No Choice or a Handful of Choices?

As we’ve discussed, choice can be a great thing. It empowers people with the sense that they can select the best option for themselves. It can also be a bad thing when people are presented with too many options and decide not to buy. We know that most of the research in which choice proved to be a good thing used six of fewer choices. But should you offer no choice and just one option, or a few, or six? Let’s explore the factors to consider.

One versus several

Kathleen, the speaker described at the beginning of this chapter, provided three choices in her call to action. I said that was too many, whereas I provided examples of a professional’s program offerings with three or more options. I offer six coaching programs myself. Why?

Well, first of all, Kathleen was offering a “call to action.” This is different than offering different programs. Here are some examples of a call to action:

• The one thing that you want people to do when they visit your Web site (for example, sign up for your mailing list).

• The one thing that you want people to do after they hear you speak.

• The one thing that you want people to do when they view your new video.

• The one thing that you want people to do when they read your article.

See what’s the same about all of these: “the one thing” you want someone to do. When your goal is to influence someone to do something right away, it is ideal to not include a choice. Imagine that I said to my son, “Can you go get me my cell phone or go get me the dog’s leash or go get your jacket?” He would just stand there and look at me. If I were calling him to action right in that moment, I would want to focus on just one thing—the cell phone or the dog leash or the jacket. So, if you’re motivating someone to do one thing at the moment, it is best to go with one call to action.

Seconds versus minutes

Another factor to consider is how long someone has to make a decision or take action. If someone visits your Web site, you have very little time to incite them to take action before they leave your site. If someone sees a post on your Facebook wall, you have very little time for them to think of a response to post on your wall before they move on to something else. If, however, someone is meeting with you in your office or talking with you by phone and you’re going over your program options with them, you have more time. Time is closely connected to guidance. If they are on their own, they are likely to be faster and rush to a decision than if they are interacting with you directly.

Obvious versus unclear differences

If the differences between options are unclear, even two options can be too many. The other day I received a piece of marketing from two local real estate agents. It was a pretty good piece of marketing because they added value, as we discussed in Chapter 7, by providing the prices for which houses in my neighborhood recently sold along with information about the trends in mortgages and home sales in my area. Even though I wasn’t ready to sell my house, their marketing was interesting to me, and I would remain open to future materials from them.

The mistake they made: the flyer came from two agents. I didn’t know if they were partners or how it worked. They had different cell phone numbers. If I wanted to call, I wouldn’t know who to call. The flyer coming from two people prevented the dialogue-based communication style I recommend, in which it feels like someone is speaking directly with you. In this case, I didn’t know who I was speaking with. (They also failed to use “I” or “we,” which limited the personal connection.) If someone can’t discern between two people, in a situation like this, she will usually choose either the first or the one who is most similar to herself. When people must make a choice between two similar options, they may choose none at all. If the differences between choices are hard to detect and are not obvious, include fewer or no choices.

When the choices are among related but different categories, it is fine to have more choices as well. For example, my Web design company, One Lily, has a beautiful services page that clearly features the services: logo design, Web design, blog design, marketing materials, Web maintenance, domain registration. Most people know whether they are looking for a logo versus a Web site, for example, so having several types of services is no problem. Part of the reason that the six service offerings work so well is because of how nicely they are presented visually, which leads to the next point. …

Verbal versus visual

Another consideration is whether you will present your information verbally or visually and if it’s something that people will have to refer to later. People differ in the ways in which they process information—some people do well with hearing and remembering information whereas others do better with information in writing. The more choices people need to compare, the more they will need to see the options in writing. It is still a good idea to keep the choices limited, but you can include more when you present them through writing or pictures (visual) rather than just saying them (verbal).

The choices need to clearly stand out from each other as well as from additional information (such as a description for each choice). The challenge is to do this artfully without everything becoming too busy. I typically recommend varying one aspect, such as the color for each option. There can be a different logo for each option if you’re able to achieve this with brand consistency and without getting too busy. Remember the apples to oranges idea. If I handed you six Red Delicious apples and asked which you wanted, you might have a hard time selecting. If, however, I handed you a Red Delicious apple, a Granny Smith apple, an orange, a banana, and a kiwi, you’d have an easier time selecting. You know what you want and could quickly recognize it. This goes along with the previous point about differences as well—if the items are very different, you may even be able to get away with saying rather than showing the options. If I asked you if you want an apple, pear, orange, banana, or kiwi, you could probably make a choice fairly quickly even without seeing them (and five is a lot of options to choose from). These fruits are all quite simple in appearance—that is how you would want your different visual elements to be as well: different from each other in a simple way.