Law of Limited Choice - Persuasion Strategies - Pt. 3

We live in a society where the choices seem to be unlimited. But when it comes to persuasion and having your prospects make a choice, it's often a better strategy to offer a limited choice.

Ever browse the supermarket aisle in search of a new product? When confronted with the choices, it can be daunting: Small, medium and large; no fat, low fat and regular fat; low sodium, regular sodium; flavored, unflavored... the list goes on.

The fact is, that when faced with an abundance of choices, we are actually less likely to make any choice at all. We get stuck in "paralysis by analysis." This is why it's so much easier to shop after we've chosen the brands and products we like; then we just pick those same ones every time without thinking.

If we can make the choices simpler for our customers and clients, we'll usually get a better overall response to our marketing. Let's look at a place where we're asking our prospects to choose - on our web sites.

How to Limit the Choices on a Web Site

If you look at your web site through the law of limited choice, you'll start to notice how a visitor confronts choice when browsing your site. This is especially true for someone coming to your site for the first time when they are not familiar with it.

Remember, you don't just want someone to visit your site and then leave. You want them to DO something. Ideally you want them to make the choice and take the action of giving you their name and email address. Nothing is more important, as it's the follow-up emails that build relationships and make sales, not the initial visit.

The limited choice you want to give is, "Visit this page to get a free article or report and in the process, sign up for my eZine."

That should be the very first link a visitor encounters on your site.

How many links do you have on your home page? It's not unusual to have half a dozen or more. And just like making a choice in the supermarket, your visitor becomes intimidated. "Where should I go first? I don't want to waste my time or make a mistake." The feelings of frustration and confusion grow.

And then your visitor clicks off your site, thinking, "Maybe I'll come back later when I have more time." But they rarely do. So by offering too many choices of where to go, you've lost a potential client - perhaps forever.

If you narrow your choices down to one or two, the first one being to get some valuable free information, a much larger percentage of visitors will click on that link. Then when they get to your "Free Stuff" page what do they see?

It's not unusual that they'll encounter a long list, from articles and reports to audio recordings and videos. Again, it's confusing. There's too much choice, and overwhelm is triggered. "What should I get first? I don't have that much time!"

On your "Free Stuff" page you need to narrow things down just like you did on your home page. Offer one (or at the most two) valuable things that they can get right now in exchange for their name and email address.

This is the "most wanted response" on your web site. To expect someone to buy something on a first visit is simply unrealistic (not to say that it never happens). But by giving them one simple choice for some valuable free information, a relatively high percentage of visitors will respond to your offer.

Examine the Choices You Offer

Where else do you give too many choices to your prospects? Where could you narrow down the choices? Here are a few that I've noticed in working with clients over the years.

1. Speaking Engagements - Giving several topics for talks when you approach an organization. Just give one. It makes the job easier for the program director. Also go into more depth about the topic and it will be much more persuasive than a list of several topics with brief descriptions.

2. Choice of Services - It's not unusual for Independent Professionals to list half a dozen or more services on their web sites - each with a brief outline about each service. As with the list of speaking topics, make the list shorter and go into much more depth about each of the services.

3. Options for Meetings - When we encounter a prospect who shows interest in our services, we are sometimes too eager to say we are "open anytime" in the hope of making an appointment. This not only smacks of desperation, if makes the choice hard for the prospect. Instead, offer just two available times. It makes the choice much easier.

Take a look at your marketing and where you are asking your prospects or clients to make a choice. Are you making it too complex, confusing, or difficult with too many options? How could you make it simpler and easier with fewer choices? Think, "Simplicity of choices equals better persuasion."

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The More Clients Bottom Line: Carefully think through the choices you offer to your prospects. Give them one to three choices, not five, six, or more. Make it simple for them to choose and they will actually take action instead of delaying action or never acting.

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Where could you simplify the choices you ask your clients to make? Please share on the More Clients Blog.

Comments

[Ray Pryor]

Hey Robert, great advice here. As a web developer-turned-photographer, I live by the information design rule that people can only process 5 things at time. Anything above that and the "overwhelmness" sets in. I'd advice your readers to limit the number of sections on their web site to no more than 5; five + a contact link at the most. I've seen a lot of sites, some that even use your WebToolkit, that have a huge laundry list of section choices. As your article demonstrates, if we keep the choices simple, we'll get a much greater response. As always, good stuff Robert!

- Ray Pryor
Emotia - Wedding Pictures That Move

[Therese Skelly]

Hey Robert,
Great reminders. Thanks for your article.

When I work with clients, one of the places I see where they offer too many choices is in their chosen (or NOT chose) niche. Too many business owners want to work with 'everyone' who needs their service. I always say that you can serve multiple groups of people, but you can't market to them in the same website/marketing materials.
Forcing clients to narrow their niche has been a great way for them to begin to see better results.

Keep up the great work.

Therese Skelly
Small Business Owner's Success Coach
www.acceleratingyoursuccess.com

[Hazel Wagner]

Robert.
Thank you for all the wonderful short articles in your ezine.

This one especially hit home since I've been building one of my web sites, brainstorming-that-works.com, to be so full of great information that it probably is giving too many choices. I don't get the number of sign-ups for my ezine that I thought considering the 1000's who visit my site.

[Grace Chatting]

Thanks again Robert.
This is so helpful. I have so many interests and ideas, I want to write about them all and of course this can become unfocused. I am in the process of setting up a new website so I shall adopt the Law of Limited Choice.
Grace Chatting