Subconscious · 4 min read
Why customers can’t explain why they bought
Ask a customer why they chose you and you’ll usually hear “the price was right”, “good service” or “a friend recommended you”. Those answers are sincere, but they often aren’t the real cause.
Psychologist Daniel Kahneman describes two systems of thought. System 1 is fast, automatic and intuitive. System 2 is slow, effortful and logical. Most everyday choices are made by System 1, and System 2 supplies a sensible explanation afterwards.
Customers give you reasons, not causes.
For a small business this means two things. First, surveys only tell you how customers explain their choice, not how they made it. You need to look at what they associate with you. Second, your brand has to work at the level of System 1: recognised at a glance, remembered on first hearing, with no thinking required.
One thing you can do this week
Ask five regular customers not “why did you choose us”, but “what’s the first word that comes to mind when you think of us”. If five people give you five different words, your brand doesn’t yet hold a place in the subconscious.
Kahneman, D. Thinking, Fast and Slow, 2011. Zaltman, G. How Customers Think, 2003.
Positioning · 5 min read
The one-word test for small businesses
In their 1981 book Positioning, Al Ries and Jack Trout argued that the battle for a brand takes place in the customer’s mind, and that the mind keeps only a few places in each category. Four decades and many more choices later, the argument holds more strongly than ever.
Most small businesses try to say too much: quality, service, value, experience. Each claim is true, and together they say nothing, because every competitor says the same.
If customers can’t say what you stand for in one word, you don’t have a position yet.
Three tests for a good word
Customers care. The word has to connect to what actually matters when they choose.
Competitors don’t own it. If a rival already holds the word, taking it head-on is expensive.
You can deliver it. The word needs real proof behind it, or the first experience will undo it.
Once you have the word, the hard part begins. To make it believable you may need to drop some products, some customers or some claims. Positioning is a choice about what to give up.
Ries, A. and Trout, J. Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, 1981.
Brand memory · 4 min read
Why consistency beats creativity
Many owners want to change their brand after a year or two: a new logo, a new slogan, new colours. The reason is usually “it feels stale”. The trouble is that it feels stale to you, not to your customers.
You see your brand every day. Customers might see it a few times a month. By the time you’re bored of it, they’re only starting to remember it.
One exposure is noise. A hundred consistent ones become memory.
In 1968 psychologist Robert Zajonc described the mere-exposure effect: people come to prefer things they have seen repeatedly, even when they don’t recall seeing them. For a brand, every consistent appearance builds goodwill for the next decision.
A consistency checklist
Put your packaging, home page, latest ad, shopfront and business card side by side. Do they share the same symbol, the same colour and the same line? If not, make them match before you consider anything new.
Zajonc, R. B. “Attitudinal effects of mere exposure.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1968.