In the end you’re selling to the brain of your customer. Understand how it works , how to best get your message across and get people to take action.
Why do some ads perform better than expected? Why does an ‘ugly’ CTA sometimes convert better than one that is professionally designed? Understanding perceptual sets and how they affect our behavior and decisions can give you better insight into improving and optimizing your marketing strategy.
People often choose to believe in things that are just not true.
The Great Wall is the only human made object viewable from space. All Vikings helmets had horns. Vaccines cause Autism. 5G causes causes cancer. You get the idea.
Here are 11 things that a lot of us in marketing believe, but shouldn’t.
It’s summer in the UK. Two cigarette disposal bins are erected on a littered street. One bin is marked Ronaldo, the other, Messi.
The bins encouraged smokers to vote for the best football player with their cigarette butts. After twelve weeks, cigarette litter dropped by 46%. In the United States, a similar experiment reduced cigarette litter by 74% in six months.
Instead of yelling at smokers to “clean up your butts,” the bins implied the desired behavior in an easy and fun way.
That’s a nudge.
As much as we’d like to think that we’re rational, the reality is, we make many of our decisions emotionally.
Clicks, shares, purchases, comments, engagement are all subject to emotional decision making.
So how can you use this fact to your advantage?
Perception isn’t always the same thing as reality, even when it comes to something as “objective” as your product’s value.
In fact, the perceived value of your product is fairly malleable. There are countless studies, as well as anecdotes, that support the notion that you can tweak small things to increase your product’s value perception.
When it comes to subscription product pricing, you’re not just guessing, are you?
Persuading completely rational people to make a rational decision or take a rational action would be easy. Unfortunately, you’re stuck dealing with irrational thinking, fueled by cognitive biases and emotions.
So, how do you persuade effectively when people are so heavily influenced by subjective (and contextual) factors?
Most businesses struggle with their product pricing strategies. Are you charging too much or too little? What’s the right price to charge so you can grow your bottom line?
You’d like to think that you’re a completely rational person making completely rational decisions, right? It’s nice to believe that you haven’t made major life decisions based on how you were feeling.
Well, you have. Many times.
More choice equals freedom, right?
Well, yes, but there’s a good body of evidence that the more choices presented to us, the less happy we are with the one we make.
What does that mean for conversions? Or retention? Or revenue?