"Fidget Factor" And How It Factors In To Your Products' Presentation

"Fidget Factor" And How It Factors In To Your Products' Presentation

Throughout the years of my sales experience, I have observed a very common trait amongst prospects the need to touch, feel or handle what it is we're interested in. Whether it's a toy, a automobile, or the latest electronic gadgets, it isn't enough for us to just watch a demonstration or tv commercial. We have an unquenchable desire to wrap our 10 fingers around it and play with it, often testing its limitations. That is what I describe as the "Fidget Factor". This article will consider some of my personal observations as it relates to our desire to touch products before we approve of them and how we as marketers should carefully weigh how they are packaged or displayed.First, a trip back to my tradeshow days is in order, as that's when I first observed that although our products were displayed inside glass display cases, the show patrons invariably had a primal need to touch the product even though they knew it was behind the clear barrier. It was like watching confused monkeys in front of a pizza shop window spraining their hairy little fingers as they attempt to poke through the glass, clearly ignoring the physics of glass. On the hour, we brought out our bottle of window cleaning solution and shop rags in order to remove the myriad of finger smudges left behind. Because of this observation and despite the products costs, we removed the display cases and started using the cleaners on the products themselves and began to realize a higher rate of purchases.Experiments with taste and how it relates to our other senses have revealed amazing results such as a blindfolded participant's inability to distinguish an apple from an onion. Because the onion has similar shape, size, texture and crunchiness as an apple, those four factors override the taste difference when sight is removed. Our desire to reach through the glass to feel the product is much the same. It is our brain primarily Ignoring the barrier in quest of using the rest of our senses to say "hey, I like this thing". This is further evidenced by a my latest visit to our local print shop. As I waited in line, the woman in front of me was ordering business cards & was carefully considering the perfect paper stock. It wasn't good enough for her to simply pick a color or the thickness of paper. She had to feel each sample as if she was touching a new born baby's hair until she finally found just the right combination of attributes. Afterwards, I enquired as to what type of business she was in? She replied "I sell cosmetics". I asked her why she settled on that particular card stock? Her reply "It's soft, smooth & silky like my best selling body lotion and I want my customer to relate the two". She also relayed to me that she likes her customers to be reminded of her products whenever they find her card. She even goes as far as to sprays perfume on the cards too.Having been in the marketing profession now for over twelve years, I found the same to be true with promotional products. Even though we may have high-resolution pictures of our products on our website & in our presentations, there's no substitute for our clients than to actually hold the product in their hands and fidget with it. I may have showed the client pictures of the product on prior occasions, only to be met with an passionless response despite the perfect marketing theme or tie-in, but until they actually held the product, voila! It suddenly was not quite what they thought it was and began to feel right to them. We now provide sample items in all meetings and presentations and have measurable results from it. Applying touch to direct mail campaigns is also essential these days. The lumpy three dimensional mail approach or putting something odd shaped in your mailer is a very effective method to reaching the correct contact person or department. For many medium to large companies, the mail room is known to toss out more incoming mailers than what actually gets opened. With 3-d mail, it tends to make it through the maze to the target prospect more often. Once it arrives, the curiosity peaks when they first see the odd shaped package, but when they pick it up and begin to actually fondle it, they become like a kid at Christmas in anticipation of seeing what's inside! Once again, the desire to feel has overrode the other senses. More on this subject next time.

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