Tactic 5 - The Zeigarnik effectBlum

Tactic 5 - The Zeigarnik effect

Bluma Wulfovna Zeigarnik was a Soviet psychologist who loved cats and yo-yos. The last part might not be true, but she was a psychologist who discovered what's called the Zeigarnik effect. This came as a result of her professor at the time who noticed a waiter had better recollections of unpaid orders. Once and order was paid, the waiter could remember the orders better. So what does a Soviet psychologist who may or may not have liked cats and yoyo's discovery have to do with this lesson?

The point of the Zeigarnik effect is that people have a tendency to remember things which are incomplete or unfinished. The Zeigarnik effects refers to the state of mental tention and unbalance caused by uncompleted tasks. What that this means for affilaites is whenever a visitor arrives on your LP they scan the site looking for what interests them. If they see SEVERAL things that interest them like buttons and links, they make a mental note of them and go to the one that interests them most. While they're reading the part that interests them most, the Zeigarnik effects takes over creating mental tension and confusion from the uncompleted tasks (not looking at, or the urge to clicking on those other elements). This distracts the user from the ultimate goal (a conversion). You will loose your readers attention and its unlikely they will go down your intended path.

To put in another way, don't offer your reader too many choices. You want to keep your readers on a linear path - stick to a single message.

The Zeigarnik effect works well in the call to action on your landing page. The human brain likes to complete things. You might notice this in yourself, or in other people - once something is started, with the goal of completion, an internal tension begins and is only relieved by completing the task. If you think about this while you read over the other tactics, you can see how they often work to set this in motion with your presuppositions, commands, and logic manipulation.

Your call to action using this tactic, can be set up as a sort o