I recently started a fascinating book called The Pattern Seekers: How Autism Drives Human Invention by Simon Baron-Cohen. It talks about how humans have evolved to look for if-and-then patterns, a process that leads to both discoveries and inventions. For example, someone long ago followed this pattern to create the first flute.
If I drill holes in this bone and I blow through a hole then I hear a musical note.
The book also discusses how some people have brains that are more inclined to look for patterns and follow what Baron-Cohen describes as the Systemizing Mechanism. But all people have some systemizing traits, just in greater or lesser degrees.
And I realized that looking for patterns in this way can be helpful for your content. Here’s how.
Step 1 – Question
The first step in the Systemizing Mechanism is to ask a question. This could be almost anything, but for purposes of content, you might have questions like:
- How long should my emails be?
- Does my audience like videos?
- What is the best day to send content by email?
The goal is to ask a question that you can analyze to find patterns in a way that will help you and that you can test.
Step 2 – Hypothesize
The next step is to hypothesize the answer, preferably based on some initial research or knowledge. The answer can be structured in the if-and-then language, such as:
- If I send an email and it is more than 500 words then only 25% of my readers will finish it.
- If I send an email and it has a video message then 50% of my audience will watch it.
- If I send an email and it goes out on a Monday then 62% of my audience will open it.
You can also make these more detailed, which allows you to look at different types of information. For example, for the email timing, maybe you also want to consider the time of day and the age of your reader. You could phrase that as something like:
If I send an email and it goes out on Monday and I send it at 8 a.m. and my audience is over 60 then 62% of my audience will open it.
(Note that my examples are made up.)
Step 3 – Test
The next step is to test. If you’re sending emails, many email campaigns let you do split testing as well, so you could try a couple of approaches.
For example, if you’re trying to find the ideal length for your subject line, you could send half the emails to group A, with a certain subject, and a different subject line to group B, where the only difference is the subject line length.
You could then analyze the results to see what pattern emerges, and you could keep testing until you have a high degree of confidence that you’ll get the same results based on the subject length.
Step 4 – Modify
The last step is to modify your if-and-then pattern and test again. Going back to the example of finding the best time to send your email, perhaps you’ve found that it does depend on the age of the audience, and you’ve already identified the ideal time for people over sixty.
Once you know that, you could modify your if-and-then approach to focus on people in a different age group, perhaps 45-60. You may know already that they respond better on a Friday around lunchtime, so you decide to test this hypothesis:
If I send an email and it goes out on a Friday and I send it between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. and my audience is 45-60 then 58% of my audience will open it.
Finding patterns will help maximize your reach
I’ve used email a lot in these examples, but you could also apply it to social media posts, ads, and more. However you use it, the benefits are that you can refine your approach to get the best results.
Use something that you have some information about as a starting point, and then you can start testing by using that initial information. By doing this, you’ll gain valuable information, and you’ll be able to provide better content to your audience.