Does your marketing ask questions?

I was sitting at a café on the Gold Coast last week, waiting to meet with a new client who was stuck in traffic, sipping on a chai latte and attempting to achieve the elusive zero inbox, when an email caught my attention. It was a simple subject line:  

“Are you going to be organised this Christmas, Jodi?”  

Naturally, I paused, responded in my head “I hope so” and then opened the email. 

Likely because every year I say I will be organised and I wanted to see how this email was going to help make that happen so that the week before Christmas I’m not running around swearing that I wasn’t organised for yet another year.

Reasons aside, it snagged my whole brain, hook, line and sinker. Why? It asked me a question. And our brains pause when confronted with a question because of the cognitive psychology and the brain’s natural inclination for problem-solving and information seeking.

In essence, questions trigger our inherent curiosity and engage our mental faculties in a more dynamic way than declarative statements do… like, ‘Get organised for Christmas”. Truth be told, I probably would have scrolled straight past the email with that statement. 

You see, when we encounter a question, it often creates a “gap” in our knowledge, or highlights one. Our brain instinctively wants to close that gap. This is sometimes referred to as the “Information Gap Theory,” a concept widely discussed by George Loewenstein, a cognitive psychologist.  

The desire to fill this gap can be so compelling that it demands our focus and attention, making us more receptive and engaged with the content that follows, and more likely to trigger a reaction or response.

In a marketing context, you’re not just tossing information at your audience; you’re opening the door to a two-way street, encouraging them to actively engage with your content. So, when you ask a question in your marketing materials, you’re essentially kick-starting the viewer’s cognitive gears and social instincts and changing the tone from a monologue to a dialogue. 

And let’s face it, in a world where attention is the most sought-after currency, that’s pure gold.

Next time you’re developing a marketing campaign, or even putting together a proposal or pitch, why not reframe your approach with a question or two to get the reader stopping, thinking and engaging?