Brent Hodgson, Copywriter

Have you ever been into an ice-cream store, and seen only “Chocolate Ice Cream” available?

Never!

In fact, one multi-national ice creamery’s slogan is all about the choice of selection that they offer - “31 Flavors”.

But when you go to an ice-cream store, how long does it take you to choose the right ice cream?

“Do I want chocolate fudge plus mint in a waffle cone? Or do I want wildberry swirl and vanilla in a sugar cone?”

For marketers, this example tells us a lot about the value, and cost, of choice.

The Cost of Choice

Just like in the example of choosing the right ice-cream… The more choices you have, the harder it is to make a decision.

Let me give you an example of this.

Last night I went to dinner with a close friend, Eugene Ware.

In my pocket, I had three rolls of Lifesavers - Fruit Pastelles (sugar-coated jubes), Peppermint, and “5 Flavours”. I offered one of the packets to him after dinner.

Euge and I have practically been siamese twins since we began working together - I know all his bad habits, and he knows mine.

Fruit Pastelles are one of his favourite types of lollies… And when I offered them to him, I expected he’d reach straight for that packet.

But something unexpected happened…

He stopped.

He paused.

He thought about the decision.

The fact that he had to make a decision between three options made making a decision harder.

I handed him the packet of Fruit Pastelles, which he immediately accepted, and asked why he paused.

“I guess it was because I had to make a choice.”

“But the Fruit Pastelles are your favourite of the three, right?”

“Yeah… I would have chosen them. But psychologically, I must have had to weigh up the options.”

It’s the same at the ice cream counter - you have favourite ice creams that you’ll go back to every time… But it still takes a few minutes to come to that decision.

Generally, when you’re in a sales situation, you want people to make a decision to buy as quickly as possible.

Especially in internet marketing: It’s buy-or-die.

Either you get the reader’s attention, and get them to buy immediately - or you’ve lost that person forever.

Something that complicates the buying decision means you might lose the customer. Which is why copywriters tell you that you want to create a “slippery slope”.

So I wonder, does choice adversely affect conversions?

I’ve seen evidence for-and-against.

Let me show you the flip-side of the coin:

The Value of Choice

The positive side of choice is that it gives the customer more CONTROL.

They can choose HOW they want the product (payment terms, shipping terms, etc), or WHAT they want (vanilla or chocolate, standard or premium package, etc).

And as a result, they can have more OWNERSHIP over their decision, and generally more SATISFACTION.

Two jobs ago, before Alliance asked me to become a full-time Internet Marketing Consultant, I was working for a highly profitable online business where I co-managed (with Eugene) internet marketing.

(P.S. - It was SO much fun having complete control over creating kick-butt marketing, rather than being a consultant and only being able to “suggest” things… That’s where we did our “570,000 in Sales in 37 Minutes” launch. Doing crazy things like that is what I miss most now… but I digress)

Some of the products this online business would sell were reasonably high value.

Almost anything over a few hundred dollars would have a “choice” attached.

“Do you want to pay $X up-front, or would you like to pay $Y per month (a 10-30% premium, depending on the product).

We never split-tested this tactic.

However, the anecdotal evidence suggested we sold more products as a result of offering a choice of payment options.

That evidence was simply that we sold more of them after we began offering this installment-payment option.

I say it’s anecdotal, because it was likely affected by any number of other factors - such as changes in the general marketplace outside our control, growth in the size of the database we were promoting to, and more - so we didn’t actually have any hard “split testing” on whether choice of payment options improved conversion or not.

It’s something interesting that I’d like to test in-depth one day.

Have you tested “choice” as a conversion factor?

What choices did you give your customers? How successful was it for you?

Brent

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