What do you think about, um, how you feel?
On phrasing personal opinions in high-stakes situations. Like selling energy drinks. Okay, I mean, maybe "high stakes" isn't entirely accurate...
An old adage in copywriting is that nothing sells as well as a demo. No optimized headline. No irresistible offer. Nothing sells as well as a demo.
But even demos don’t have 100% conversion rates.
And that’s not just because of the salesperson doing the horrible, amateurish demo.
What’s going on is - wait for it - people. As in, the people on the other side of the demo. If you’ve been studying people and how to market to them for a while, you know that people-as-consumers get categorized and sub-categorized all the time. For example, the four common user modalities in UX research are:
Spontaneous
Competitive
Humanistic
Methodical
Another way to categorize people is whether they are
Cognitive-oriented or
Affective-oriented.
If you’re cognitive-oriented, you say things like, “I think you’re running too fast.” If you’re affective-oriented, you say, “I feel like you’re running too fast.” Now that doesn’t mean that you ALWAYS say “think” instead of “feel” or vice versa; rather, it just means that you have a tendency to say one more often than the other, and this is determined in-study or, y’know, in a test like this (I’m an INFJ-A, btw).
So there was this study in 2008 where researchers were trying to ascertain how to sell to individuals that are cognitive-oriented vs affective-oriented. Specifically, they were selling a new sports drink, called Power-Plus. What they found was this:
Cognitive-oriented consumers needed only a list of the positive attributes of Power-Plus to be persuaded. But affective-oriented consumers needed that list PLUS the ability to actually drink the drink - as in, they needed a demonstration and/or sample.
Now here comes the interesting and, yup, potentially contentious part.
Caveat: I believe gender is a spectrum. Don’t overthink this, please. Just know that going into what follows here…
Generally we like to generalize that women are more affective-oriented and men are more cognitive-oriented. But we also know that men and women alike respond to demos and samples, so we must believe that men and women are equally likely to be affective-oriented, if the previously mentioned study is valid. (And the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin of 2010 holds that it is.)
However…
When it comes to the actual use of the words “think” and “feel”…
Women respond more to “feel” arguments, and men respond more to “think” arguments. In their 2010 study, researchers Mayer and Tormala tested for a gender differential. They shared critical reviews for a fake movie with a group that was nearly 50/50 male/female participants, and they found this:
Men were more persuaded when the critic used "I think . . . " whereas women were more persuaded when the critic used "I feel . . ."
There are caveats and considerations, of course.
But for now:
If you want to persuade an audience of women, consider:
Using the word “feel” in phrasing your argument and,
Adding in a demo or sample.
~jo :)
PS: As always, please note that this edition of Money Words is based on reading I’m currently doing on word choice in consumer decision-making. Everything here is accurate to date; however, I could read another study next week that sheds new light or adds different context, and that may lead to different recommendations on money words. So stay tuned. Keep reading. And thanks for your support.
Also: Happy New Year.