Hello again my friend,
Whether you’re trying to get someone to buy your stuff or just use your product so they get results…
…there’s one thing you can do to increase the likelihood that they’ll take action.
Lower the perceived effort it will take.
We can do this several ways:
1. Make the desired behavior as easy as possible.
If you can reduce the actual effort then obviously you should do that. Sometimes our customers don’t use our products because they are simply too complicated.
If there are too many steps or if it takes too long the likelihood you will get the desired behavior diminishes. So take a look at your product/service and find ways to make it easier to use.
We recently did this with our Wednesday Nomad meetup. We had been meeting at 4pm pacific but that was preventing people who were still at work from joining the group.
Simply by moving the time to 6pm we doubled the number of people who could attend. Who’d have thought!
If you’d like to join us for next weeks virtual meetup you can join here: https://www.stapletonagency.com/nomad-network1617822560645
2. Make the steps and instructions easy to read.
If you’ve ever had to assemble a piece of furniture by yourself you know how frustrating it can be if the instructions aren’t clear.
Many times, the reason our customers don’t use our products or attend our events is simply because the instructions were not clear.
Take some time to run through every step of your process and ask yourself, “If I was brand new, would I know exactly what to do at each stage?”
3. Chunk bigger tasks into smaller pieces.
In the book “The Effortless Experience” CBE Global points out that objective obstacles only account for a third of how difficult customers think something is.
The other two thirds come from how the customer feels.
One of the ways to make your customers feel like the process is easier is by taking big tasks and breaking them down into steps that are easier to manage.
4. Use simplifying language.
Words like, “simple”, “easy”, “quick” and “fast” are all words that lower the perceived effort your customer must take.
Here’s an example of framing using simplifying language.
“We need to set up your account. The application form is 5 pages long and it can take up to 20 minutes so make sure you have enough time to complete the entire process because you won’t be able to save your progress.”
or…
“Let’s get your account set up. We’ve made the application process as quick and easy as possible. It’s just a few pages long and should only take a few minutes to complete. Let’s get started.”
You’ll notice I didn’t lie to the customer. I simply modified the language to reduce the perceived effort in the customers mind.
Disclaimer: There are a lot of marketing grifters out there who abuse this technique. They use it to lie to their customers about the effort involved. Don’t be one of them.
Never underestimate peoples laziness. If it looks hard to do, people won’t do it. So make sure you’re doing everything you can to reduce the perceived effort you’re asking your customers to take.
Talk soon,
Jason
English 