Humans in Pictures

A checklist of tactics that will boost sales.

eCommerce

Isolated images perform better in early buying stages, while contextual images perform better in later buying stages.

A product assortment of shirts by themselves, and a product page of a shirt with a model wearing it.

Show an Isolated Product Before the Contextual Imagery

Show an Isolated Product Before Contextual Imagery

Which types of product images perform best? Should you include people who are showcasing the product?

In my guide on brand names, I suggested modifying the spelling of a real word. But alas, I was wrong. Across 6 studies, this technique backfired for real brands (e.g., Lyft) and fake brands (e.g., Kool Cocktails, Daily Gainz, Klear, Kreative Designs). Misspelled names trigger persuasion knowledge. In other words, customers infer that marketers are trying to influence their behavior, so they resist this persuasion attempt (Costello, Walker, & Reczek, 2023).

Mizspelled Names Perform Worse

University students drank less sugar with their coffee when a vending machine set the default at 0 (vs. 3; Priolo et al., 2023)

Nudging Down Sugar

They feel stronger emotions when they can see a vivid depiction of people who need help (Sooter & Ugazio, 2023).

People Are More Likely to Donate in Virtual Reality

People empathize with humanlike products. When they need to dispose them, recycling feels more humane than throwing them away (Wu, Malter, & Johar, 2023).

Anthropomorphism Increases Recycling Behavior

Negative Words

How to choose the right words and syntax

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQWblxg6XVo

Copywriting

Products inherit the associations of nearby words.

The words "sunscreen prevents cancer" with cancer being pushed further away from sunscreen

Push Negative Words Further Away

A recent study tested whether negative associations from words can spread to nearby products.

Researchers studied 1,000 salespeople who worked in different buildings of a call center. In buildings with more windows, they converted more calls into sales: "We find that a one unit increase in happiness, on a standard 0-to-10 scale, leads to around 3 additional weekly sales" (Bellet, De Neve,  & Ward, 2023).

Employees Work Better When They See Sunny Weather

Women believe that management will be confrontational. And they're not wrong. Based on TripAdvisor reviews, responses to self-identified female reviewers were more likely to be confrontational, aggressive, and discrediting (Proserpio, Troncoso, & Valsesia, 2021).

Women Leave Fewer Reviews If Management is Replying

The future of AI is unclear, but one thing is certain: The fear is worse when these tools look human. In one study, employees felt less secure in their jobs when they interacted with humanlike technology because it triggered a social comparison process (Wang, Kim, & Kim, 2023).

Employees Feel Insecure Around Humanlike Robots

People are task-oriented in the morning. They want to feel smart and productive. If they shop online, they prefer bonus packs (vs. free gifts) because they receive more units for the same price, a benefit that aligns with their mindset (Park & Yi, 2023).

Customers Prefer Bonus Packs in the Morning

Ego Traps

People are more likely to comply if their behavior will validate a positive trait.

A survey with a qualification "must be intelligent"

Qualify Compliance With Favorable Traits

Require Favorable Traits to Qualify for Compliance

Researchers found a new persuasion tactic called egotistic traps. People are more likely to comply if their behavior validates a positive trait.

It's like salt in the wound. After seeing these notifications, we spend less money to avoid feeling more pain (Gu & Chen, 2023).

Payment Notifications Feel Painful

Researchers analyzed 3.1 million visits to a news website. Turns out, people read up to 40% more content when they enable ad blockers. Some publishers try to stop ad blockers from running, but these attempts might be reducing subscription revenue from users who would revisit more often (Yan, Miller, & Skiera, 2022).

Ad Blockers Increase Visits to Websites

On many websites, customers can "save" items to purchase later. But after saving these items, customers adopt more stringent conditions to feel justified in purchasing them (Popovich & Hamilton, 2021).

Product Wish Lists Reduce Purchases

Healthcare products benefit from negative traits (e.g., bad taste) because of a "no pain, no gain" mentality. A reciprocal effect happens with cute spokespeople. These health products seem less effective because they're too cutesy (Chang, Lee, Lee, & Wang, 2023).

Anthropomorphic Healthcare Products Seem Less Effective

Retail Music Psychology

What happens in our brain when we make a decision?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoL_aEw2Y2A&t=1s

Choice

Customers need a boost during weekdays because they're mentally depleted.

Man buying more food on a weekday because music is playing in the store

Store Music on Weekdays

Music Increases Retail Sales on Weekdays Only

People are engaged when they feel uncertain because they want to resolve this feeling. 

Emotions with certainty (e.g., anger, pride, confidence) grab attention, while emotions with uncertainty (e.g., anxiety, hope, surprise) sustain attention

Certainty Grabs Attention, While Uncertainty Sustains It

Music increases sales on weekdays only. Customers need a boost during weekdays because they're mentally depleted.

Music boosts mood, but it also adds cognitive load. When a store plays music, customers prefer products with simple branding in order to minimize effort (Klein, Melnyk, & Völckner, 2021).

Music Activates Desire for Simplicity

Customers are more likely to convert if they're asked to rate a business, even if they don't actually rate the business. Perhaps they reflect on their experience, reinforcing a positive impression (Perez, Oestreicher-Singer, Zalmanson, & Rubin, 2022).

Asking for a Rating Increases Conversions

You often see backlash toward people who record events with their phones, presumably because they're not appreciating the live event. But generating content will strengthen your immersion and enjoyment of the activity (Tonietto & Barasch, 2021).

Generating Content Strengthens Immersion

People are more likely to buy products when they search by typing, rather than speaking into a voice assistant. Each method induces a particular mindset: We associate typing with taking action, but we associate speaking with information gathering (King, Auschaitrakul, & Lin, 2022).

Typing is More Persuasive Than Speaking

Cell phone showing email inbox with Nick Kolenda's newsletter, along with an example newsletter that seems super interesting

Weekly marketing tactics that you've never heard before.

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Humans in Pictures

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