500 survey responses on cliché marketing tactics 📊

Are cliché marketing tactics impactful?

We surveyed 500 consumers to find out. Our 7 key insights are below. The full survey is here.

1) 59% are open to slang, but don’t be cringe.

For youthful brands, slang is sometimes seen as a no-brainer… Should all brands try it?

Fact is, 41% of people don’t want corporate brands to try and be “lit”… yikes.

But, marketing is about connecting with an audience, so, if slang helps with 59%, why not?

Well, because it’s risky. Get it right, and your brand shines, get it wrong, and you’ll end up making your brand look like the “hey fellow kids” meme… which is old, and a big oof.

2) 82% trust testimonials more when not on your site.

Consumers don’t trust brands, they trust other consumers. 

And consumers don’t speak freely on your website, they speak freely on 3rd-party review sites (sometimes, anyway), online forums, and social media.

Don’t just paste testimonials to your brand’s site, get real conversations going and testimonials spread out across the web, where 82% of consumers are more likely to believe them.

3) “Sell the benefits, not the features!” – Not exactly…

Marketers have been trained for decades to sell with benefits rather than with features.

On the contrary, when asked about buying online, 62% of consumers said a “list of features” was very important, vs. 56% who said a “list of benefits” was very important.

Additionally, when compared in order of importance vs. eight other marketing elements, they were ranked #1 (list of features) and #3 (list of benefits).

See the details below.

Based on this data, listing out those features is absolutely essential, but backing them up with benefits is critical, too.

That’s why some marketers prefer to use “so what” bullets, in which you combine the feature and benefit in a single sentence. For instance, a camera company saying “250% greater resolution so you feel like you’re really there”. 

4) Product images are 47% more important than videos.

A picture is worth a thousand words, shouldn’t a video be a million?

60% of consumers said that high-quality pictures are very/extremely important when it comes to buying online. High-quality video, while more resource intensive to make, came in at just 41%.

While it may be great for telling a story in an ad, it may not be the most effective in every case.

Perhaps video gets a bad wrap because consumers don’t like to wait for a video to buffer and then adjust the sound… or maybe they’ve just seen too many poorly produced promotional product videos and have lost all interest. In any case, don’t cut corners on images.

5) Consumer trust has been burned too many times.

Consider these new survey findings:

  1. 28% don’t believe “only 3 left!” urgency-style marketing.
  2. People prefer calling your business 41% more than chatting with you online.
  3. Trust substantially outranks convenience and support.
  4. Consumers ranked “catchy headline” as last in the matrix above.

What does this mean for your business?

Well, it means your potential buyers are jaded. You’ll have to work extra hard to convince consumers to believe you and that takes us to our next insight.

6 ) “Refundable” is 86% more meaningful than top buzzwords.

In fact, our survey shows that the word “refundable” is 86% more impactful in swaying a purchase decision when compared to common buzzwords like “new, next-gen, or powerful”. 

This indicates two things. First, again, consumers don’t trust brands, and love a refund guarantee. Second, brands are using too much regurgitated marketing verbiage…

For instance:

  • “Next-gen”
  • “The future of [insert anything].
  • “New look, same great taste”
  • “5x as powerful”

All of these examples are common headline fallback words for when there isn’t something more unique to call out, and they are used constantly!

Meanwhile, consumers just told us that these words, when compared with the word “refundable” are half as impactful on their decision to purchase.

7) Features are 112% more important than your headline. 

Of 500 surveyed:

  • 147 said a “catchy headline” is very important.
  • 311 who said a “list of features” is very important.

So, why is the old marketing saying to “spend 80% of your time” on the headline? Well, the idea is that everyone will at least see the headline, so you should make it great.

Sure, it’s important, but is it drowning out other critical elements of persuasion?

This finding suggests highlighting your best feature directly in your headline, or decreasing the visual focus on your headline and playing up the list of features.

Get $1 survey insights from 250,000,000+ respondents.

Ready to give Pollfish a try?

Leveraging organic sampling and Random Device Engagement, the Pollfish platform provides random organic sampling to users across the globe in their natural online environments, staving off survey bias and providing the highest quality of survey data. 

As the leading DIY survey platform, you are in full control of your survey campaign — from targeting, to deployment method, to the questionnaire and how your post-survey data is presented.

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