Monday, September 6, 2010

Repeat the Truth in Different Ways

Repetition is a powerful persuasion technique for retailers. Repeat the benefits of a product to a shopper often enough and the shopper becomes convinced what you are saying is true. The effect is so well-established by decades of research that consumer psychologists use the term “truth effect” to refer to it.
     But repetition works best if you repeat the product benefits, selling points, or usage instructions in different ways.
  • When you deliver an identical message again and again and again, the shopper might come to believe it, but at some point, they also start disliking you and the product. Consumer psychologists have a name for this one, too: wear out. Wear out is more likely when the shopper is carefully evaluating what you’re saying. That’s why many TV ads can get away with rote repetition: Nobody’s listening that carefully.
  • When people shop together, their memories for what a salesperson tell them tends to be inferior to what they remember when they’re shopping as individuals. So repeat the information more often when selling to a group. You don't want to offend your shoppers, though, and repeating the same information word-for-word could offend—or at least bore—any shoppers in the group who did understand you the first time and remember what you said. With some product information, you can repeat the message in different ways. Tell the group of shoppers verbally. Then show them written material that repeats the information. Next, demonstrate your points by showing the shoppers what you mean. And check for understanding by asking the shoppers their opinions about what you've said. Multi-channel teaching always helps improve learning.
  • Research at Baruch College has refined some assumptions about what gives the best payback for a retailer’s advertising dollars when running a series of text ads: Each ad should show movement forward from the prior ad. This is more effective than a campaign that repeats all the same content in each ad. However, in each ad, use some of the same elements that relate to the theme of the campaign. Although the ads show progress, repetition drills the messages into consumers’ long-term memories. Pictures can be effective devices for this.
Click below for more:
Use Both Repetition and Progression in Ads
Repeat Information When Selling to a Group

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