8. How Sticky is Your message?

Malcolm Gladwell in ‘The Tipping Point’ talks about the ‘Stickiness’ Factor.  ‘Stickiness’ of a message can result from small adjustments. In direct marketing it has been shown that a few changes in wording can change response rates by 25%. Gladwell uses as an example an experiment on a university campus. The project was to advertise tetanus jabs. This was tested using two pamphlets, one  an alarming pamphlet and the other a more reasoned one. Those presented with the ‘high-fear’ pamphlet showed a much higher intention to act, but both groups only produced an actual 3% immunisation. (As we all know, what is said in market research does not always reflect what people do).

 

Everyone knew where the medical centre was on the campus, but the simple addition of a map and the opening times pushed the response for both groups up to 28% – the call to action here increased the effect. An example in direct response advertising showed a similar effect – the addition of a cheesy ‘secret of the gold box’ competition to ads for Columbia Record Club resulted in dramatically higher response than a much higher profile advertising campaign. “Viewers were not just an audience but had become participants”.

 

Lessons for small business? Well, try wherever possible to test the message and the response it gets before committing. The internet gives great opportunity for testing e.g. Google Adwords campaigns can be set up to test response rates to different messages very easily – much easier than print media.

 

Remember, the message usually has a number of stages and it is easy to lose a potential customer along the way. Make sure the ad leads to an action.