was carefully crafted by Chase, who both wrote and directed the episode, viewers re-examined scene after scene, noting both blatant and subtle visual clues, soundtrack hints, veiled dialogue, and post-show references.
Theory after theory popped up in both online and traditional media. The debate took on a life of its own. Viewers crafted their own endings, filling in the missing piece with the trail of code Chase had provided.
David Chase did what many of the best innovators are doing in many different domains: creatively engaging people’s imaginations by leaving out the right things.
What information can you eliminate that arouses maximum curiosity and creates the best imagination of your audience?
Bottom line
In this article, we’ve explored a multitude of creative ways small business marketing can use curiosity to increase engagement and build customer imagination.
The key takeaway is to know your audience and what they’re most likely to respond to. Give them more of that.
Here’s the thing, curiosity isn’t just a new way of marketing, it’s really a new way of building intrigue with your messages.
The best marketers certainly have figured this out and are using the technique to rapidly grow their business.
Need some help in capturing more customers from your marketing strategies? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
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Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
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More reading on marketing strategy from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
11 Steps to Media Framing Messages for Optimum Engagement
Digital Storytelling … 4 Ways to Employ for Message Persuasion
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
