Be Smart With Your Information: How To Position Your Brand For More Sales By Sharing Less

In this Information age, customers have immeasurable authority over brands, and they use it to make more informed purchasing decisions. Awesome for them. But as a small business owner in Nevada, this may have you acting ultra-protective over your secret sauce — the brand strategy and key information that sets you apart from your competition.

Or maybe you have the opposite problem. You enjoy talking with your customers and sometimes you hop on the TMI train while it’s going full speed, leaving your customers bewildered and overwhelmed.

While withholding information from your audience is one of many ways to put the ball back in your brand’s court, things can get sticky if you withhold the wrong information.

Your audience’s trust is one of the most valuable gifts you can attain. Use these three marketing strategies to increase sales through ethical limitation.

 

The Brand Strategy: How to Keep Your Cards Close To Your Chest Without Losing Customer Trust

1. Reduce Options

We often associate unlimited options with ultimate freedom, but after spending 5 minutes in the pasta sauce aisle of the grocery store, you will find that too many options can make your brain hurt and turn your decision-making capabilities into total mush.

The paradox of choice has shown that too many options become overwhelming to the customer. Apply this to your business, and you will find the less thinking your customers have to do, the more brain power they will have to enthusiastically purchase your products.

Withholding in the form of limited options can actually be a smart marketing move. Whether you’re looking to increase sales on subscriptions or certain flavors of a product, keep things simple for your clients and stick with the sweet spot at around 3-5 options.

 

2. Make Limitations Based on Brand Values

What do Chick-fil-A and In-n-Out have in common? If you guessed, “Two hyphens in their name. Next.” Swell job, but the answer we were looking for is limitations based on brand values. Yes, the fast food chains share an intuition for successful brand strategies that are counterintuitive and ingenious.

Tell Us More!

OK, In-n-Out has been serving the same 6 menu items since 1945 (unless you count the secret menu, but that’s yet another great example of brand exclusivity … we’ll talk about that more in another post). Limiting their menu to simple variations of the classic burger, fries, and milkshake allows them to stay aligned with the simple, 50s-style burger joint vibe of their brand while also keeping customers happy with the consistency.

Chick-fil-A keeps rolling out new menu items, but they are closed on Sundays. While this may seem like a bonehead move that could cost the chain at least $1 billion per year. When you look at the numbers it all makes sense. In 2017 Chick-fil-A as a whole ranked number 8 in most successful fast food chains, but individual Chick-fil-A stores each make an average of $4 million annually, putting Chick-fil-A at number 1 for individual store revenue.  

And all this despite being closed on Sundays? You betcha. Chick-fil-A can attribute their success to extreme customer loyalty.

 

3. Withhold Favorable Information Until Later in the Choice Process

Consumers make choices in two stages: First, they consider their alternatives. Then, once they weed out the definite No’s, they evaluate the Maybes.

Science tells us there is a way to take advantage of this process.    

If you withhold favorable information until after consumers have presumably considered other options — say, after their first view of a product page — then the user is more likely to purchase the product when you display favorable information during the user’s second or even third interaction with the product.

That means the second touch point is crucial to the sale. Examples of second touch points include email, social media ads, and Google ads.

Think about all those reach out emails and advertisements that follow you around the web after checking out a pair of shoes online. The emails almost certainly told you more about the product’s benefits. The ads almost certainly told you how many pairs were still in stock in your size. This strategy is at play.

Next time you’re looking for a way to reach more customers and increase conversions, consider the ways you may be giving your audience too much too soon.

Looking to revamp your brand marketing strategy for 2019? Beer helps. Get in touch to see if we’re a match.