Tag Archive for Purchasing Decisions

The Power of Color

There are many sources and resources about color and color psychology, we stumbled across this image that was a part of post.

Color's Influence on Buying Behavior

How Colors Affect Buying Behavior

There was some great information that we hope you can use in your marketing and mailing creative.

  • 93% of consumers placed visual appearance and color above other factors when shopping.
  • 85% of shoppers placed color as a primary reason for buying a particular product.
  • Color increased brand recognition by 80%.
  • Color can increase comprehension by 73%.

North American online shoppers found:

  • Yellow to be optimistic and youthful, often used to grab attention
  • Red connotes energy, increases heart rate and creates urgency, it is often used in clearance sales
  • Blue creates trust and security, it is often used by banks and businesses
  • Green is the easiest color for the eyes to process, it is associated with wealth, used to encourage relaxation in stores.
  • Orange is perceived to be aggressive, can create a call to action
  • Pink is romantic and feminine, used to attract women and young girls
  • Black is powerful and sleek, used to market luxury products
  • Purple used to soothe and calm, often used for beauty or anti aging products

We are here to help you use and maximize all resources and information as you put together your mailing and marketing campaigns.

Great Marketing Power in Hands of Few

Following up on our post about Marketing Power and the suggestion that 80% to 90% of people believe reviews posted by customers.

Forrester Research’s Josh Bernoff and Ted Schadler, authors of Empowered: Unleash Your Employees, Energize Your Customers, and Transform Your Business have found that just 16% of users of blogs, review sites and social networking sites generate 80% of the messages posted about products and services.

They also found that 62% of all messages about products and services are posted via Facebook alone.

That is amazing to think that so few people have so much power to shape opinions about your products and services. It is also not too far from the classic 80 – 20 rule of 80% of business coming from 20% of customers and 80% of complaints coming from 20% of people.

What can we do to help you court these sought after “super customers”?

Marketing Power

We attended a seminar that suggested that 80% or 90% of people believe posted consumer reviews. The Harvard Business Review’s Daily Stat stated that each year, consumers make more than 500 billion online impressions on one another about products and services.

These WOW numbers reinforce the idea that once your potential customers find you or know about they may start looking deeper for more information about you. Can we help you boost your trust score by sending some mail to your treasured customers to ask them to post something nice about you? Once you have accumulated some great reviews, send a postcard to your warm prospects to put your name in front and suggest they see for themselves comments from your satisfied customers.

Details from France Provide Signals

The Harvard Business Review’s Daily Stat republished information from the McKinsey Quarterly about how people over age 55 will drive two thirds of all growth in consumer spending in France over the next 20 years. These findings can offer implications for other developed countries.

French Consumers

French Consumers

Consumers do respond differently to different types of media. While most of us still prefer direct mail, older consumers prefer it even more.

Wow Numbers Mean Direct Mail Success

As a follow up to our post about “WOW” numbers:

According to the USPS Household Diary Study, 79% of all households read or scan the advertising mail sent to their home.

ATG’s Cross-Channel Commerce: The Consumer View report found that 78% of consumers are using multiple channels to research, shop, and ultimately complete purchases. Consumers browse and research online, then make the purchase in the store–39% went to the store to touch/feel the products; 36% visited the store to compare brands; 22% visited the store because they needed the product immediately

76% of Internet users said they were directly influenced by direct mail; 67% were influenced by TV; and 58% of email users were influenced according to Exact Target’s Channel Preference Study. Additionally, 75% of 25-34 year-olds have made a purchase as a result of direct mail and 62% of 18-24 year olds purchased due to direct mail.

R2integrated, an integrated marketing and technology company found that 65% of companies had not increased revenue or profited using social media.

Public Television stations have reversed their decline in acquiring new donors through direct mail campaigns. DMW Direct analyzed 700 campaigns representing 34 million pieces mailed and found that $295.32 was raised per thousand pieces mailed in 2009, up 16.3% from 2008 and the average gift was $42.10 up from $41.64.

USPS January 2011 Price Increases

The United Postal Service (USPS) will increase prices on January 2, 2011. The most noticeable will be the increase in the price of a first class stamp from $0.44 to $0.46. The post office is doing many things to help. They are releasing some new forever stamps in October. The stamps, featuring evergreen trees, can be purchased for $0.44 and used “forever” to mail first class letters.

Prices for Standard Mail and Periodicals will also go up about 5.6%. Knowing the facts in advance can help in planning for end of the year advertising and direct mail.

Advertising is Still Important

The graphic from the previous post about Word of Mouth showed that advertising, including direct mail, is the most important factor of consumer purchasing decisions during the “initial consideration” phase of the purchase decision making process.

Consumers “pull” information to them later in the purchase decision process.

How can we help you use direct mail to help you build your brand or stimulate demand?

Word of Mouth Matters

Word of mouth is the primary factor behind 20 to 50 percent of all purchasing decisions.

The power of word of mouth is greatest when consumers are buying a product for the first time or when products are relatively expensive, these factors tend to make people conduct more research, seek more trusted opinions, and take longer to think about purchases.

The Harvard Business Review summarized research from the McKinsey Quarterly that indicates that in developed markets, word of mouth has its biggest impact when consumers decide which products to consider and when they’re actively evaluating products.

Too Much Contact to Businesses Can Hurt

The Harvard Business Review featured some results from a McKinsey & Company study that found that the “most destructive” failures of business-to-business sales reps are too much contact with customers (35%). Customers want to be contacted, not bombarded. The upside of getting things right is significant: A primary supplier perceived as having a high-performing sales force can boost its share of a customer’s business by 8 to 15 percentage points.

Chart of Ways Customers Are Turned Off

The methods of “bombardment” are in person, by phone or via email. Postal mail is not listed. Use direct mail to stay in touch with business customers without making them feel inundated.

Business to Business Data Management

The Wellesley Hills Group published a study about trends in Lead Generation. They found leads generated by companies fall into one of three categories, 25% were ready to be contacted by a salesperson, 50% of the leads need more “nurturing”, and 25% were not really qualified to be leads.

We want to help you with nurturing your sales leads. Before you can sell your service or product to an organization you will need to educate your customers about what problems you solve, provide some specific information, solidify your reputation, give some specific answers and perhaps tell about a case study.

Direct mail is a great way to communicate some or all of this information because not only will you be guiding your prospects through a stepped process to get them ready for your sales staff, you are also putting something that can be touched and felt into their hands.