How to Master Reveal Marketing in 5 Minutes

With email click through rates consistently hovering around 3-5%, marketers are facing a big problem with email marketing.  What marketers do know is that right now, email is increasingly important but those open and click through rates are lower than ever. 

Unless you’re happy consistently seeing that 3-5%, of course.

There’s got to be a better way, right?

Enter: Reveal Marketing.

For many, when it comes to email marketing tactics and techniques, reveal marketing is the “new kid on the block.” But, it actually relies on tried and tested psychological tactics to get people far more interested and engaged in emails. That means they spend more time focusing on those emails than the others in their inbox, and marketers love that!

So what is reveal marketing, exactly? In the most basic terms it allows for brands to drive right at the curiosity of their consumer by making their email marketing messages hidden behind barriers that need to be revealed.  

Here’s a quick example from Bluefly:

This is a perfect example of reveal marketing in email.

As you can see in the photo, the subscriber is asked to interact with the email in to see if they win a prize. So, when they click the email, it spins and then “reveals” what their prize is. This experience is set up in a way that compels the user to not only click the email, but also stick around and check out the site as well.

It’s pretty irresistible, right?

Now, compare this email to one that would have just said “Here’s a code for 20% off, click here to use it.” While the offer is essentially the same, the outcome is far different based on what type of email marketing the brand uses.

It should come as no surprise that when emails like this one from Bluefly are used, the click through rate is way beyond the standard 3-5%.

Now that you have an understanding of what reveal marketing is, you can take a look at the reasons behind why it works.

Three Principles Behind Reveal Marketing

Now, what makes reveal marketing work is that it increases the click through rate of emails in a couple of major (and very important ways). 

The first is that reveal marketing digs deeply into the curiosity of it’s users. This trigger is incredibly important, and has been shown to drive engagement and interaction. When someone has their curiosity piqued, they want to find the answer and are more willing to work for it.

The next ties in with what’s called the “Ikea Effect,” this is the concept that when you take part in creating or building something you put a higher value to it. So “working” to reveal the email makes the user feel more attached to it and actually value it more. 

A third is that it gives the user the opportunity to be a winner. When people feel like they have the chance to “win” at something, they actually perceive the value of the winnings to be far higher. On those reveal marketing emails that hint at a prize, users feel excited at the possibility of being a winner and are more likely to click.

How to Use Reveal Marketing in Your Campaigns

Now that you can see how reveal marketing can lead to increased click through and open rates in email marketing campaigns, you can put it to use in your own business. 

Remember to utilize the principles above in your emails and your copy. You want to think about the ways you can incite curiosity within your readers to make them intrigued to click. That’s the first step. 

From there, you need to have that reveal based element. That could be an image, video, or even action based on mobile devices. There are tons of opportunities today to add “the reveal” to your campaigns to great success. 

Once you have those key components mastered, you’ll be well on your way to seeing much better metrics on your campaigns using reveal marketing. 

Have you experimented with reveal marketing at all? We’d love to know your thoughts in the comments.