---
title: "Will Your Campaign Bring Tricks or Treats?"
id: "12838"
type: "post"
slug: "will-your-campaign-bring-tricks-or-treats"
published_at: "2011-11-01T16:19:46+00:00"
modified_at: "2023-06-20T11:59:05+00:00"
url: "https://kulapartners.com/will-your-campaign-bring-tricks-or-treats/"
markdown_url: "https://kulapartners.com/will-your-campaign-bring-tricks-or-treats.md"
excerpt: "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..."
taxonomy_category:
  - "Business Strategy"
taxonomy_post_tag:
  - "Articles & Guides"
---

Date: November 1, 2011

Author: Carman Pirie

Topics: [Business Strategy](https://kulapartners.com/resources/article-guides/business-strategy/)

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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.

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