Can Your Customer Be Tempted?

Andy Raskin reports in Business 2.0 Magazine about a study done at the University of Iowa to determine how people make decisions.  The study asked the first group to memorize a two digit number; the second group a seven digit one.  Right before he asked them to recall the number, he offered them a snack of fruit salad or chocolate cake.

Intuitively, I'm sure you can guess what happened.  63% of the subjects who were required to remember the seven digit number chose the cake compared to 41% in the two digit number group. Several more studies of this type have been conducted which yielded similar results.

This tells us something we already know about marketing messages, but rarely pay attention to.  People who have to make stressful buying decisions are more likely to make that decision based on emotion.  So why does your web content include an endless list of features and not benefits?   Go back and look at your web content with this in mind and start thinking like a copywriter. 

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