Archive for May 2007

How people react to your mail

22/05/2007 by Tony Attwood.

The moment you try to advertise anything to a potential customer you immediately come up against three factors: 
The human preference for the instant processing of information
The human love of the use of gut instinct
The emotional responses that potential customers often seem to bring to purchases.
But these processes can work in our favour - as long as you know how to do it.
Instant processing is what the brain does - and thank goodness it does because otherwise we’d all be knocked down in the road on the way home, scalded by sitting too close to the fire, burnt because we drink our coffee when it is far too hot, and bored stupid because we fail to find the off button on the remote control every time another programme on the death of Princess Di comes on the screen.
However when the scenario we face is unknown and complex we often feel that instant processing isn’t really what we need.  We try to slow the brain down and think logically, bringing in all the past information we have to hand.  
Indeed even Doctor Who went faced by the sudden arrival of an alien lifeform inside the spaceship and no explanation as to where it came from can occasionally be seen slapping his head and shouting “think, think”.
Now from an advertiser’s point of view this might seem a great idea.  We are selling something complex (a computer, a direct mail consultancy or whatever) and we believe in this product or service.  So it seems logical to get the potential buyer to think for a bit so he/she comes to a clear conclusion that this is indeed the greatest thing to buy at this moment.
But strangely, such an approach (which overcomes the use of instant processing and gut instinct) is exactly what we as advertisers should NOT be doing with complex sales.
Of course we need to get the potential buyer to see what we are selling - for example by writing one real stunner of a headline on the envelope, and another on the sales letter or brochure - and thus effectively stopping the customer from throwing our mailshot in the bin.
But after that we need to allow the reader to go with the gut instinct - particularly in complex purchases - because the last thing you want these potential buyers to do is to spend forever weighing up the pros and cons - and quite possibly doing a comparison with products from competitors.  Not because the opposition is better than us, but because all the evidence suggests that once people start doing this type of analysis, they either never stop, or they become so depressed they abandon the thought of buying the product anyway.  (That actually isn’t a joke - I’ll come back to the research that shows this on another occasion.)
Also this should not be seen as a way of tricking the potential customer, because analysis of such situations by psychologists shows that much of the time we make better decisions by letting our gut instinct work out the situation.
This “encourage them to use their gut instinct” approach works for the seller, and does help people make the right decision.  
It should only be questioned in two scenarios.  First, if there is a simple choice (”should I buy Whizzo or Whoppo?”).  Here you should give the customer a couple of facts about the two options and guide them to a decision.  They feel like they’ve used their brains (which makes most of us feel good) when in fact they haven’t.  And really on simple choices like this it is hard to go wrong, unless your copywriter is a real turnip.
But to come back to my main theme, with the complex stuff (”do I really need to invest £4000 in a new accountancy package for this company or will a simpler system do - or indeed could I continue to use the back of the envelope that Inland Revenue sent me last week telling me my company tax return is overdue?”) your best bet as an advertiser is to push them towards the gut.  What’s more you can do it with a clear conscience since their gut will probably give them the right answer anyway.
The second time when you might question the use of gut instinct (particularly if you are a buyer) is when the sales pitch is emotional.   If you are selling a car and your selling approach is based on the “fact” that the car makes you smarter, sexier, more prestigious, and liable to win the lottery next week the last thing you as a potential buyer wants is for your gut instinct to kick in and say “yes I want all of that”. 
It is because advertisers do use this emotion + gut approach that so many people become dissatisfied with their purchases and end up saying, “I don’t know why I bought that.  I can’t afford it, I must have been mad.”
Not mad actually, just entangled by an emotional sales pitch, which encouraged the buyer to follow the gut instinct.
Of course if you are quite unscrupulous in your advertising you will use emotions and gut reactions in your promotions - and my place here is not to become some sort of moral arbiter.  All I can point out is that although emotions are one way of selling, benefits and interesting questions often do just as well.
Thus in conclusion - get potential customers to make quick decisions using gut instinct unless the issue is a very simple one.  If however you are using emotion as a selling technique be aware that you are likely to end up with some buyers who will regret their decision to buy.
If you’d like to talk about any of these issues, please do call me on 01536 399 000.   Hamilton House does charge for long-term consultancies, but opening discussions on the phone are always free.
If you want to comment, click on the “comments” button.  If it says “no comments” you are the first.
Source of research:  Ap Dijksterhuis  Uni of Amsterdam writing in Science  vol 311 p1005
This article written by Tony Attwood, Hamilton House Mailings plc.

Posted in Uncategorised | Print | No Comments »

So we have to write about the reader

10/05/2007 by Tony Attwood.

My last post made the point that we have to write about the reader and his/her view of the world, not about ourselves. So how do we do that?
It is a fact that we always assume that when something good happens it will be a lot better than it actually is. And when we contemplate something bad happening will always assume that it will be a lot worse than it actually is.

What this means is that we don’t have to over play benefits when selling to intelligent people - they’ll do that for us. An understated promotion which shows benefits but doesn’t scream them out can work particularly well, because the recipient of the advert will do most of the hard work - they will up the level of satisfaction in their own mind. They’re ready to imagine the earth - all we have to do is help them do it.

Likewise when selling salvation from disaster, (such as when selling insurance for the possibility of your water pipes outside your house splitting wide open) we can be sure that they will over-imagine the disaster - so we can be controlled. Their imagination is a much more powerful tool than our words, because we are limited in terms of what we are allowed to say.

Thus we talk about the reader’s world, but we don’t need to shout and scream about how wonderful our product is. We just let their thoughts take over.

Source of research: Daniel Gilbert, Harvard University, writing in Psychological Science Vol 17, page 649

Posted in Uncategorised | Print | No Comments »

|