The Swiss army knife is not a tool. It may be a handy all-purpose implement, attractive to boys everywhere, but it has too many options packed into a small space to be a serious tool.
Marketers know this, but continue to pile features onto their products, and wonder why their multi-functional innovation fails to excite anyone.
In 2007, some academics figured out why. Zhang, Fishbach, & Kruglanski published a paper with the usual long academic name that clearly demonstrated the truth of the cliche ‘less is more’.
Across a series of experiments, now repeated by others, they demonstrated that as the number of promised goals increased, people judged the activity as less effective at achieving each individual goal.
For example: People see weight training in the gym as a way to build muscle. If you add losing weight, improving general health, and meeting new people as benefits, the exercise suddenly appears less effective at building muscle. This is irrespective of the value of weight training in that primary objective of building muscle.
The exercise has not changed, but the number of claims has.
Each additional benefit weakens the mental link between the solution and the outcome occupying the buyer’s attention.
That is the dilution effect. Buyers do not add benefits together, each added claim dilutes the power of the original.
To the inexperienced marketer, it seems that if one benefit creates some value, several more must create greater value. However, do additional stated benefits do not add to the value, instead they divide their benefits between them.
A former client is a lawyer. When I met him he was sitting in his suburban office, alone, with very few clients. His website and marketing collateral highlighted advanced skills and experience in estate planning where there was considerable financial and familial complexity, gained in 25 years with a major law firm. His various communications also noted extensive experience in commercial and criminal law, and that his rates were set to attract the local businesses as clients, saving them money on matters usually sent to big law firms.
It became clear that he was seen by those he was trying to attract as a jack of all trades, but master of none. As a result he attracted people who needed representation in low risk areas like minor driving offenses.
Those who would have benefited from his estate planning expertise wanted a specialist, not a generalist which is how he was seen, despite the demonstrated expertise.
It is the same in every field. The claimed extra expertise dilutes the impact of a specialist in one field. An electrician who sets up as a building maintenance man might get jobs cleaning gutters, fixing a hole in the gyprock, or cleaning out the back yard, but you would not hire him to rewire the house. ,
The problem does not lie in having several capabilities, it lies in shouting about all of them at once. Our attention is divided, so we see only one thing at a time. This is best illustrated by the famous ‘gorilla’ experiment.
This all feeds into the obvious conclusion that to sell, start with the problem your product solves for the person with that problem.
How many times has a salesperson trying to engage with you has recited the ‘about us’ page from their website? Nobody really cares when they have a problem, that your company was started by your great uncle in 1949 after he returned from the war. Talking through what the company does, describing the product, and listing the features hoping they snag you somehow does not work.
It is backwards.
Instead, ask a few questions: What changed? Why does the problem matter now? What outcome matters most? What happens if you do nothing? What would a good result look like?
These questions reveal and magnify the value of the outcome being sought. .
Once you identify that key outcome, it can be connected to the most relevant solution to their specific problem you deliver.
When you have a range of features, make the ones that do not directly solve the problem secondary. They may be useful later, but in an initial transaction, they just cloud the vision of the potential customer, diminishing the impact your primary benefit will deliver.
It says almost nothing because it tries to include everything.
A strong message forces a choice, which once made, is a powerful driver of executing a transaction.
Generative AI should help us simplify communication, but usually it does the opposite.
These systems learn through human examples, feedback and reward signals designed to make their answers useful and satisfying. They set out to please the marketer rather than addressing the solution to a specific problem a specific customer might have.
Make your communication clear, simple, and directed towards action.
The phrase “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” is often attributed to both Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs. Irrespective of who said it first, it remains a foundation for action.
Do not reduce the value you create, reduce the number of things competing for attention.
It came from me thinking about the dilemma we have had choosing between acoustic and temperature control in our marketing collateral.
it has troubled me, leading to how to make the choice.
In the research/thinking, I stumbled across the research in the post.
The conversation this morning was coincidental.
How incredibly relevant to our chat this morning – nice one Allen