How can teasing (building anticipation) be good when you’re talking to your customers?
With Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com and Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com
Cathy: When can teasing be useful in a business? I don’t mean like this. I really don’t. This is Reid Mihalko from ReidAboutSex.com and …
Reid: Cathy Vartuli from TheIntimacyDojo.com. I think this is a business advice video?
Cathy: Yes.
Reid: This is business advice. What was the question?
Cathy: How not to break Reid’s finger?
Reid: Oh.
Cathy: There are times when teasing can actually be useful in a business. Teasing is a really good way to get attention and I really don’t mean this way.
Reid: You create engagement.
Cathy: Yes, and anticipation and tension like whether you slap Reid or just twist his finger.
Reid: Mmh.
Cathy: When you are writing emails or a book or article … There is tension here. Can you see? You can do something called opening a loop and not closing it immediately so that people are waiting. People like to see things completed. Just like if someone taps a shave and a haircut it’s almost impossible in a room full of people that someone is not going to tap two bits. You can do that. You can start an email like, “I’m so excited to tell you this latest thing I’m going to do but before I do that I want to tell you something about blah, blah, blah.”
Reid: Okay.
Cathy: If you do that they will be kind of waiting. They want to read far enough to get to the conclusion, the answer of whatever you promised them. You need to make sure you close loops. If you have too many open loops people will just get frustrated and confused and then leave, but having an open loop or two in an email or a series of email if you tell them, “Hey, I’m sorry. I can’t tell you this time, but I’ll tell you next time.” Can build anticipation and kind of a relatedness just like teasing can build some relatedness.
Reid: Oh, that’s just wrong.
Cathy: I know but …
Reid: Just wrong.
Cathy: So …
Reid: Being playful and creating situations where people, one, know that you are … hopefully know that you are playing. Again you are using these techniques for good not for evil where you are like, “Hey, I’m want to tell you this joke and we’ll setup the joke and then I’m going to teach and then at the end I’m like ah! We are out of time I’ll tell you the punch line to this joke in the next video.” If I was really smart I would actually role model this by saying that two sex educators walk into a bar and the bartender says, “What do you guys want to drink?” Then we will teach this situation of creating an open loop and then at the end of the video I am like, “Oh, I’ll tell you the punch line in the next video.” Then all of a sudden people are drawn in, they are like, “Ah, what do you do? It’s cliffhanger.” But at the same time I’m going to use that as, one, as a teaching and an engagement technique but also do it in a fun way. You don’t actually want to be manipulating people in some sort of a nefarious way.
Cathy: If you do something like in the next video make sure it’ll link so that they can find it really easy. If they can’t and they spend time and later they can’t find it they’ll feel frustrated or kind of silly or embarrassed and they won’t have that good feeling associated with you. Make it easy if you can. Now, I’ve heard the open loop concept shared in a lot of ways but we are just recently watching Ryan Dice’s The Machine, which is a way to build auto responders and really engage people and he explained it really beautifully. If you are interested you might want to check out Digital Marketer and signup for their free email because they have some really good stuff and you might also find that by watching how they are doing things that you’ll learn some great techniques or tips that you might want to use.
Reid: Now, truth be told I just pulled that joke out of my butt. I don’t have a punch line for it.
Cathy: Would you write the punch line, would you tell us?
Reid: That’s it perfect. Engagement! Good job.
Cathy: Yes.
Reid: Two sex educators walk into a bar and the bartender says, “What are you drinking?” write your answers to that joke below and we’ll …
Cathy: The best one is going to win a t-shirt.
Reid: A sex geek t-shirt. There you go. I’ll sent you a sex geek t-shirt. We’ll somehow figure out how to get your email, or your mailing address.
Cathy: Make sure your YouTube is setup so that we can get the comments.
Reid: There you go. That’s good. See, we are pulling engagement out of our butts, ladies and gentlemen. Leave questions below. Leave the punch line below.
Cathy: Please help us out.
Reid: Thank you so much. Save me. Save me.