Help Shoppers Use Their Imagination

Ask your customer to picture the enjoyment they’ll experience with usage of the product or service you’re suggesting. Imagination brings benefits alive, and it is the benefits of features, not just the features themselves, which are most influential with shoppers overall.
     Asking shoppers to use their imagination does mentally tax them. To make the sale, make imagining easy:

• Separate requests to imagine from requests to analyze product features. Researchers at Arizona State University asked consumers to logically analyze sets of product features and then make rational purchase decisions. For some of these consumers, the researchers described the products using vivid language intended to evoke imagination. Those called upon to use their imagination were less likely to choose a product to purchase.
• Give aids for imagination. As long as you’re not asking the shopper to analyze or compare, use the vivid language designed to stimulate the senses: “As you enter your room, you’ll be tempted to take off your shoes immediately so your feet can sink into the plush carpeting.”
• Including illustrations in advertising is good. However, be sure the illustrations are effortless to interpret. The Arizona State University researchers compared the effects on prospective vacationers of an ad with a photograph and an ad with the photo modified to resemble a creative abstract painting. The stimulation of creativity was outweighed by the trouble of interpretation. Those people shown the version with the literal photograph were more positively persuaded by the ad.
• Ask the shopper to imagine usage by whomever would end up actually using the product. Usually, this is the person who is making the purchase. But with products like pet foods and birthday gifts, the user is different from the purchaser.