Negative Statements (SEO/Growth Hack)

Rather than just having an “x” to close a popup, use a negative statement that makes people reconsider your offer.

The same also applies to the “unsubscribe” messages in an email.

Here’s a nice one I read recently:

“Don’t want to receive helpful emails that will take your game to the top? Click here”

Clever Marketing Message | AKA Reverse Pyschology

Such evocative language can trigger regret avoidance association and for the most part, you’ll almost certainly see an uptick in performance from a lack of unsubscribers to fewer dropouts.

Naturally, you can’t polish a turd so make sure you’re constantly finding ways to improve your product or service.

OK…Tell Me More…

It’s like this: humans for some reason prefer bad news.

It’s called negativity bias and it’s the major reason why when you look at the news cycles (especially during the Covid nightmare) the headlines are always constantly negative.

Said simply: we seem to enjoy bad news.

In fact – the Germans even had a word for it: Schadenfreude

Anyways – how does this relate to SEO and Digital Marketing?

The answer lies in that you want to elicit an emotion that the user could be feeling; and that’s the trigger that we are looking for.