Your Customers are Irrational. Are You?

Learning the Art of Predictable Irrationality

A few weeks ago I completed the web copy for the re-design of MicroConnex’s website (they make Flex Circuits). Today I learned that a few of the people on their management team were freaking out (in a positive way).

It seems that the combination of the new copy and the SEO tweaks I made had the effect they wanted, but not exactly in the manner they expected. This happens a lot…

They’re a technology company made up of engineers from the President on down. They expect that people will always behave rationally and logically, which is rarely (if ever) the case. Their customers – and your customers – will act in seemingly irrational ways whether you like it or not. It’s simply our nature to act on the basis of emotional impulses and justify our choices later with supposedly rational conclusions.

Here’s what happened and why…

I’d intentionally done some tweaks to the copy and SEO to promote capabilities that were hidden in their previous website. While these aren’t their core competencies, they are things the company does exceptionally well.

The site leapt from nowhere to the top five in Google for two of these keyword phrases. Within days they received calls from people who wanted those specific capabilities and didn’t give a hoot for what my client knew to be their core capability.

See, it really wasn’t the “technology” itself that got the attention of their new customers. And, it had little to do with whether or not other companies provided the same capabilities. I’d phrased it in a way that gave the reader an impression of uniqueness.

My client wondered why people were suddenly demanding a service that to them was secondary and relatively unexciting. All I did was give the website visitor an intriguing call to action. Instead of saying, ”Call us”, I said:

”Challenge Our Team…”

The combination of a few SEO tweaks and a bit of unconventional (and unexpected) copy created an emotional response in the website visitor. He no longer acted “rationally” with a handful of technical specifications. He acted “irrationally” on the basis of the “Challenge.”

Maybe You Should Act a Bit Irrational, Too

Now, my client has seen the light. They are beginning to think more irrationally, which will help their marketing efforts considerably.

For example, I just learned today that they do something fairly commonplace called ”button plating”.

After discussing this internally, they realized that they’ve improved on the standard processes. So, rather than saying, ”We do button plating better than anyone else” (boring and unconvincing), they’re going to claim that they do ”Micro Barrel Plating”.

Any engineer familiar with button plating will be immediately emotionally aroused at the possibility of learning something new and different. “Better” is no longer enough to get people excited. However, “Completely New and Different” will get their knickers all twisted up.

The Point

It’s not really “thinking outside the box” that’s going to win you friends and influence customers anymore. You need to get irrational. Throw the box away and become just as irrational as your prospects and customers. Push the edge. Trust me… you’ll love the results.