If you're like most people you probably paid more attention to the word “Lion” in the subject line of this email than the word “Antelope”.

When researchers led by Jessica Yorzinski at Duke University and the University of California, Davis asked test subjects to look at images of animals in grids to find a target animal they discovered they were much quicker at finding images of dangerous animals like lions or snakes.

And even when they weren't asked to find those animals, their eyes lingered over those images for longer.

It's not all that surprising when you think about it. We've evolved to become very alert to anything that might harm us. And the lizard part of our brain that does the initial processing of information coming in from our senses isn't quite smart enough to differentiate between an image of a lion and a real one.

Or maybe it's smart enough but takes a “better safe than sorry” approach :)

Either way, when it comes to getting our attention, things that can eat us tend to get noticed very fast. Shortly followed by things we can eat.

Or more generally, we notice things that could have a significant positive or negative impact on us.

And we also tend to notice things that stand out.

If I asked you to memorise a list of words like football, cricket, basketball, ARMADILLO, golf, skiing, hockey, archery, running and swimming; the one you're most likely to remember is the word armadillo.

It contrasts from the rest – both because it's not a sport and because I put it in capital letters.

Not surprisingly, when it comes to getting noticed these same factors apply.

Your marketing is much more likely to be noticed if it immediately highlights something that could have a significant positive or negative impact on your audience. 

But if you really want it to get noticed, make it stand out too.

A great example of this is Linkedin headlines.

Back in 2009 I wrote an article called “10 Linkedin Tips for Professionals” that highlighted how important it was for your headline to actually say who you worked with and what kind of results they got from working with you.

That's amping up the salience: getting people who fit that profile and who want those results to prick up their ears.

And in 2009, that kind of headline stood out, because everyone else just had their job title as their headline.

Today though, practically everyone uses that type of headline. Usually structured as “I help [type of client] [achieve desired results/solve unwanted problem]”.

And if your marketing looks the same as everyone else's, then no matter what hot buttons it hits, it's going to get filtered out.

Of course, getting noticed is just the first step. It gets you attention for a few moments.

You need to move beyond immediate attention to short attention.

And that's what we cover in our next email.

See you there.