The Allure of Mystery: How to Take Advantage of the “Pulling Effect” From People’s Natural Instincts
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Curiosity killed the cat. Similarly, it’s what will lure more visitors to your site. Making your site come off as mysterious can be a great way to market your site. It’s the hidden appeal that grabs the reader’s attention. This pull strategy is quite effective because you are taking advantage of people’s natural curiosity for mysterious things.
image credit: www.dkimages.com
Generating an allure of mystery for your blog makes viewers want to “learn more”. When using this strategy however, one needs to find the balance between giving too much information away, and not giving enough. When is it enough and when is it too much? Well, as the saying goes, try to walk in someone else’s shoes. Imagine what their thoughts would be when they come across your link, ads, guest post, etc (or you can contact me and I’ll give a quick analysis :D). When you are doing this, keep these questions in mind:
- Are you being too literal? When putting text on your link/ad/etc., how are you displaying your message? By telling your viewer exactly what your site is about (For example, saying your site involves internet marketing and blogging advice) from your marketing, you are removing that veil that raises the viewer’s curiosity.
- Are you using images effectively? If you are struggling from coming up with a catchy phrase or text, images would be a good candidate to get your message across without being too straightforward. Consider examples that have happened to you in your life. Haven’t you, at some point in your life, clicked an image link solely because the picture intrigued you?
- When you look at your message, does it bring up any questions in your mind? If it does, you are probably on the right track. When viewers look at your ads or read your article, even if they don’t like it at all, if it raises questions, they will want to know “What’s going on?” and will want to know more.
- From initial looks, will it leave a lasting impression? To make your message successful, it can’t just go in one ear and out the other. Make sure you leave a lasting impression to change the viewer’s usual behavior and make them curious as to what “you’re all about”.

image credit: www.travelprotectors.com
The technique of creating mystery is more effective in some niches/industries than others. The key is to know who and what you are marketing. I’m not going to delve too much into the details of know who/what is best for this method since this isn’t within the scope of this article, but I will say that you should follow your colleagues. See how they display their ads/links/sites, see what works, and try to improve on it by putting a mysterious twist. This may take a few brain cells but will give you an unique and sticky edge.
Using mystery to entice people is not a new technique whatsoever, yet many fail to utilize its potential when it can be quite effective. It creates a pull for people to come back to your site. Of course, there are other tools of the trade at your disposal (such as incentives, use of influencers, social media, etc.) which you should implement as well. Know what techniques to use (i.e. By figuring out which methods complement each other.) and you could have a great, diverse marketing strategy.

image credit: www.wingnuttoons.com

Cath Lawson
wrote,
Hi Guin - this is great advice. But I think you can go too far and be too mysterious. For example, if people landed on my blog and it wasn’t immediately apparent that it was a business blog, I think many of them would leave immediately.
I guess it’s about finding a happy medium.
Cath Lawson’s last blog post..Business Success Is Only A Deathbed Away
Link | March 5th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
madhatter
wrote,
Great point!
Yes, in order to use mystery you need to determine the “saturation point”, or the balance, as well as if it will even work in your respective niche. As with other techniques, some just don’t work as well as others.
If you think it will work for your niche, then the tricky part is finding that happy medium.
Link | March 5th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Cath Lawson
wrote,
I’ve been trying to think of ways to pull this off since yesterday!
Cath Lawson’s last blog post..Business Success Is Only A Deathbed Away
Link | March 6th, 2008 at 8:41 am