Internet Marketing Strategies for Email Advertising – Avoiding Analysis Paralysis
Choices, choices, choices
We live in a world of choices, and choice is a good thing, right? It would stand to reason that offering your consumers a variety of choices would ensure more conversions are completed through your email advertising. In fact, research shows that consumers faced with too many options actually seem to freeze, like a deer caught in the headlights. That deer has literally hundreds of options but gets caught up in making the choice and can end up walking away because of it.
The term for this effect is analysis paralysis or in simpler terms – over-thinking. This can lead to frustration and lack of decision. American psychologist Barry Schwartz believes that while Americans are faced with such a large variety of choice each day, from cereal to TV shows that we do not seem to be benefiting from it psychologically, and consumers will walk away from sales propositions that offer them too difficult a choice to process.
Avoiding analysis paralysis in emails
What this means to your email advertising is simple – stick with keeping options presented to just a few choices. A product listed with just a few choices keeps it interesting, and too many will likely cause a consumer to freeze.
When it comes to asking users to make a choice or act (in regard to your call-to-action), present them with simple choices. You will almost always see an increase in conversions if you only offer 3 options instead of 4. Test out your CTAs using ActiveTrail’s AB split testing to see what the sweet spot is for your product or service.
Avoiding analysis paralysis in your email advertising landing pages
This works the same for the landing pages your email readers will click through on. ActiveTrail’s landing page creator will allow you to create an efficient landing page that keeps analysis paralysis to a minimum.
Limit the number of items in your categories – and your categories. Much like finding a niche market can increase your sales, so can limiting what you offer to a few quality products that you stand behind. We have all heard that a niche will do wonders for you, finding a market or specialty will help you be successful and this seems to be very true in business. Picking something to become an expert makes you much more credible in a consumer’s eyes so the handful of quality items and choice you offer will be of more value than say a big box store with millions of choices.
