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Leverage the Power of Verbs to Boost Your Sales
In 1974, psychologists Elizabeth Loftus and John Palmer showed test subjects seven 5-30 second video clips of car accidents. Every subject saw the same clips.
After viewing the videos, the subjects were given questions about the accidents and were asked to write down their answers.
The twist was that they were given different questions.
The critical questions were:
- About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?
- About how fast were the cars going when they smashed each other?
- About how fast were the cars going when they collided with each other?
- About how fast were the cars going when they bumped into each other?
- About how fast were the cars going when they contacted with each other?
The time taken to conduct the experiment was about one and a half hour.
The results? The highest speed estimates — 40.8 miles per hour on average — were provided by those asked how fast the cars were going when they smashed into each other.
The lowest speed estimates — 31.8 miles per hour on average — were provided by those asked how fast the cars were going when they contacted each other.
A slight change in verbs resulted in a 22.1% difference in recall.
Table: Speed Estimates From Various Verbs
| Verb | Mean speed estimate (mph) |
| Smashed | 40.8 |
| Collided | 39.3 |
| Bumped | 38.1 |
| Hit | 34.0 |
| Contacted | 31.8 |
Are you connecting the dots that this has profound and far-reaching implications for advertising and marketing?
For example, consider which of the following article headlines would impact you more and make you more likely to read the article:
- The ADHD Answers You’re Looking For
- Solve ADHD With These Safe Treatments
- Find the Right Hiking Trail for You
- Discover the Right Hiking Trail for You
- Make More Sales With These Email Marketing Tips
- Multiply Your Sales With These Email Marketing Tips
- Get a Better Memory With These Exercises
- Strengthen Your Memory With These Exercises
Are you leveraging the power of verbs in your marketing messages?
*****************************
Stephen Palmer is a marketing consultant and persuasive writer with KGaps Consulting, a co-founder of The Center for Social Leadership, and the New York Times best-selling co-author of Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths that are Destroying Your Prosperity.
He is a liberal-arts graduate of George Wythe University and a graduate of the “non-traditional business school” Wizard Academy.
Stephen resides in Round Rock, Texas with his gorgeous wife Karina, awesome son Alex, and princess daughters Libby, Avery, and Laela. Stephen and Karina blog about their magical life on Palmer Journeys.
Connect With Stephen:
Email: spalmer [at] kgaps [dot] com
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