“The beatings will continue until morale improves!”
This quote reminds us that, in spite of being explicitly clear and understandable, there just might be better ways to incent desired behavior. As sales and marketing professionals, we are constantly creating new messages to extol the reasons for selecting a particular product or service. While we try and think like a customer, some years ago a colleague of mine gave me a simple insight to understanding the choices a consumer will make. It goes like this – “How does a customer decide what to PIC?” Each letter stands for a customer’s preferred outcome.
“P” is for positive – in contrast to describing an outcome in the negative.
So many problem/solutions have a range of benefits that can be described in either a positive or negative result. Wherever possible, phrasing in the positive will be more attractive. Do this “… so you don’t get sick” is not as compelling as “… do that and you will be healthy.” If you want a simple example, think about selling fitness and diet products. Funny how they always show the positive outcome of super fit and balanced weight individuals (who coincidentally seem to get continually younger and wear fewer garments) than showing overweight, unhealthy folk. You might also know this as “carrot and stick”, both could succeed, but a carrot is better. However, you need to work with what you have. Sometimes your proposition only has big sticks versus tiny carrots. In that case, all things are not equal, but you may be able to still create phrasing to describe the same outcome in a positive or negative sense. After giving it some thought if you still end up faced with only a stick option, your competition may be too, so read on.
“I” is for immediate – in contrast to deferred benefit or gratification.
Millennials are often accused of wanting it all now, but they neither invented this trait nor have a monopoly on it. All things being equal, customers want something now. “Fly now, pay later” and a thousand similar motivators have been around forever. Imagine finding $20 in an old coat pocket, what should I do with it? For the sake of argument, let’s limit my choices to just two right now, I can buy a case of beer this weekend (or maybe could when I lost the $20, it might take $40 now), or, I could put the $20 in my retirement fund where it would compound over many years providing me even more money in my sunset years. Well, most people it turns out, will select the short term benefit versus the long term one, at least between options of roughly equal value.
“C” is for certain – in contrast to uncertain or unknown chances of things happening.
Suppose I have an evening to spend. I know if I go out with my best friends and party, I will certainly have a good time. Or, I could stay home, get a good rest, and maybe do better in a school test or at a work meeting tomorrow. Of course, the values need to be similar, but when they are, people like to select certainty. I like the option of selecting between a bowl of broccoli and a chocolate sundae (one of my favourites!) My own selection given that choice is transparently predictable, but even then, the marketer of the chocolate sundae does not focus on the certainty that my delicious sundae is the unhealthy choice, they focus instead, on the certainty that I deserve a reward or treat and nothing qualifies better than their sweet. (Yes, I know, another marketing trick, reframe the problem/solution from nourishment into reward/treat, but it also allows them to express their certainty in the positive.)
Positive, Immediate, Certain (PIC) makes for the most attractive presentation of a message to customers. You can’t always deliver that message, but it’s worthwhile giving it a good try. As if to prove the point, let’s look at one of the hardest messages to deliver over the past 40 years – to Stop Smoking. Unfortunately, it is everything I recommend you avoid with PIC. The message is negative, “it will kill you”, the timing is far from immediate “taking time off the end of your life” and the outcome is still pretty uncertain “it might happen to you – or it might not.” Some of the best marketing brains in the world have worked on this problem, but it remains one of the few that resists being recast into a more positive sense for the individual. (Trading a current physiological dependence for an uncertain future surrender is hardly attractive either.) That said, I have almost never found other customer messages that can’t be enhanced by thinking about PIC.
Bonus Corollary – “The customer always picks the toaster.”
What does that mean? Still on the theme of helping customers make up their mind, businesses will often try to sweeten the pot with an offer. Banks and department stores from the 50’s until now, have offered small domestic appliances and a variety of other goods as extra incentives. Pick the right one, and they are really effective. I am surprised at the number of new entrepreneurial businesses, that prefer to offer a social incentive to their customers. Buy our product and we will plant a tree, or give $5 each month from your subscription fees to save the planet etc. At the risk of sounding cynical, again and again, given the choice, most people will pick the sure benefit to themselves right now. “I’ll take the toaster home with me please”, instead of the dramatic social cause. The reasons are complicated: might not be my social cause; I might have just made a large donation already and feel I helped enough; I may not want to pay a premium on my shopping bills in this category or I just need a(nother) toaster. The point is, self-interest ranks a long way before self-actualization on Maslow’s hierarchy. Unless you have phenomenal alignment with a homogeneous target group to one cause, mixing a customer’s purchase decision and charitable social decision together is very tricky. Making the benefits simpler and more basic usually offers a better solution. By the time businesses have grown to the point of tracking and comparing various customer acquisition promotions, they can prove this dollar by dollar.
Visit osborne-group.com for other ideas and opinions from our Principals on a range of topics. Their views are their own and do not necessarily represent The Osborne Group’s perspective. The Osborne Group provides interim executive management, consulting and project support across all sectors and over a broad scope of service areas.
