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Numbers in Marketing:
Reflections on the Quarter Pounder
 Numbers. We solopreneurs use them all the time in our marketing.
"I've been helping small business owners reach their personal and professional goals for 26 years."
-"I can train you in setting up your new accounting software in about 30 minutes."
"With EasyMeals, you'll get three delicious low-calorie gourmet meals- a breakfast, lunch, and dinner- delivered to your doorstep for about fifteen bucks."
But the way we use numbers in a marketing piece can impact how our prospective customers think and react to our sales messages. The legendary Herschell Gordon Lewis is one of the most accomplished and admired direct response copywriters in the United States. I had the privilege of sitting in on one of his presentations at the American Writers and Artists Institute Fast Track to Success conference last October in Delray Beach, Florida, where he gave us his take on the power of numbers in marketing. I leave you today with three of his sage tips:
1. When bigger is better, express the number in the largest unit possible, even if the number that precedes it will be smaller. To illustrate this, Lewis turned to his audience and said, "What if McDonalds had called the Quarter Pounder the 4-Ouncer?" Of course he got us thinking about how much smaller it would seem.
Let's take my first example from above:
"I've been helping small business owners reach their personal and professional goals for 26 years."
Taking Lewis's advice, a rewrite would give us:
"I've been helping small business owners reach their personal and professional goals for over a quarter of a century."
One small change and the business seems more established.
2. Avoid multiples of five when talking about time, cost, or distance. Lewis calls this the 'Avoid Five' rule. After all, anyone can just round up a number: ten, fifteen, twenty. People expect that. But your sales copy will be more believable if you give your reader a precise number.
Remember my second example?:
"I can train you in setting up your new accounting software in about 30 minutes."
Rewritten:
"Just give me 28 minutes and I'll train you in setting up your new accounting software."
And the third:
"With EasyMeals, you'll get three delicious low-calorie gourmet meals- a breakfast, lunch, and dinner- delivered to your doorstep for about fifteen bucks."
The rewrite:
"For just under sixteen dollars, EasyMeals will deliver three delicious, low-cost gourmet meals-a breakfast, lunch, and dinner- right to your doorstep."
3. Use numbers in your favor. To see this strategy in action, read an ad from Harry and Davids. About their Royal Riviera pears, they once said, "Not one person in a thousand has ever tasted them." They took their rather small sales (at the time) and turned it around so customers would view their product as a scarce commodity-highly prized, extremely rare, one of life's luxuries.
To make your marketing and sales pieces more persuasive, try some of these strategies when expressing numbers.
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