Practical Sales Training™ > How To Get Attention > The Von Restorff Effect
The Von Restorff Effect
What Is It
The Von Restorff Effect looks at the fact that when something stands out in some way, it gets noticed. This is essential for sales messaging, since it allows you to engage clients without them having to read the full content of your email or webpage.
Most content gets skimmed, not read word for word. This effect works with that reality instead of fighting it.
One well placed highlight can do the job that an entire unread paragraph never gets the chance to.
Why Does It Work
The human brain naturally looks for contrast. When something stands out in some way, in this case by being highlighted, it’s more likely to be noticed and engaged with.
A page of uniform text asks a lot of a skimming reader’s attention. A single bolded line rewards it instead, giving them something to actually land on.
That contrast does the filtering for you, surfacing the one idea you most want remembered, even from someone who reads almost nothing else.
How Can You Use It
If you highlight and bold key sections of your emails and web pages, you can be sure to catch people who skim the content, and draw them in to pay closer attention.
If they don’t go any further, at least you will have made the point you wish to make.
You will notice throughout this website we use the Von Restorff Effect.
When It Works Best
This works best in longer content, emails, web pages, and documents, where a skimming reader is likely to miss most of the detail anyway.
It also works best when only a small amount of content is highlighted. The contrast is what creates the effect, and contrast only works against a plain background.
When It Becomes Dangerous
It backfires if too much gets highlighted at once. A page where everything is bold has nothing that actually stands out anymore.
It also becomes risky if the highlighted section isn’t genuinely the most important point. Drawing attention to the wrong thing wastes the one moment of focus you had.
Overusing it across every single message dulls the effect too, since readers start to tune out highlights the same way they tune out anything overused.
Common Mistakes
Bolding too much of the content
If half a page is bold, nothing genuinely stands out. Reserve highlighting for the one or two points that truly matter most.
Highlighting the wrong point
A bolded sentence that isn’t actually your key message wastes the reader’s limited attention on the wrong idea entirely.
Using the same technique everywhere without variation
Bold text alone eventually loses its power if it’s the only contrast tool you ever reach for. Colour, size, and spacing can all achieve the same effect too.
The Von Restorff Effect – An Example
An Amazon Product Listing
Magnification in this Amazon listing draws your eye to the features they want you to see.
Rather than describing every feature in equal detail, the listing visually zooms in on the two or three details that matter most, guiding attention exactly where the seller wants it.
See also
