Good morning and TGIF! Here’s what we’re serving up to close out the week:

• Psychology hacks that will make you a better marketer. Human nature is a powerful thing. We’ll walk you through four principles that you should capitalize on to make your message impossible to ignore.
  
  

• Why you should be sending lumpy mail. It’s got a funny name, but it works. We’ll explain what lumpy mail is and why you should consider it for your next marketing campaign.

Let’s dig into it…

🧠 Psychology hacks that will make you a better marketer

At the end of the day, business is about people. The more you understand people and what motivates them, the better you’ll be at marketing.

Here are 4 psychology principles that every marketer should be using.

1) Lean into laziness (Law of Least Effort)

The truth is, most people are lazy. We’re all busy with work, family, friends, hobbies, etc.

There are plenty of hard things in life outside of our control. So when we encounter something difficult that's within our control, we avoid it. It’s human nature.

People want the path of least resistance. As marketers, we need to know this and respect it.

If you want people to take action, you need to make it extremely easy for them. Reduce the friction as much as possible.

How to use it

This principle can be used on web forms. Which of these forms would prefer to fill out?

The shorter form is simple and low friction. The long form is complicated and takes time to complete.

The short form will be completed by more people — giving the marketing team an opportunity to send them additional content in the future. The longer form will be abandoned by a high percentage of site visitors. Meaning marketers miss out on a key conversion opportunity.

2) More isn’t always better (Paradox of Choice)

In 2000, two scientists published a pretty famous study. It went like this: they set up a sample table in a supermarket. On the table were 24 choices of jam. If a shopper sampled jam, they got a discount coupon for any of the spreads. On another day, they set up the sample table again, but this time there were only 6 jams to choose from.

More shoppers stopped for samples at the display with 24 jams. But here’s where it gets interesting. When it came time to buy, the booth with only 6 choices beat the bigger booth by a huge margin. 30% of shoppers bought jam from the small display, but only 3% bought from the large display.

AKA if you give people a lot of choices, they’re pretty bad at making decisions.

How to use it

For every piece of marketing content you create, offer the fewest number of options at the end. And usually, the right amount is just one.

3) Everyone’s a sore loser (Loss Aversion)

People hate to lose more than they like to win.

Let’s say you’re walking to the store. You look down and see a $100 bill on the sidewalk. You search for the owner, but can’t find them. So you decide to keep the money. Pretty awesome, right? You’re super excited about your good luck!

You make it to the store, do your shopping, and walk up to the cash register to pay. The cashier rings you up and you reach into your pocket for your crisp new $100 bill.

But, it’s gone! It fell out of your pocket when you were shopping. You feel really upset and disappointed about the lost $100.

Even though you have the same amount of money that you started with that morning, the loss feels like a huge blow.

In fact, according to studies, you feel the pain of a loss 2x more powerfully than you feel the joy of a gain.

Loss aversion is a very powerful psychological phenomenon. One that marketers can play on in creative ways to drive people to take action.

How to use it

Instead of showing prospects what they’ll gain from buying your product, show them what they will miss if they don’t buy.

4) You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours (Reciprocity)

When someone does you a favor, you feel obligated to do something for them in return. This applies to personal relationships and business relationships.

For marketers, this means you need to provide your prospects with a lot of value before expecting them to do something for you. Like say... buy your product.

How to use it

Kick off your customer journey with a free downloadable gift (also called a lead magnet). This could be a free ebook, guide, playbook, audit, tool, etc. The key is that it must provide real value to the prospect. If you can offer more than one lead magnet, even better!

If you provide enough value to your prospects over time, they’re likely to return the favor in the form of accepting a meeting or purchasing.

📰 In the news this week

💬  Chat GPT's API is finally here.

🎯 Unlock the full power of audience targeting.

🤖 Microsoft brings generative AI to CRM product suite.

📈  Meta shares emerging trends in their culture report.

⏰  Save 20 hours a week by removing these 4 useless things from your life.

📬 Why you should be sending lumpy mail  

I’m sure you’ve heard about direct mail marketing. But what about “lumpy mail” marketing?

Lumpy mail is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a mail piece that stands out from a normal flat letter or postcard because it has something inside that makes it, well… lumpy.

Most often this is a promo item like a pen or bottle opener. But the sky is the limit. As long as the object is 3D, it counts.

Lumpy mail performs better than flat mail

The average response rate for a direct mailer is 4.4%. Make it lumpy and the results get even better. When you put a 3D object in the envelope it outperforms standard flat mailers by 250%. While only increasing the cost per lead by 50%.

Why lumpy mail works

Think back to the last time you got your mail. We’d bet you sorted it into two piles.

Pile A: personal letters and things you want to open

Pile B: unopened mail you toss directly into the trash

Sending a mailer isn’t the cheapest marketing tactic. So if you’re a marketer leveraging direct mail, you’re heavily incentivized to make sure your envelope makes it into Pile A. Otherwise, it never even gets seen and you flushed a ton of money down the drain.

Lumpy mail gets you sorted into Pile A. When someone picks up a lumpy envelope, they can’t help but be curious about what’s inside. People don’t like to leave questions unanswered. It’s difficult to throw away the envelope without knowing what’s inside making it lumpy.

This curiosity is usually enough to get your mailer opened and seen.

😂 Marketing meme of the week

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