Consumer Behaviour

I read recently that a study has found that we don’t see things all the time. Brain activity has peaks and troughs (about ten per second) and when it’s in a trough we don’t see.

Then there is inattentional blindness.

You know, the thing that happens when a man in a monkey suit walks across a two-ball basketball counting game (it happens all the time, but people fail to see monkey-man because they’re so busy counting the number of passes).

And then there’s the problem that my wife can’t find her keys or her phone or her address book (often her address book).

Because I understand the psychology of looking at stuff I know that her strategy is a reckless one. It’s no good putting stuff down any old place and relying on your eyes to find it when you start looking. You might momentarily have your attention elsewhere, or be in one of those brain activity dips when you happen to walk past it.

Then you get cross because you can’t find it and, when someone else points out where it is, you get even more cross because you’d looked there.

So I always put the things I might lose in the same place. I always know where they are. [One other option is to attach everything you own to a piece of string; that way you always know where it is... on the string.]

What has all this got to do with consumers? Well, when we do something in our business we see it. We know it’s there because we thought about it.

But that’s no guarantee that your customers will see it.

So one of the most important skills in understanding consumers is to recognise that they don’t see your world and your products in the way you do. If you have a physical shop it is really useful to stand back and watch where they look and, in particular, where there attention lingers.

If you only sell on-line there are only two things you can do:

1. Learn how consumers’ minds work and what influences them (I wrote my EBook The Secret of Selling to help with this).
2. Trial different approaches to how you present your information and measure the response.

Now, if I could only find my keys, I’d go to the bank like I’ve been meaning to for three days.

Philip Graves

Philip Graves consumer behaviour analysis, consumer behaviour, influence, marketing communication, psychology, selling, The Secret of Selling

Tinnitus expert Jennifer Battaglino mentioned that she would like some suggestions on how to apply memes in her marketing so I thought I would add to yesterday’s post on what makes for a good meme by talking about the ways in which you might use them.

Incidentally, questions like Jennifer’s are enormously helpful to me when I’m thinking what to write, so thank you for all your questions and comments (this is very much an interactive process – I hope it feels like it!)

The key is to think about any aspect of your business in terms of how readily it will be assimilated by your customers and potential customers and passed on. 

At the more obvious end are things like your brand name and website address; how easy are these to recall accurately first time?

Next come the slightly more subtle elements; is your logo distinctively expressed?  Does it have a unique feel to it that will reinforce it in the mind; does it conjure an image when people think of the company name?  The more your name is seen as a picture the more likely it is to be remembered.

Tag lines are incredible useful for creating memes; in fact one could argue quite reasonably that memes are what tag lines are all about.  They can seem extremely glib and silly when you know your business is about far more than a short catchphrase; but remember that the guy who makes baked beans cares about every aspect of his offer too; the recipe, ingredients quality, packaging, product consistency, value for money, heritage, and so on.

Remember that stories can work well as memes; on Kevin Hogan’s public speaking course he pointed us towards a website that had audio stories.  One, for a life coach, told the remarkable story of the lady’s childhood; it was mesmerising, gripping, horrific and totally memorable.  I have no need for a life coach on the other side of the Atlantic so her service was of no interest to me, but I remember that story vividly and could probably trace the lady if I suddenly felt a need for her services.

No hang on readers; that won’t do.  Give me a second.

OK, now I feel justified.  One google search with the words “life coach” and the key moment of her story and there she was, just a Google away.  The lady’s name is Rhonda Britten and her story is there as an audio file (a small link saying “Hear Rhonda’s Story”) it is a superb example of the power of story too. 

And whilst you’re there, take a look at what else she’s done that works well from the perspective of memes.  Her face is there, lots of people remember a face, and she calls her site “Fearless Living”.

Fortunately, not all of us have a story like Rhonda’s, but there may well be stories centred around what we do or why we do it.  One of the reasons bad service experiences are remembered and can spread so poisonously, is that the events around them work wonderfully well as stories. 

You have everything a story needs when a company lets you down: a setting; good guys and bad guys, twists and turns, and always some resolution and a moral (even if it’s just “never use this firm in your life”).

But here’s the thing: you can create stories about your business without waiting for something to go wrong.  Make your presentations memorable, go way beyond what people expect.  A lot of companies focus on customer satisfaction.  That’s fine.  But it’s not memorable.

On the other hand, what if after someone buys something from your shop, you’ve taken their money and everything has gone fine, you say, “Hold on a minute”.  You go into the store room and come out with a box containing something.  “I just got these in and I’d be really interested to know what you think of them.  Please take this, I think you’ll enjoy it, and if you get the chance let me know what you think next time you’re passing.”

Not many shops give you something after the deal is done (rather than as an incentive to buy); now you have something potentially meme-able; a reason for that person to tell their friends about what happened to them in your store.

I hope that gives you a few more ideas.

Philip Graves

Philip Graves Marketing incentives, Marketing, memes, Rhonda Britten, selling, stories, story