… using highly visible response mechanisms
A simple tip that loads of businesses forget: when you’re marketing to customers and prospects, make it easy for them to respond. And make it obvious what they should do next.
We like to act on impulse. Particularly online. If we can’t, we go off the boil. We decide it’s not actually a good idea, or that we can’t afford it. Or we make plans to buy somewhere else. Scarily, impulsive behaviour is much more time critical online than offline. We make decisions with alarming speed. Here’s an example.
You get an email offering you a lovely blue thing. You already have one, but you’d love a pink thing.
Scenario 1: You scan through the message but you can’t spot a link to their website. You’re very busy and slightly exasperated, even though it has only taken a few seconds to look. You can’t be bothered to scroll down, so you forget the impulse and delete the email.
Scenario 2: The email says, right at the top, ’Email us or visit our website for details of orange, yellow and pink things’. You follow the site link and buy a few colourful things on impulse. While you’re at it, you email the company about those exclusive new purple things. They get back to you within the hour to say they can get hold of one for you. On impulse, you’ve collected the whole range.
