Want Your Customers To Buy? Tell Them HowHave you ever created what seemed like a very convincing piece of content…chock full of emotion, urgency, scarcity, authority, and as many other psychological triggers as you could cram in there…

Yet somehow you ended up shaking your head at the results?

Think back: Did you tell the prospect exactly what to do? I mean, exactly?

It’s a classic oversight: Most ads tell people to buy something, but they don’t go into explicit detail about how to do it. They may say, “Purchase this product by going to xyz-dot-com”, but fail to say something more explanatory, like “Purchase this product by going to xyz-dot-com and clicking the orange ‘Buy Now’ button at the bottom of the page.”

Given that most of us have the “curse of knowledge” (a term borrowed from the Heath brothers and their awesome book, Made To Stick) about our own products and services, it’s easy to mistakenly assume that prospects know more than they actually do about how to get their hands on our awesome offerings. This leads to confusion, and as the saying goes, “the confused mind doesn’t buy.”

The proof of this comes from a fascinating study by Howard Leventhal, in which two different pamphlets were handed out describing the importance of getting vaccinated against tetanus. One contained detailed information on where to get vaccinated, while the other one left that out.

Guess what? 25% more people followed through with getting vaccinated when they were told where to go. Remember this the next time you craft your call to action, and your conversion rate can get a similar boost.