Real World Interactivity Part 5: Tear-Off Tabs

Do you remember being a little kid? How around Christmas time every year the advent calendar would come out? I remember pulling open those tabs excitedly each evening after dinner and devouring the candy within. Sure, we were excited by advent calendars because of the treats they stored, but did you know that the same model of tear-off or tear-open content is also a great marketing strategy?

Over the past few months, we’ve been publishing a series on real-world interactive content, drawing some parallels between real-world interactive marketing like scratch and sniffs or lottery tickets and digital versions you can utilize in your next marketing campaign. Today, for our last installation of this series, we’re going to take a closer look at tear-off or tear-open marketing. We’ll discuss why it’s effective in the real world, and explore some digital versions of this highly successful technique.

Real World Tear-Offs:

With the rise of the internet, some marketers are shocked to find out people still run paper campaigns for their business. However, even in today’s digitally-focused world, real-world tear-off ads can generate a big impact due to the marketing psychology that makes them so successful.

What was it about those advent calendars that was so fun when we were kids? Well, it was simply how curious it made you not knowing what kind of candy or treat was hidden within. Tear-off and tear-open campaigns can generate that same sense of curiosity by hiding a portion of the advertisement or message underneath the tear tab. This type of marketing is called reveal marketing, and it is based on many psychological principles like curiosity.

So why is curiosity so important? Well, studies have proven that areas of the brain related to memory creation are activated when curiosity is satiated. By hiding a portion of your message and creating curiosity, you’re increasing the chances of a given customer creating a sense of brand loyalty or brand trust. You’re also ensuring they’ll remember whatever information you served them at the end of the campaign, so be sure to save the best bit for last!

If real-world tear tabs are this effective, how can we translate them into the digital era?

Digital Tear-Off Promotions:

Here at Zembula, we’ve built our entire platform around reveal marketing techniques. All of our interactive digital content utilizes some of the same principles that make real-world interactive content so compelling. Our digital version of tear-off marketing campaigns, the Tear-it, is no different.

Tear-it is able to capture the curiosity from real-world tear-offs in a digital form. By hiding a portion of your message behind a digital tab which the customer will interact with via their mouse or touch-screen device, we’re able to generate curiosity around your campaigns.

It’s not just about getting people to remember your brand, however. As a marketer, you also need to generate ROI, boost revenue, increase engagement and grow brand loyalty. Luckily, our platform is designed to help you implement interactive digital content in a variety of ways, including email campaigns, page embeds, and exit-intent campaigns. With this many options available to you, deciding which campaign to run first will be your biggest problem.

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