Your RAS Is Always Listening

I didn’t always know that the work I was creating was leading me toward Marketing Dopamine.

Years ago, I started journaling. Eventually, I began transcribing parts of those journals and turning them into blog articles. The articles became videos on YouTube. Then, I learned how to edit video. Later, I learned how to edit podcasts because I wanted to share deeper conversations.

Before the pandemic, I wrote I Have Time for You. At the time, I didn’t hear many people talking about slowing down long enough to examine their thoughts, their choices, and the ways they might be holding themselves back.

I wasn’t trying to predict what everyone else would talk about next. I was writing about what I was discovering in my own life.

Then I wrote an article about the affirmations I was repeating to myself. Soon, I started noticing other people talking about mindset, affirmations, and the power of our thoughts.

It seemed as though everyone had suddenly made the same discovery I had.

But those conversations had not necessarily appeared overnight.

My attention had changed.

As I began studying neuroscience, the pattern continued.

I started noticing conversations about dopamine, attention, habits, decision making, and the brain everywhere. I saw connections in marketing, books, podcasts, conversations, and my own behavior as a business owner.

That’s when I realized I hadn’t reached the end of the conversation. I had only reached the next chapter.

Mindset explained part of the story. Neuroscience helped explain why.

That’s when Marketing Dopamine began to take shape.

Mindset matters. But our thoughts do not exist separately from our brains, habits, environments, emotions, and responses to reward.

There was more to understand.

More than the Car You Suddenly See Everywhere

You know, buy a car, and suddenly it seems to be everywhere.

Soon you notice the same model at the grocery store. You see the same color at every stoplight. You begin wondering whether everyone bought the same car at the same time.

The cars were already there.

What changed was what your brain considered important enough to notice.

One part of the brain’s attention and alertness system is known as the Reticular Activating System, commonly called the RAS.

The Bouncer at the Door

I’ll be honest. I don’t know much about bouncers. But it’s one of the best analogies I’ve found for explaining the Reticular Activating System.

But here’s what I’m really talking about. The brain is continually receiving more sensory information than your conscious mind could ever process. Sounds, movement, colors, conversations, physical sensations, memories, and changes in your surroundings are all competing for attention.

Something has to help determine what reaches your awareness.

The RAS is part of a network involved in alertness and attention. For a practical way to understand it, imagine a bouncer standing at the door of your conscious awareness.

Signals keep arriving, but only some are allowed through.

We are especially likely to notice information connected to what currently matters to us. That may include something we are searching for, a goal we are pursuing, a problem we are trying to solve, or something that signals possible safety or danger.

Everything else can blend into the background before we consciously recognize that it was there.

You Cannot Force the Filter

Much of interruption marketing is an attempt to force its way through the door.

Use a louder headline. Add a brighter button. Create more urgency. Make the subject line impossible to overlook.

Novelty can capture attention. Surprise can interrupt a familiar pattern. A message that signals urgency or possible danger may also get noticed.

But these methods lose their power when audiences encounter them repeatedly.

The tenth pop-up is no longer surprising. The hundredth email marked urgent no longer feels urgent. The exaggerated headline begins to look like every other exaggerated headline.

Eventually, the entire pattern becomes part of the marketing noise people have learned to filter out.

Become What They Are Already Listening For

There is a better way to earn attention, and it begins with a different question.

Instead of asking, How do I get past their filter?, ask:

What problem are they actively trying to solve?

What change are they hoping to make?

What concern has been sitting quietly in the back of their mind?

What words would make them think, That is exactly what I have been experiencing?

When your marketing speaks clearly and honestly to something your customer already considers relevant, you are no longer another interruption trying to force your way inside.

You have become part of what their brain is already prepared to notice.

This is why specificity matters.

A broad message intended for everyone may not match what anyone is actively listening for. A message that accurately names one person’s situation has a much better chance of being recognized.

The person who recently bought a particular car notices every other car like it.

Your job is not to become louder than everything else. Your job is to become relevant enough to be noticed.