What More Can I Say?

Introduction- When The LORD needs to attract our attention

Illustration: Headline Psychology: 8 Tricks to Attract User Attention

Blog / Marketing / Headline Psychology

“Why do other people’s posts get clicks in the hundreds while your excellent innovative studies stay persistently underrated? You may be missing one of the most powerful user attractions of all – an engaging headline.”

1. Surprise

Surprises in headlines work because human brains like novelty. Compared to expected pleasant events, unpredicted pleasant things “turn on” the pleasure centers in our brains even more. Thus, surprises prove to be far more stimulating and grab our attention much quicker than things we know well and even really like. This explains why people can subconsciously prefer an unexpected experience over something they want.

2. Questions

Questions that prime our curiosity are powerful brain influencers. Whereas, if we already know from the headline what we are getting next, our curiosity may be over before it begins.

The best questions are about something readers can relate to or want to know about.

3. Curiosity

There’s a psychological phenomenon you can use effectively called the curiosity gap, which is the gap between something a person knows and something he or she wants to know. People start to feel a kind of deprivation when they notice a gap in their knowledge.

It’s possible to provoke that feeling by providing just a bit of information. Once a person knows a little, they will want to find out more and fill in the missing information so they can feel better. With this in mind, try to “prime the pump” by giving readers some intriguing (though incomplete) information in your headline, telling them enough to spark their curiosity but not so much that you give your story away.

4. Negatives

Everyone knows that superlatives like “best,” “greatest,” and “biggest” are effective in headlines, but sometimes negative superlatives such as “worst” are even more powerful. Possibly, this is because negatives are unexpected compared with positives and, thus, cause surprise.

Besides, negatives are powerful for tapping into people’s insecurities. Using words like “don’t,” “stop,” and “avoid” often work well since everyone wants to know if there’s anything they should stop doing.

7. Audience Reference

Basically, referencing your audience means using “you” in your headline. Seeing such a headline, the reader immediately feels known and named. The construction gains attention because our brains are focused on solving problems. Actively searching for solutions to problems is part of our survival instinct. That’s why when a reader is in the precise target audience of some headline, he thinks, “That’s for me!”

This tip also feeds into people’s self-interest. In other words, when you speak to your readers’ needs, desires, and emotions, you answer the main question in their minds: “What’s in it for me?”

8. Specificity

Quantifiable concrete facts, especially those that form images in our heads, are intensely interesting. Figures imply research and add to the writer’s legitimacy. Any kind of specificity works: digits, names, examples, projections, descriptions, titles, results, etc. Specificity in the headline demonstrates your article is in-depth.

Also, when you are specific, it provides clarity and assurance to readers about what they will be getting into if they click.

Transition To Body

Amos 1:1 ESV

1 The words of Amos, who was among the shepherds of Tekoa, which he saw concerning Israel in the days of Uzziah king of Judah and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel, two years before the earthquake.

Amos 3:1–2 ESV

1 Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt: 2 “You only have I known of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities.

Body

Intentional Purpose of the Prophet

Amos 3:3–6 ESV

3 “Do two walk together, unless they have agreed to meet? 4 Does a lion roar in the forest, when he has no prey? Does a young lion cry out from his den, if he has taken nothing? 5 Does a bird fall in a snare on the earth, when there is no trap for it? Does a snare spring up from the ground, when it has taken nothing? 6 Is a trumpet blown in a city, and the people are not afraid? Does disaster come to a city, unless the Lord has done it?

Revelatory Role of the Prophet

Amos 3:7 ESV

7 “For the Lord God does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets.

Proper Response of the Prophet

Amos 3:8 ESV

8 The lion has roared; who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken; who can but prophesy?”

Transition To Close

Jeremiah would later say…

Jeremiah 20:8–11 ESV

8 For whenever I speak, I cry out, I shout, “Violence and destruction!” For the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. 9 If I say, “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,” there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot. 10 For I hear many whispering. Terror is on every side! “Denounce him! Let us denounce him!” say all my close friends, watching for my fall. “Perhaps he will be deceived; then we can overcome him and take our revenge on him.” 11 But the Lord is with me as a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble; they will not overcome me. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten.

John 1:1–5 ESV

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

John 4:16–24 ESV

16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

John 4:26 ESV

26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

John 4:28–30 ESV

28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him.

John 4:39–42 ESV

39 Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”

Illustration: Obedience

Selected obedience is not obedience at all; it is merely convenience.

When God puts period, do not change it to a question mark.

Close- Jesus Is the Christ!

John 14:6 ESV

6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

John 14:12–13 ESV

12 “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. 13 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

John 14:15 ESV

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.