Beauty is the promise of happiness. ~Stendhal
It’s all about the rate ~ old mortgage adage
A South African bank mailed out offers to 50,000 customers, with different loan rates and alternating photos of men and women. You would think the loan offers with the lower rates and better terms would get the most response, regardless of whose mug was on the mailer. Think again.
The results? The mailers with a woman’s face got a higher response rate. Not only that, but the woman’s photo on a loan offer was equivalent to almost a 5% difference in the loan interest rate.
For the male customers, replacing the photo of a male with a photo of female on the offer letter statistically significantly increases takeup; the effect is about as much as dropping the interest rate 4.5 percentage points… For female customers, we find no statistically significant patterns.
Overall, these results suggest a very powerful effect on male customers of seeing a female photo on the offer letter. Standard errors however do not allow us to isolate one specific mechanism for this effect. The effect on male customers may be due to either the positive impact of a female photo or the negative impact of a male photo.
One might see this as further confirmation that Sex sells. There may be more to this than meets the eye.
In a BankWest promotion for new savings accounts, the bank tested two versions of an online ad. In one version, the ad led by introducing a high interest rate. In the other version, it led with a photo. The ad leading with the photo generated three times as many deposits as the ad leading with the rate.
Apparently, a photo may, in fact, establish a personal connection with the recipient.
In a recent study of radiologists, files containing the photos of patients resulted in radiologists providing “longer and more meticulous reports”. As one doctor said, “When there is a picture, your attitude and approach changes — the human aspect is inserted.”
Perhaps those marketing gurus who knock real estate agents for marketing with their photos may be blind to the power of the image. So go ahead and sell with a smile.
Note on Post Image:
According to the findings of a 2006 paper, “Heat of the Moment: The Effect of Sexual Arousal on Sexual Decision Making“, George Loewenstein of Carnegie Mellon University and Dan Ariely of MIT, found that sexually aroused men have impaired judgment and would do all sorts of things they might not otherwise do, like read a blog post.
Sources and Further Reading:
Neuromarketing Blog (image credit, as well)
Related Posts:
Do Sexy Brokers Have an Advantage?
Can Images Enhance Blog Posts?
10 Marketing Tips You Can Learn From a Prostitute
Technorati Tags: marketing, real estate marketing
