When it comes to captivating storytelling, the “cliffhanger” is a plot device that has hooked us all for centuries. Arguably seen as one of the most powerful tools ever used to keep fiction, film, and poetic audiences on the edge of their seats, cliffhangers also ensure that they come back for more.
From acclaimed writers like William Shakespeare and J.K Rowling to world-famous directors - such as Lord of the Rings’ Peter Jackson and Irvin Kershner, who directed Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back - some of the world’s most incredible storytellers have continued to demonstrate the power of cliffhangers to great effect. So why limit this technique to the entertainment industry? Not only do cliffhangers heighten excitement, but they also increase overall engagement and enhance recall, making them the perfect tool for content marketers to apply to create captivating content that truly holds the audience’s attention.
One of the reasons cliffhangers are so effective is that they trigger a psychological phenomenon called the “Zeigarnik effect”. In the 1920s, Lithuanian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik observed that restaurant waiters in Austria were able to remember complex orders when they were in the process of fulfilling that order. However, once the order was completed and paid for, they promptly forgot the information.
Going back to her lab, Zeigarnik asked 20 participants to complete simple tasks like solving puzzles and stringing beads but interrupted them halfway through the task. Afterwards, she asked them which activities they remembered doing, and participants were twice as likely to remember the interrupted tasks than those they had completed. This is the “Zeigarnik Effect”. As humans, we dislike unfinished tasks and therefore have higher recall as our brains are in a state of tension to complete “unfinished business”.
Almost 60 years later, Kenneth McGraw carried out further research on the Zeigarnik effect (McGraw et al., 1982). In his study, participants were given a difficult puzzle; except they were interrupted before they could solve it and told the study was over. Despite this, nearly 90% continued working on the puzzle anyway. The Zeigarnik effect shows us that our brains are hardwired to be more receptive and engaged to stories that end with cliffhangers, as we desperately want to complete the loop.
1. Use Cliffhangers in Blog Posts to build subscribers and establish credibility
An effective way of using cliffhangers for content marketing purposes is to create a blog series that resonates with your key audiences. However, this isn’t a revolutionary technique. In fact, it’s been around for quite some time. Before the advent of the internet, writers like English novelist, Charles Dickens, would publish some of his best works using a serialised technique in the Pickwick Papers in 1836 and Son in 1846. Even the famous Oliver Twist novel, was originally serialised. Over the years, his cliffhangers created so much anticipation that hundreds of people in his American readership would wait impatiently at the New York docks for Dickens’ latest instalment to arrive from Britain!
Your serialised blog content, may not have your audiences rallying at the dockyards, but they have the potential to increase brand awareness, build subscribers, instil customer loyalty and establish credibility as a thought leader and industry expert in your field. And what’s more, businesses of all sizes can leverage this cliffhanger storytelling technique to connect with customers.
For cliffhangers and serialised blog content to work effectively, Ana Darstaru, Content Marketing Manager at Creatopy, explains, “You need to plan each piece of content accordingly so people will never want to miss an episode or article and even tell their friends about it – just like a good Netflix show. Capitalise on creating a compelling narrative that’s relevant to your audience and lets you tell a story in a memorable way.”
Not only does serialised content help to build anticipation, but your teasers for what’s coming next give your audience a rendezvous - a next meeting point to look forward to - which will help your following grow. Producing an engaging blog series also creates excellent opportunities for internal linking, which helps to boost your rankings, as it makes it easier for Google bots to crawl your website.
Thanks to these higher rankings, your content will reach wider audiences, and encourage an increase in conversions, be that email subscriptions to your newsletter, more product trials, or social shares. And, it comes as no surprise that fans of your blog series are more likely to convert.
Wordsmith’s series on Poetically Capturing Catchiness aims to help professional writers and content marketers break the mould of monotonous commercial writing. As this is a complex topic, we’ve split the articles up, taking deep dives into how you should employ specific literary devices to keep your writing fresh and resonating with key audiences. So far, we’ve tackled interesting themes such as Diacopes and rhetorical questions, Zeugmas and paradoxes and most recently, epanalepsis and hyperboles.
Writing about how to use these literary tools couldn’t have been conveyed effectively in a single blog post. So, we decided to break up this broad topic into smaller segments to give our readers time to digest and grasp these concepts. Leaving with cliffhangers to the next blog, we increase anticipation, improve knowledge retention, and avoid our readers experiencing content overload. It also enables us to have a longer narrative arc where professional copywriters can join us on the journey.
When writing serialised blog content, the content must be witty and fast-paced so it keeps the attention of the reader. And at the end of each post, you can acknowledge the questions your readers may have, tease your upcoming post, and encourage your readers to stay tuned for the next instalment.
2. Use email cliffhangers to increase your open rates and boost engagement
In 2021, Adweek shared a report from eMarketer that noted, “there is ample evidence that the pandemic actually grew email’s prominence as a touchpoint between brands and their consumers. Even with email’s enormous penetration rate, it still has not peaked.” And as we edge our way into 2022, we’re still seeing email coming up top. So, the smartest content marketers are those who are keeping their finger on the pulse with how email is evolving while also keeping their content fresh by effectively using literary devices like cliffhangers to ensure their audience comes back for more.
One great way to integrate cliffhangers beyond generic subject lines is to integrate cliffhangers into your emails through drip campaigns. An email drip campaign is a series of emails that are scheduled to follow automatically based on a pre-planned number of days or specific triggers in a customer’s journey. As humans, we hate it when we are not able to complete a mental loop inside our head, which is why some content marketers apply a technique called “Open Loops” to improve their email’s open rates.
This is where you mention an important product launch, idea or concept, but you don’t reveal all the information right away. Instead, you mention it as a passing comment; then end your email with a fascinating teaser that builds mystery about all of the great beneficial content they’re going to receive in the next message. This teaser encourages audiences to follow up as they’ve only been privy to one part of a major storyline. If done correctly, you can make your customers and potential prospects anticipate the next message that lands in their inbox.
3. Use Cliffhangers in Social Media To Create Returning Audiences And Loyal Followers
Another great way of amplifying your content marketing messages is by using cliffhangers in the copy you promote on social media. Not only does it increase engagement, but it also creates returning audiences and encourages a loyal following.
When asked about the use of cliffhangers and serialised content, Rand Fishkin, CEO & Co-Founder of SEOmoz, comments, “This episodic content world, I think is where we are headed, if you want to build great, sustainable, long-term content marketing”.
Brandon Stanton, the author of Humans of New York (HONY), knows just how to employ cliffhangers on his Instagram page that keeps his audience on the edge of their seats. Always eliciting emotional responses, his portraits and captions somehow make the distance between us, in the world, smaller. Taking a humanised approach, when it comes to creating episodic, cliffhanger content, HONY doesn’t just show the polished side of the story. By embracing transparency, Stanton shows us raw stories that are real and non-scripted, which helps to gain his reader’s trust.
With Stanton’s recent portraits online, he delved deeper, offering Instagram audiences a longer series of photos and detailed captions. Telling particularly suspenseful and emotional stories, he employs clever cliffhangers, by breaking the caption off right at a critical moment in the subject’s life story.
Waiting a few hours or days between posting the next photo on the grid, the engagement for Stanton’s content grows, with some fans commenting, “There goes the rest of my day waiting for the next two parts.” And Stephanie’s story was no different. Formerly known as ‘Tanqueray’, Stephanie was a dancer in the ’70s who rubbed shoulders with influential men and mobsters and quickly became one of the most popular dancers in New York City. After sharing her story on a post back in 2019, avid followers of HONY were asking for more. And that’s exactly what Stanton delivered in a moving 32-part series on social media.
And the result? For one week, hundreds of thousands of HONY followers continued to refresh their browsers, share the content and engage in lengthy discussions while eagerly anticipating the next instalment. This is cliffhanger copy at its finest.
Far from becoming desensitised to cliff-hangers, it seems like we crave them more than ever in the content we consume. If you look closely, you’ll see they’re everywhere. As copywriters, our objective is to pique readers' interest, get them on the hook and most importantly, keep them coming back for more. And what better way to do that than ending your story at a drastic juncture?