9 Ways to Ensure People Remember What You Say

You spend hours on slides, emails, and practice pitches. You work so hard at your communications that your eyes get blurry. Hours of research go into that presentation. However, here’s the shocking truth: Research on the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve shows that about half of what you’ve communicated to someone will be forgotten in just an hour. Within a couple days, about 75 percent of what you’ve told them will be forgotten. 

Lost. Gone forever. 

If you want to make sure that they not only remember your message, but they remember you, you need to become an architect of memory. In order to overcome the forgetting curve, you need to stop expecting retention and start engineering it. Here are nine hacks to help you and your ideas become unforgettable: 

1. Set the context. 

When and where you give information makes a difference. The more vivid the place and the action at Point A, the more accurate and easier the recall at Point B. Put yourself and your audience in the right place. 

2. Take advantage of cues. 

Place reminders, such as an object, a phrase, or a pattern, that are extremely related to your core content. Cues work as memory triggers for recall. 

3. Amplify the sensory intensity. 

Activate as many senses as possible. Sensory intensity matters a lot. All it takes is one visual or one sound to make a difference to your audience’s retention. 

4. Monitor the quantity of information. 

Walk the fine line between memorable and forgettable. If you give too little information, you won’t be memorable. However, give too much information and you lose your audience before you even get them to remember you. 

5. Keep it relevant. 

The more your information relates to your audience’s needs or goals, the higher the likelihood they will remember it. 

6. Stick to the facts. 

People retain information better with truths that are known by actual experience or observation rather than abstract, opinion-based information. Facts give people solid mental footholds that build retention. 

7. Make it a surprise. 

Provide them with something that they have not experienced before or provide it to them suddenly or unexpectedly. Surprise is powerful. A tiny bit of novelty or surprise helps you stand out. 

8. Be emotionally intelligent. 

Linking your information to your audience in an emotionally intelligent way makes it automatically more memorable. 

9. Rinse and repeat. 

Experts agree that it takes three impressions for the brain to detect something as repetitive and begin to form a pattern. Your best bet? Deliberate and strategic repetition to make content long-lasting in memory. 

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