Will Your Campaign Bring Tricks or Treats?
By Carman Pirie: Nov 01, 2011
Once a year, on October 31st, Canadians take a break from discussing the weather to ask each other how many trick-or-treaters each is expecting that evening. And a meeting I was in yesterday didn’t disappoint.
One person mentioned her house regularly “gets” 400+ trick-or-treaters while her neighbour only answers the door to 250 or so (a whopping 37.5% reduction, etc.). The meeting quickly concurred, with each attendee recounting their own similar experience of being on one side or the other of this neighbourly divide. The consensus explanation reached was simple: All other things being equal, the more stairs you have, the less trick-or-treaters you get.
Really? A set of stairs is going to keep a 10-yr old kid on a sugar high away from a fistfull of Wunderbars? While I’m not in a rush to testify to the statistical validity of this little non-experiment, I’ll admit I wouldn’t be surprised.
It has been my experience that it is really easy for marketers to underestimate the impact of introducing even the smallest barrier between someone and a desired action.
It means that one extra click people have to make might cost you more conversions than first thought. And getting people to enter a contest by submitting a video is tougher than you might think.
Every time you’re thinking through a new marketing initiative, campaign idea, or website, there are inevitably points along the way where you identify what you’re asking of the customer/prospect/visitor/user/etc. Making things easier can be a great place to start.
If you want me to participate, you gotta make it easy.
November 1, 2011
11:47 am
Oh, we are a lazy lot. I am trying to nominate someone for an award and there is no fax number on the form. Am I actually expected to put this in an envelope and mail it? In this day and age that seems like too much hassle. You must make it beyond easy if you are expecting people to respond and or take any action.
November 2, 2011
8:30 pm
We are just smarter! Time is precious and in these days of multi-tasking we seek the path of least resistance and look for opportunities to save time or we abort the mission! Good points Carman, I have to remember the next time I come up with a contest or marketing idea to ask myself first, would I do that as a consumer!?