Use Familiar Routines to Sell the Unfamiliar

In retailing, we're often asking customers to make changes. It might be something that seems minor, such as encouraging the shopper to try out a new brand of a familiar product type. At the other extreme, the change might require the consumer to sign up for a completely different type of product or service, such as for the first use of an Internet-capable mobile phone or for home delivery of groceries.
     Findings from researchers at New York University remind us that with all unfamiliar items, the shopper has at least a little extra trouble navigating the maze that leads up to purchase. Help the shopper get there. In ads, signage, and face-to-face selling, work in phrases like, "…the same way as with the brand you're accustomed to using…," and "…once you do this a few times, it will be as second nature to you as what you've been doing up to now…."
     To accompany the new item, have easy-to-understand instructions. Don't worry if shoppers give the instructions only a glance. For one thing, there is research showing how knowing written instructions exist can be sufficiently reassuring for the customer; they don't need to read them to feel comfortable. For another thing, we want to make it easy for the purchaser to learn how to use the product or service when they have questions later.
     Keep familiar elements in the format of the marketing and merchandising, too. Sure, when introducing a brand or product line, you can boost excitement by premiering a fresh look in your ads and in the layout of the department. But unless you're launching a completely new business format, leave enough the same so that customers don't forget who you are.
     People complete mazes most quickly when there are signposts and benchmarks they can recognize and understand.

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers