Give Your Sales Pitches Changeups

One of the more surprising consumer research findings of the past couple of years was reported in an article titled, “Enhancing the Television Viewing Experience through Commercial Interruptions.” The University of California-San Diego, New York University, and Carnegie Mellon University researchers discovered that people give higher average ratings of TV programs when the programs include advertising breaks than when the programs don’t.
     Skeptical?

• Some consumer behavior researchers’ conclusions won’t make sense to you because they are actually error-filled nonsense. But before dismissing these findings about commercial breaks improving viewer enjoyment, ask yourself if you might have overlooked factors the researchers discovered.
• People are often bad at predicting their behavior when asked directly. Consumers say they’d enjoy programs more without ads. They pay for devices to eliminate ads and to see commercial-free programming. But this does not, in itself, mean that those people would rate programming with commercials as less enjoyable.
• Being a retailer, you’re probably more interested in how much people liked the commercials than how much they liked the TV programs. It’s the commercials that do the selling for you. How would liking the programming help bring in the money?

     Well, those who had the ads were willing to pay about 30% more for a DVD compilation of programs by the same director. Participants who watched a nature documentary with commercial breaks were willing to donate more to a nature charity after viewing. The enjoyment of the programming did translate into greater financial returns.
     The explanation: Interruptions increase enjoyment. It’s an example of what psychologists call habituation. Consider the massage therapy category of services retailing. Massage therapists report that the client generally likes the massage more when they’re rubbed for a while, pounded for a while, kneaded for a while, and then rubbed again than if there’s no change.
     The nature of habituation is related to age. The researchers found that commercial breaks improved the enjoyment more for younger than for older people.
     If you’re producing infomercials, deliver the pitch in brief segments with changeups, especially for younger audiences. The in-store version of the infomercial follows the same rules. When you do all the talking nonstop, you’ll lose the prospect’s attention, whether that prospect is a customer in your store or one of your employees you’re wanting to sell on a better way of increasing your business profitability.

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Sell More by Adding Variety

Fine-Tune Your Social Couponing

“Social couponing” is a promotion tactic in which a substantial discount is offered to consumers who are told the offer is activated only when a certain number of people sign up for it online. Restaurants, educational services, and salons/spas have been the most frequent users of social couponing.
     The logic of social couponing is that, even if the retailer loses money on each coupon transaction, users of the coupon will be working to get loads of their friends to give the retailer a try. The profitability from social couponing depends on convincing the right kinds of coupon users to come back soon and often.
     Rice University researchers report that about 40% of retailers who have used social couponing during the past year say they would not do it again. The major complaints were that coupon users too often failed to buy anything beyond the face value of the coupon on their visit and/or didn’t come back to make a purchase at regular prices.
     Still, this leaves the majority who said their results were positive enough that they might give social couponing a try in the future. Here are shopper psychology tips on fine-tuning social couponing so that you profit:

• Establish reasonable expectations. Social couponing draws bargain hunters. If discount prices are a marketing point for your store, fine. If your criterion of success is that people spend more than the face value of the coupon, make that a condition of the coupon use.
• On the bill you present, state the discounted price, but state the undiscounted price more prominently. There are a few reasons for this: It builds appreciation in the customer for the value they’ve received. It reduces expectations that the service they’ve received is worth less than the price you’ll expect them to pay next time they come. And in a restaurant or spa, it encourages the customer to give a tip based on the undiscounted price. This keeps your staff supportive of the coupon program. In turn, supportive staff make the coupon redeemer’s experience memorable so they’ll want to return and bring along other people.
• Be sure your services to your current customers aren’t compromised by services to the coupon customers. Tell your current customers about the coupon offer and encourage them to enroll online for their next visit. Have sufficient staff, which often means increasing your staffing.

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Keep Discount Conditions Strict Enough
Customize Your Discount Coupons
Give Coupons Early and Proudly
Offer Exclusive Price Discounts Cautiously
Have Unannounced Discounts on Common Purchases

Increase Repeat Customers’ Unplanned Buying

Researchers at University of Pittsburgh and Baylor University say most of your shoppers intend to spend money on impulse items.
     Before starting their shopping, study participants were asked to estimate how much they planned to spend. For more than 75% of the shoppers, the amount they thought they’d spend altogether was more than the amount they estimated to be the cost of items they planned to buy. These shoppers had prepared themselves to come across both needs they’d forgotten to include on their shopping lists and items they wouldn’t realize they wanted until the items were in front of them or in their hands.
     Unplanned purchases add to your profitability. Previous research has said you can make unplanned purchases more likely by offering noticeable discounts on items that are commonly bought. Now researchers at University of Pennsylvania, Instituto de Empresa Business School in Spain, and Tilburg University in the Netherlands have added to the tactics. To spot these, the researchers focused on a certain type of shopper—the repeat customer who has defined their shopping objectives before they enter your store. These are not idle browsers, but are instead out to buy something. The objectives could range from the general (“I’m looking for something to cook for dinner”) to the specific (“I’ll buy two chicken breast fillets”).
     Based on the research findings from 441 households and covering 58 product categories, here’s how to increase unplanned buying by repeat customers who have shopping objectives:

• Encourage customers to set general shopping objectives instead of specific ones for their next visit. Do this in your advertising and in talking with customers at the cash/wrap (“Please keep in mind that we’re your store for every sort of party planning”). For shopping with general objectives, the jump in impulse purchases was about twice as much as for trips with specific objectives.
• Maximize your within-store convenience for fulfilling whatever objectives the shopper has set (“I can get almost everything right at that store”). In the research, this sort of store-specific convenience lifted the amount of unplanned buying more than 10%.
• Avoid unnecessary impressions of multi-store convenience (“If I shop at that store, it would be easy to also shop at other stores”). When your repeat customer decides to stop at a few different stores to meet their shopping objectives, they become somewhat less likely to make unplanned purchases at your store.

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Sell Impulse Items to Serve
Have Unannounced Discounts on Common Purchases

Limn Words Shoppers Won’t Understand

On September 7, 2010, a front-page article in the Baltimore Sun carried the headline “Opposing votes limn difference in race.” Well, at least a few of the newspaper’s readers that day reacted as if they’d like to rip the editors limn from limn. Whoops, I mean limb from limb, which is pronounced the same way.
     As to the definition, limn shares its word root with illuminate and means to give clear, sharp detail. The headline meant that a set of opposing votes portrayed differences between the current electoral candidates in clear, sharp detail.
     But those upset readers of the headline didn’t know what “limn” meant. They were irritated at the Baltimore Sun for creating an unnecessary difficulty. One reader opined, “To put a word like ‘limn’ in the headline for the lead article on the front page of this newspaper seems to me to be unbelievably arrogant and patronizing. Could the headline writer not have fashioned a head around the word ‘illuminate,’ ‘delineate’ or ‘depict’? Perhaps then more readers would not only understand what the article is about but actually might want to read it.”
     Wrong on two counts. First, the Sun’s headline writer said he chose the word not to impress with his vocabulary, but because he needed a shorter word for “show” in a one-column space. Second, classic research by psychologist Edward Wheeler Scripture found that a bit of puzzlement in a headline—whether for a newspaper article or newspaper ad—increases interest in reading what follows. In an 1895 book, Dr. Scripture used his studies’ findings to even suggest putting commercial notices upside down in order to attract attention.
     Using a fancy word also can subtly add to your impression of distinctiveness or exclusivity in a positive way. A two-store California retailer calls themselves Limn to fit their merchandising of sharply designed high-end home furniture, lighting, and accessories.
     Now that you know what limn means, I can recommend to you that you limn for your special attention any words that your target audiences are likely not to understand correctly at first viewing or first hearing. Give each of those words clear, sharp detail as you create your marketing copy and selling scripts. Then decide for each of the words if it will arouse useful interest in your intended message or only create a distracting kerfuffle. Whoops, maybe I should say, instead, create a distracting fuss.

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Offer Aspirational Shopper Subtle Signals
Use Humor in Unexpected Ways
Joke Around to Facilitate the Sale

Refine Your Psychographics

When retailers talk about psychographics, they’re referring to personal values and the shopper habits affected by those values. Demographics (age, gender, income level) and psychographics are often two ways of looking at the same thing. For instance, women generally have different personal values and shopping habits than do men. But the psychographic approach gives the retailer more focused hints for making sales.
     Except when the analysis is insufficiently refined, that is. A recent Bloomberg Businessweek article describes how Toyota dealers suffered from this happening: Figuring that Toyota is America’s largest producer of cars, the company—along with a number of influential industry analysts—expected Toyota to swipe sales of large pickup trucks from GM, Ford, and Chrysler as the market for pickups picked up.
     But the psychographics of buyers of large trucks are different from the psychographics of car buyers. A more refined analysis using data from Nielsen Claritas indicated that compared to Toyota large truck prospects, the GM and Ford prospects are more likely to dine at Cracker Barrel restaurants, have dial-up Internet, and use the paper Yellow Pages. The Toyota prospects were more likely to dine at steakhouses, shop online, own golf clubs, and subscribe to Runner's World.
     This sort of focus gives specifics to be used in merchandising, marketing, and selling. Psychographic analysis for the PowerBar sports nutrition line produced a recommendation that the products be displayed alongside personal grooming items. The focus from refinement also protects against you being buried in trivial findings, while staying open to being surprised. A collaboration of researchers at Columbia University, Advertising Age, and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune found that people most interested in buying fishing equipment also enjoy listening to Christian rock music and reading Southern Living.
     Whether contracting with a market research firm to provide you psychographic information or gathering and analyzing your own data, always be angling for further refinement.
     At the same time, recognize there will be individual exceptions to the overall refined findings. A comment posted to the online version of the Bloomberg Businessweek article reads, “I've built several computers, use an htpc to watch the internet on my plasma, use voip instead of telco, never owned a gun, but have several bikes. I own 3 F150's and no toytas [sic].”

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Recalibrate for Shopper Gender Trends
Help Customers Show Off New Products

Clarify Item Advantages via Pricing

Present item costs as benefits that the product or service brings in units important to the shopper. This helps move your shoppers beyond a fixation on the item price so they can more accurately assess the value of the alternatives and more often consider purchasing items that bring you a higher profit.
     Researchers at London Business School and European School of Management and Technology gathered some examples of this tactic:

• Embrex (now Pfizer Poultry Health) offered poultry breeders inoculations by the egg.
• General Electric priced airline engines by the power delivered per hour.
• Goodyear dealers priced tires according to how many miles they were expected to last.
• Explosives supplier Orica charged customers according to the fragmentation of the rocks extracted.

     Here are the steps to clarifying advantages via pricing for items you sell:

1. Ask your customers and prospective customers about the benefits they find in using the product or service for which pricing has become an issue. Questionnaires, focus groups, interviews, and customer diaries are the chief methodologies for gathering this information. Be sure to ask customers about their beliefs, their emotions, and their intentions when it comes to the product type you’re investigating. To help ensure accurate results, don’t limit yourself to one or two of these three.
2. Analyze what you’ve gathered. The most revealing, and therefore most valuable, discoveries will come from statistical techniques like conjoint analysis, factor analysis, and cluster analysis. However, since these techniques require use of an outside consultant, you might choose to employ less sophisticated looks at the data.
3. Word each main benefit in terms of units the shopper would use or process: fertile eggs, engine power, road miles, rock fragments, and so on. The units might be different for different target populations or for different roles the shopper takes on. In the role of household accountant, the consumer might be assessing cost per serving, while in the role of parent, the consumer might be assessing cost per set of daily nutritional requirements. If you’ve used the statistical analysis techniques, they’ll help you in this segmentation.
4. Set pricing in terms of the units.
5. Announce both pricing and benefits using the units.
6. Over time, regularly analyze how well this pricing structure is meeting your profit objectives, and make any necessary adjustments.

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

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Ease Customer Pain About Item Prices
Move the Customer to Accept Higher Prices
Know Your Potential Customers' Intentions
Use Cluster Analysis on Customer Data
Keep Customers Happy About Data Collection
Analyze What Your Shoppers Say and Do

Give Shoppers Permission to Spend More

Suppose I ask your shoppers to think about the slogan “Save money. Live better,” and then the slogan, “The good life at a great price.” My question for you: Does thinking about those slogans make a shopper likely to spend more money or less money, or does it have no measurable effect on spending habits?
     You might recognize that the first of those slogans has been used by Walmart, and the second one by Sears. Both store names are associated with thriftiness. But I’m asking your shoppers to think about the slogans, not the store names.
     The answer to my question of you comes from research at University of Miami, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and University of California-Berkeley. A set of studies found that thinking about either of those slogans increases the amount of money people are willing to spend during a shopping trip. In fact, the amount was twice as much after thinking about the slogan than after thinking about the store name. With the store name, the average amount study participants were willing to spend was $94. With the slogan, it was $184.
     What’s going on? In my opinion, a good explanation for the findings is that the slogan gave shoppers permission to spend money by shifting their thinking toward a longer-term perspective. “Live Better” and “The good life” was enough to lift shoppers’ eyes from their day-to-day expenses.
     Researchers from Princeton, University of Chicago, and Digitas-Boston surveyed people entering a grocery store. One set were asked, among other things, questions about the contents of their wallets. This nudged their thoughts towards the money they had to spend in the short term. Another set of shoppers were asked instead about the different types of financial accounts they had in their investment portfolio, such as checking and savings accounts. This got those shoppers thinking long-range.
     What difference did it make? Well, the second group spent 36% more than the first group while shopping.
     In advertising and selling, regularly remind your shoppers about living the good life. State large prices not just as the total, but also as the cost per month over the expected useful life of the product. Offer extended payment terms. Have shoppers gaze over the horizon so they’ll subconsciously give themselves permission to spend more.

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Give Customers Long-Range Perspectives
Influence Subconsciously, Not Subliminally

Craft Fear Appeals

In certain circumstances, we can make a sale more likely by arousing in the customer a sense of fear—fear about the consequences of not making the purchase or buying into the course of action we’re proposing. But unless the fear appeal is crafted well, it could end up doing damage to your business.
     Here are some tips on crafting fear appeals:

• Research at Universidad Pùblica de Navarra in Pamplona, Spain concludes that for certain shoppers in the world, fear sells, but for others, it’s a turnoff. How to tell which is which? Monitor the extent to which your shoppers use fear words themselves.
• Raise enough fear of a real danger to win the customer’s attention and motivate action, but only to the degree that you’ve a guaranteed way to substantially reduce the risk. Don’t oversell. Researchers at Auburn University find that if the fear becomes too intense or if they don’t see a way out, shoppers become defensive and start thinking about why they don’t need the item you’re wanting to sell them. Or if they do end up making the purchase, chances are they’ll associate negative feelings with your store, making it less likely they’ll come back again.
• Pair the fear with regret (“I can understand why you’re sorry you didn’t make a purchase like this before the accident”), guilt (“I’m sure you want to do all you can to protect your family”), and/or challenge (“I realize the price is high”). Research at Tulane University and Salisbury University regarding health behaviors like using sunscreen and eating high fiber foods concluded that regret, guilt, and challenge increase the rate at which the consumer buys into compliance.
• Don’t hesitate to use legitimate fear appeals with older consumers. Seniors respond better to fear-laden sales messages than to purely rational sales messages, especially if the fear appeal is combined with appeals to positive emotions, like comfort, contentment, and relief. This is what’s suggested by research at University of Pennsylvania, UCLA, and University of California-Irvine. Emotional appeals also help elderly shoppers remember details about sources of sales messages more accurately. All emotions—positive and negative—arouse interest among older consumers, and as people age, they get better at turning the negative into the positive (comfort from achieving control over fear).

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

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Know How Much Emotion to Deliver
Scare Customers into Buying
Emphasize Emotions with Older Consumers
Sell Self-Esteem After Times of Fear
Use Terror Management Theory for Status Items

Time Your Statements of Benefits

Knowing when to do what is essential to maximizing retailing profitability. Offering cold weather merchandise when your target consumers start thinking about cold weather preferences. Ordering the heavy sweaters and recruiting the tire chain jockeys enough in advance of when they’ll be needed.
     Tony Curtis, who died last week at age 85 after having appeared in more than 140 movies, is quoted as having said, “…(M)y longevity is due to my good timing.” I don’t know who first advised, “Timing is everything,” but Albert Einstein associated time with everything when saying, “The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.”
     Prof. Einstein’s insight applies to the best ways for you to present product and service benefits to your retail shoppers:

• Researchers at University of Connecticut and University of Virginia found that women shoppers vary between thinking, “It’s time for me” and “It’s time for others.” Analyze how your shoppers cycle between these two, then adjust your merchandise mix to fit. Retail store consultants at Envirosell performed an even more sophisticated analysis of timing, resulting in them advising a shopping mall bookstore to use cylindrical fixtures to rotate out different sorts of books for different times of the day. These approaches help you not only to sell more merchandise, but also to even out the flow of customers over the hours your store is open.
• In advertising, describe the range of alternatives you have available to each customer. If your in-store or warehouse range is, in reality, limited, you could expand it by offering special-order services. But once the shopper arrives at your store or ecommerce site, have the products presented in easily understood categories. Researchers at University of Texas-Austin describe how having a broad assortment of products available draws shoppers, but once the shoppers arrive, they seek ease of product evaluation.
• Before the sale, emphasize the number of functions the product can serve and have technical specifications easily available. Once the sale has been completed, state benefits in terms of making it easy to use the functions and reassuring the customer they’ve made the right choice. Researchers at University of Maryland-College Park found that consumers tend to choose the most feature-filled models, but then after purchase, tend to get frustrated with the complexity of what they chose.

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Merchandise to Fit Purchasing Cycles
Acknowledge the Power of Cycles
Use Signage to Categorize Items
Pitch the Synergy of Multifunction Products
Offer Fundamental Indulgences
Sell Ease of Use to Last-Minute Shoppers

Impress with the Exotic

“And for the next item in our Mexican feast, may I offer you a smoked corn custard sprinkled with pale yellow, squirming wax moth larvae?”
     Not your cup of tea—or your cup of chapulines, those little fried grasshoppers described as tasting like the exoskeleton of a potato chip? Then how about visiting the latest exhibit at our local museum where we’ve graphic photographs of children from Mozambique snacking on live locusts?
     A New York Times article described the bug-filled Mexican feast at Brooklyn Kitchen restaurant. Exotic experiences like these will draw interest in, and therefore footsteps to, your retail business. Whether you run a restaurant, a museum, a travel agency, or some other type of business altogether, think of what unusual experiences you might offer to your target audiences.
     Then, as you plan the publicity for these events, consider what benefits the unusual experiences provide:

• Roller Coaster Effect. Consumers go on the most treacherous roller coasters not only for the stimulating physical sensations, but also for the sense of pride achieved in prevailing over fears. To draw shoppers, publicize the thrill of confronting the exotic. Tell people they’ll be able to take away a memento to verify their show of courage.
• Exotic Dancer Effect. Some people are more interested in breaking taboos than in breaking through fears. We don’t call those ladies “exotic dancers” simply because they hail from faraway places. As a general rule, consumers yearn to push the limits. Publicize the opportunities you’re giving people to do that.
• Educational Effect. The organizers of the Brooklyn Kitchen event touted the benefits from learning about cultures in which eating bugs is common. And notice how the Travel Channel introduced viewers to exotic places with presentations of Andrew Zimmern’s “Bizarre Foods” international ingestion interludes. Publicize the educational benefits of your unusual offerings.

     After reading the NYT article, I decided to add a fourth effect to those three. It was of particular relevance in New York City. It was also probably of particular interest to one diner at the Brooklyn Kitchen event. She works at Victoria’s Secret. Around the time of the exotic dinner, a NYC Victoria’s Secret store along with a Niketown store shut down for a while in order to eliminate infestations of bedbugs. Considering this, the pleasure from chomping down on bugs might be called the Revenge Effect.

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

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Reduce Unwanted Risks for Your Shoppers
Apply Systematic Desensitization to Fears
Consider Publicizing Your Rascal Image

Update Your Niche Whenever Necessary

Bargain hamburger retailer Burger King has been suffering from falling sales and profits. According to a Bloomberg Businessweek article, the niche is probably the reason: Burger King is known in many consumers’ minds as, well, a bargain hamburger retailer.
     That identity might appeal to younger men seeking a filling meal at a cheap price. Burger King’s dancing-chicken style of advertising has amused this target demographic, and there’s evidence the sometimes old, sometimes untidy restaurants have been tolerated by this target demographic. The problem is that members of Burger King’s target demographic have been dining out less often than in the past. The lesson for all sorts of retailers is to regularly assess for a need to update your niche.
     If you’re in Burger King’s marketing position, it’s not that you were wrong in selecting a niche. Considering that McDonald’s has almost three times as many restaurants worldwide as you do, a good alternative to positioning yourself as just an alternative to McDonald’s is to focus on a promising market segment.
     Consumers are drifting from the general to the specific, from the one-size-fits-all to the specialty and the customized. Another recent Bloomberg Businessweek article discusses the growing popularity of niche social networks like GoFISHn, where anglers can brag about their latest catch; Dogster, where members have been debating whether pets and their owners should bed down together; and PatientsLikeMe, where people can share progress notes on treatment for chronic medical problems, such as flea bites from lying down with dogs.
     The venture capitalists backing specialized sites like these are saying that Facebook and Twitter are great places to learn how to do social networking, but they’re insufficiently focused. Here, one lesson for all sorts of retailers is that a specialized social networking site could be a great place for you to advertise to your niche markets. Because it’s online advertising, you can promptly change your social networking presence each time you navigate your niche to a different location. Be on the Dogster pages today and the GoFISHn boards tomorrow.
     The tip from shopper psychology is not to make the changes too abrupt. Reach out with a line extension and then pull in and eliminate your weaker lines. Earlier this month, Burger King announced they were adding to the menu blueberry biscuits, a pancake platter, and seven more breakfast items. But the bargain burger stays for now.

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Maintain a Niche So You’re a Destination Location
Keep a Store-Within-A-Store Compatible

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 tells 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.

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Use Both Repetition and Progression in Ads
Repeat Information When Selling to a Group

Select Celebrity Endorsers Who Have Credibility

Marketing agency Zeta Interactive says that positive buzz on the Internet about bicyclist Lance Armstrong dropped dramatically from early July into early August, the drop closely matching in direction, but exceeding in extent, what happened to RadioShack’s Internet buzz during the same time period. RadioShack retained Mr. Armstrong as a celebrity endorser. Zeta Interactive attributes the excessive drop to suspicions Mr. Armstrong used performance-enhancing drugs during races.
     Golfsmith International, who call themselves the world’s largest golf superstore, reports that their sales of Tiger Wood’s signature line of golf clothes are down by over 7% during a time that golf apparel sales overall have climbed about 11%. Golfsmith attributes the drop to Mr. Wood’s failures to bring home the money in PGA Tour tournament wins during that period.
     Guard against endorsers of your store, products, or services having low credibility. Research at University of Massachusetts-Amherst identifies two types of endorser credibility consumers use when making purchase decisions:

• Knowledge credibility comes from expertise in the field. Tiger Wood’s ability to sell golf clothes is tied to his skills as a championship golfer. People who bought and wore the signature line could feel some of that expertise rubbing off the fabric and onto them. If Mr. Woods wasn’t winning, there seemed to be less expertise to rub off. When 64% of recent online posts about Mr. Armstrong include the word “steroids,” that’s a signal Mr. Armstrong’s true expertise is in doubt at the point where the rubber meets the road.
• Reporting credibility comes from consumer trust that the endorser is telling us the whole truth. When Mr. Woods abruptly switches from endorsing Rolex Tudor watches to endorsing Tag Heuer watches, we might lose trust in his recommendations. When 29% of recent online posts about Mr. Armstrong include the word “lie,” “lies,” or “liar,” that’s a signal trust is eroding.

     Research suggests that both types of credibility are greater if the person isn’t endorsing large numbers of other businesses or products. Avoid what the LA Times referred to as the “Jackie Chan Curse.” International film star Chan has endorsed so many retail business—including an auto repair school now accused of being no more than a diploma mill—that at least a few of the retailers were bound to have problems later, making Mr. Chan and the other retailers he endorsed look bad.

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Publicize What You Distinctively Offer
Get Endorsements from Groups
Make Your Sales Staff Celebrity Endorsers
Make Your Product Reviews Credible

Avoid Satire in Comparatives

To influence your shoppers, compare what you offer to what others offer. And compare benefits or features of the various alternatives you offer. But avoid satire in your comparisons.
     For an example of the risks of satirical comparisons, consider the “What Happens in Blank” TV spot created by R&R Partners and used last year by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. The original “What happens here, stays here” campaign designed by R&R nicely projected the naughtiness which is a prime marketing point for Las Vegas. Once hitting public exposure, the tag line morphed into “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” and that, in turn, inspired the 2008 20th Century Fox flick, “What Happens in Vegas.”
     Much better success in retailing location marketing than, let’s say, New Hampshire’s “You’re going to love it here” or New Jersey’s “Come see for yourself.”
     The “What Happens in Blank” spot features a satirical edge, apparently aiming to point out how inserting your own town’s name into the slogan will only highlight how your own town falls far short of Las Vegas by comparison. My analysis is that the ad could produce some hearty chuckles in viewers, but leaves a bitter aftertaste for many of these consumers.

• Satire is ridicule packaged in humor. The problem is that what some people consider to be funny, others don’t. If the humor falls flat, all that’s left is the ridicule. If you use satirical comparisons, you risk being seen by the consumer as mean-spirited, and that can interfere with your selling appeal. Researchers at University of Massachusetts-Amherst demonstrated how humor differs even between the U.S. and the U.K., both of them individualistic cultures. Other research has shown how collectivist cultures—like in Japan—and family-oriented cultures—like in Mexico—come to dislike retailers that seem to depend on ridicule to make a point.
• Researchers at Northwestern University and Ohio State University find that humor in selling functions as a source of distraction. The laughter keeps the shopper from thinking about counterarguments. The problem with satire in comparatives is in order to get the joke, the audience has to be thinking too closely about arguments and counterarguments. The “What Happens in Blank” ad makes fun of the elderly, the handicapped, the overweight, and even county fairs, all within a span of thirty seconds.

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Compare Unknown Brands to Best-Known Brands
Be Aware How Shoppers Compare Products
Joke Around to Facilitate the Sale

Show Customers the Right Picture

Whether you’re asking me to purchase something from your store or contribute money to your charity, I’m probably more likely to agree if you show me the right picture.
     University of Chicago undergraduates were told that UChicago zoology students had been soliciting donations to rescue an endangered panda they’d found in a remote Asian area. On a form asking the undergraduate the most they’d be willing to donate, some of the study participants were shown a picture of a panda, while others were shown just a dot to represent the panda to be rescued.
     Students shown the picture said they’d donate $19.49 on average. The average for the dot group was $11.67. It looked like the picture increased the willingness to contribute. The lesson for retailers? Show customers what they’re getting for their money.
     Pictures are especially important with ecommerce and with the website of a bricks-and-mortar store. Here, you can’t directly stimulate the senses of touch, smell, and taste as you can in the store, and the more senses you pleasantly stimulate—even if indirectly through a picture—the greater the chance of you closing the sale.
     But realize that pictures don’t always make a difference. In another part of the UChicago study, participants were told that the number of pandas to be rescued was four, not one. In this case, the average donation amount was statistically the same with four dots as with four identical pictures of a panda. The researchers speculate that if the picture had been cuter, it would have made a difference.
     Sometimes pictures can hurt. In comparative ads, show a picture of the product or product package you want the person to select, but don’t show pictures of people using the product. University of Maryland researchers discovered that such pictures lead shoppers to start thinking about using the products themselves. When they do this, the shoppers put too much mental energy into thinking about just the recommended product. They forget to pay attention to the comparative advantages, so the power of the comparative ad fades away.
     Why is that bad? I think you get the picture.

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

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Advertise What Products Look Like
Talk to Multiple Senses with New Products
In Comparative Ads, Don’t Show Users

Monitor Your Vendors’ Websites

When you carry products produced by someone else or supply services under a name licensed to you by someone else, that someone else often maintains a website shoppers can use to locate you. The shopper enters their ZIP code or other locale identifier, or a search engine recognizes where the shopper is. Then the name of your store along with your address and phone number appear.
     This is an excellent way to build referral business. All else being equal, do your purchasing from vendors who provide this for you. However, be aware that the characteristics of the vendor’s website influence how a consumer perceives your business. Research at Stanford University finds that consumers tend to perceive a retail business along five major dimensions:

• Sincere or witty. In what ways are you honest? Wholesome? Cheerful? Teasing?
• Exciting or predictable. To what degree are you daring? Spirited? Imaginative? Trendy? Responsible? Dependable? Persistent?
• Expert or inquisitive. In what ways are you knowledgeable? Successful? Calm? Confident? Secure? Stimulating? Curious?
• Sophisticated or approachable. To what degree are you formal? Assertive? Ambitious? Casual? Sociable?
• Rugged or luxurious. In what ways are you gruff? Challenging? Cooperative? Trusting? Considerate? Indulgent?

     The personality of the vendor’s website can muddy the image you’re aiming for if the website’s personality differs greatly from that intended image. If the vendor’s website is overly exciting at the expense of predictability, it might even turn away prospective customers.
     For example, the J.D. Power and Associates 2010 Manufacturer Web Site Evaluation Study®—Wave2 ranks the Cadillac and the Scion websites as lowest among the 33 automobile manufacturers they rated, based on responses from more than 10,600 prospective new car shoppers. The best of the sites—Honda’s and Kia’s—were distinguished by an uncluttered appearance and easy-to-understand site navigation tools. The result was speedy retrieval of the information the shopper was seeking.
     Research results from University of Alberta and University of Illinois-Champaign-Urbana suggest that Cadillac would have been wise to have a simpler website design for another reason as well: Absence of clutter subtly signals elegance to shoppers.
     Monitor your vendors’ websites to be sure information is not only correct, but also presented in a way that enhances your store’s marketability. If the site falls short, work with the vendor to resolve the problems and recognize that the site may not be as valuable to your profitability as you’d thought.

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Project Your Store’s Personality
Know the Tradeoffs in Being Sincere
Manage Store Clutter Strategically
Offer Aspirational Shoppers Subtle Signals

Offer a Buffet of Loyalty Program Rewards

Shoppers want to customize. This affects the merchandise they buy. Fortune Magazine reported that fully 40% of Lands’ End shoppers are willing to pay more and tolerate longer delivery times so they can order a blend of precise sizes. It affects gift card purchases. In a National Retail Federation survey, about 20% of respondents said their main reason for not buying gift cards—even though gift cards are exceeded only by cold cash in the ability to customize their use—is because the cards are too impersonal. The appeal of the idea of customizing affects advertising. The viral popularity of the Old Spice Guy campaign shows how people get a kick out of a humorous personalized ad.
     The urge to customize also influences consumers’ preferences in loyalty programs. According to loyalty marketing consultants Colloquy, one reason for the outstanding success of these programs in Canada is that customers can choose among an especially broad range of rewards.
     A recent Marketing Daily posting describes another feature at which the Canadian programs excel—coalitions in which participants can accumulate points from grocery, gasoline, financial services, and other retailers. More than 100 firms give points in the Air Miles Reward Program, the most popular of the Canadian frequent shopper initiatives. With that many partners, the program can offer about 1,200 different rewards.
     Do you want to form a loyalty program coalition with other retailers in order to increase the breadth of rewards you offer? If so, one decision you’ll make is whether to partner with retailers that sell merchandise lines competing with yours. Some points to consider:

• Research on branding says that franchisees and members of retailer cooperatives benefit when a loyalty program carries the name of the franchisor or cooperative, even if consumers can redeem at your store points they accumulated at another outlet. Just be sure that when the person comes into your store to make the redemption, you treat them as a prospect for additional sales.
• At a time when sales revenues at many shopping malls are falling short, a rewards program based on a coalition of mall merchants can draw traffic and give valuable brand identity.
• Developing partnerships around frequent shopper programs could help you screen partners for other profitable endeavors, such as special events and pooled purchasing.

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Tailor Loyalty Programs to Customer Culture
Give Loyalty Program Members Prestige
Offer Frequent Shopper Discounts Beyond Discounts
Help Customers Personalize Gift Cards

Flatter Shoppers with Care and Caring

Professors Elaine Chan and Jaideep Sengupta at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology decided to measure the power of phony flattery. The Chan/Sengupta findings were startling enough that they’re being described now in many publications and blogs, including an item in Harvard Business Review. Unfortunately, almost all the descriptions I’ve read are misleading for retailers because important details are omitted. I’d like to highlight for you what was really discovered.
     In the study, prospective clothing shoppers were given a flyer advertising a department store. The flyer read, “We’re contacting you because you’re fashionable and stylish,” and then asked the shopper to visit the store.

• It would seem that such obviously insincere flattery would at best amuse a shopper and at worst irritate them. But surprisingly, due to the flattery, shoppers rated the store more highly. But not all the shoppers did. More about that in a minute.
• In a second experiment, participants were offered a discount coupon from the store that gave the flattery or from a store whose flyer offered no flattery. About 80% of shoppers chose the coupon from the phony flattery store. But only under certain conditions.
• In the third experiment, flattered participants were told that the store charged especially high prices and had a restricted range of clothing. Even when confronted with these negatives, participants held onto their positive views. Unless they did a certain thing first.

     Here, then, is the rest of the story:

• In the first experiment, the phony flattery had the clearest effect when participants were told they had only five seconds to respond to each question about how much they liked the store.
• In the second experiment, the 80% figure was from shoppers who chose the coupon three days after reading the phony flattery. For those who chose the coupon right after reading it, the figure was only 54%.
• In the third experiment, the negative information did push the ratings toward the negative if the participants, before receiving the phony flattery, were made to feel good about themselves by writing about a positive trait.

     With customers hungry for self-esteem, phony flattery can facilitate sales. This works best if the customer is distracted from thinking about the flattery having been phony, such as by being rushed or making a selection after some time has passed.
     But for best long-term results, give genuine praise.

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Build Self-Esteem of Your Teen Customers
Respect Customers Who Claim Expertise
Preoccupy Shoppers for Indulgent Choices

Expect Shoppers to Expect Nonexistent Discounts

“Opulence. I has it. I like the best…. But I also like savings zee money.” So speaks the Russian rich guy in a DIRECTV video ad. And that brief monologue nicely reflects what you should aim for now with the segment of your target markets suffering recession fatigue. Offer them a sense of luxury, but in a way that they feel they’re getting extraordinary savings.
     Then they may very well want to brag about the savings, even if this means lying. Researchers at University of Alberta, University of Calgary, and University of British Columbia concluded that when people believe they might have been able to wrangle a better deal on a product or service, this conclusion leads to them feeling a threat to their self-esteem and their self-image. They fear not only that others will see them as being suckers, but also that they’ll see themselves that way.
     The researchers found that people are especially likely to lie to coworkers about the good deals they got. Since a natural follow-up question from a coworker is, “Where did you get such a good price?,” you—the retailer—might expect some people to come into your store these days looking for discounts you’re not offering. They were lied to.
     How nice to have them come to your store! So be ready to turn confusion about pricing into conviction to make a purchase from you:

• Have each employee on your sales floor and at the checkout area carry copies of your store’s current ads and discount announcements. If a customer thinks the ad said something different from what it really said, it’s quick and easy for the employee to straighten out the problem. Having the ad itself takes it away from being customer versus store employee. There’s the objective source both of them can look at.
• Offer the shopper an opportunity to purchase merchandise that is actually on sale. The sale should be on what the skeptical shopper will find attractive. If the discount is on merchandise different from what the shopper believes was offered in a bigger sales event, the amount of the discount does not need to be as deep as what they had in mind when they entered your store. They feel they’ve still gotten a good deal.

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Stand Ready to Sell Luxury
Head Off After-Order Regrets
Have Staff Carry Copies of Store Ads
Follow a Big Sales Event with a Smaller One

Boast About Underdog Determination

Decades ago, Avis Rent A Car System unveiled a series of ads that the trade journal Advertising Age later called one of the top ten campaigns of the 20th century. The theme of the ads: “We’re number 2 in rent a cars behind Hertz, so we try harder.”
     More recently, researchers at Harvard University, Simmons College, and Boston College found that the underdog’s appeal to consumers endures. Among other things, when a choice of chocolate bar brands was offered to the study participants, the brand positioned as the underdog was selected about 70% of the time.
     The researchers say the power of the come-from-behind fits well with the distinctively American stories of successful immigrants and of second chances met with passionate determination. Supporting this argument, it’s true that the study participants in the U.S. were more influenced than were those in Singapore by the underdog positioning. But even those in Singapore were affected. After all, every consumer in the world has felt they’re behind the leader in something at one time or another, so every consumer cheers for others in that position.
     Your retail store portrays a brand image that is as important to your success as the candy bar brand image is to the candy bar manufacturer. In your advertising, your coaching of employees, and your staff’s personal selling with customers, boast about having the determination of an underdog who is intent on being the best. For instance, share with employees and customers any stories of humble beginnings of your retail business and demonstrate the respect for customers and fellow employees that is associated with humility.
     However, do all this with care. At the same time that people root for the underdog, employees and consumers also like to associate with winners. The Avis campaign was profitable because the fundamental message was, “We’re not settling for being number 2. We’re striving to be number 1, and if we are number 1, we’ll be so accustomed to striving that we won’t be pulling back at all on our passionate determination to serving you.”

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

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Brag About Your Retailing Humility
Show Respect in Front of Customers