FROM THE CREW
Hey there 👋 – The Crew here!
Tell us quickly: What did you have for breakfast this morning?
Tell us quickly again: What did you have for breakfast on Monday?
The reason behind why you’re having an awful time trying to recall what you ate a few days ago is what we’re covering in today’s issue. So without further ado…
Reading time: 4 minutes and 50 seconds.
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SPONSORED BY RAREVIEW
Unlock the secret to viral content: Blend data and psychology
You’re probably reading this newsletter because you want to understand consumer behavior and deliver effective marketing, plus get a few good tips to implement today.
Well, to become an unstoppable marketer, you need to combine this with data insights.
Here’s how to do that for content marketing:
- Measure the impact of your content from first to last touch, and everything in between, with a tool like Parse.ly.
- Make your reader the hero of your content. It’s about their wishes, their desires, and their struggles. Add personalization and you win every time (and go further than just their name).
- An image is worth a thousand words, so give the reader photos, videos, and GIFs that help them visualize the product, and how it can help them.
Of course, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Lots of free templates and 3 months of Parse.ly are waiting for you now.
Discover how much more you can leverage data and psychology with Rareview and Parse.ly here.
PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECT
Recency Bias
You’ve probably noticed this yourself…
When you’re studying something new and are given a test immediately afterwards, you probably have an easy time recalling the things you learned last.
But the information in the middle of the lesson? Not likely. And that’s because of something called Recency bias.
It’s the tendency to more easily recall or give greater importance to events that happened recently.
Yes. That feeling of impending doom you have after a few bad days at the office is also nothing but the Recency effect in action.
Why does this happen? Our short-term memory can only store a limited amount of information. So the most recent bits of memory are always the most easily recalled. Simple as that.

Recency bias is common in all fields of life:
- An investor committing to a bull market due to recent favorable spikes.
- The latest movie or TV show being “hyped” and held to a higher standard.
- A client focusing only on last months’ performance during quarterly reports.
And since this bias is so hard-wired into our minds, it’s also pretty effective in marketing. Let’s see how.
Three Tactics to Leverage Recency
#1 — Hop in on latest pop-culture trends
Virality and “pop culture” go hand in hand with recency bias.
A TV show that was all the rage in 2018 might be overshadowed by the next new thing today.
That’s why a lot of brands often jump on the bandwagon of any recent pop-culture buzz until the hype wears off. And it works.
For example, here’s how Milliways—a chewing gum brand—played around with the well-known Barbie theme during the movie’s record-breaking box office campaign.

Or how Pepsi—-among countless other brands—jumped on Netflix’s Squid Game hype train:

#2 — Collaborate with current popular content creators
The popularity or virality of many content creators is often short-lived.
However, at the peak of their popularity, influencers can win a significant share of engaged shoppers towards a particular product.
That’s why whenever there’s recent fanfare around a creator, brands will jump at the opportunity to collaborate in an effort to enhance their sales.
For example, Xbox partnered with Khaby Lame—a TikTok sensation—to promote its next generation product:

It’s a simple and effective ad. Just like Khaby’s content.
#3 — Nail your CTA
Many marketers optimize their calls-to-action for conversions only. That’s a mistake.
Given that they’re the last thing your potential shopper will see, you want that message to stick—even if they don’t make an immediate purchase.
In that case, your potential buyer will keep you in their working memory, which will make any new remarketing or retargeting effort much more effective.
Here’s how Uber sent a powerful message to its potential drivers—or employees:

Drive when you want, earn what you need. Two lines of copy. Ultimate work flexibility depicted.
So try to make the final part of your ad the most impactful. Kind of like we did, by leaving the most valuable piece of advice for last.
Smart, huh?
CLICKWORTHY
CONTENT MARKETING: Is the ROI on your content hit-or-miss? Boris is a content marketing consultant who can help you create an effective, product-led content strategy that will drive consistent growth for your B2B SaaS just like he did for companies like Hunter.io and Hubstaff. Visit his website to book a free consultation.*
AI TRENDS: Overwhelmed by how fast AI is changing? The Deep View sifts through the noise and gets you up to speed on what matters in AI development. Join 160,000+ subscribers making the most of AI and sign up for free with one click.*
AI MARKETING: Claude-3 is one smart bot. That is according to an article which ranked AI models based on their IQ scores. ChatGPT-4 appears to have the intelligence of an average human, while Grok is… well, let’s say you wouldn’t trust him as your pub quiz partner.
TIKTOK: Almost a third of all US adults use TikTok. So you know what that means—A huge pool of potential audience for your product. This Data Story dives deeper into TikTok US trends at the start of the year, and how you can leverage them in your campaigns.
*This is a sponsored post.
ICYMI, last time we looked at the psychological principles in e-mail marketing.
The “Short-term memory” Crew




