I bought some new socks recently. Very exciting, I know. But one thing struck me as odd when I picked them out in the store. Every package of men’s socks was marked “Sizes 6-12”. In other words, the product is one size fits all. Yet the lack of that phrasing and the emphasis on the numbering made me spend extra time investigating the options before I finally made a purchase.

Why the delay at the point of decision? My guess is that the numeric range on the package made me think that there must be bigger or smaller socks available as well. I wear a size 10 or 11, so the 6-12 range made me a bit concerned that the socks would be too small. I still completed the transaction, but I suspect this unnecessary focus on the size range tends to distract customers and reduce the percentage of people who actually buy the product.

So if you’re selling a product that only comes in a single size, the packaging should emphasize the phrase “One size fits all” or something similar. And when there’s a corresponding size range, make that info considerably smaller. That way, you’ll save customers the time they would otherwise spend looking for different sizes, while giving them added confidence that your product will meet their needs.

Last week, I needed to ask one of our current vendors for a quote. So I contacted the sales rep who helped us set up the account in the first place, and explained that we were considering an expansion of our service level with them. The rep was quite responsive, but then came the letdown: our account was “too small” to qualify for a dedicated sales rep. The company’s policies prohibited the existing rep from helping me, so the request had to be sent to another department.

I could focus on several problems with this scenario, but I’ll limit my commentary to the small versus big issue. In short, you should never tell a customer they’re too small to warrant a given level of service — especially if you provided them with that level of attention in the past. Instead, align your story with their business needs. For instance, my sales rep could have said that their department isn’t familiar with the current specials and promotions that would apply to an account of our size. And if there isn’t any real alignment between your customer segments and the staff that serve them, perhaps it’s time to re-examine how you’re segmenting your customers in the first place.

While I was at the grocery store last weekend, I noticed several new wines featured on an endcap. One in particular had an attractive label design and a price tag in the $9 range, so I figured it was something decent like a cabernet or malbec. Upon closer inspection, though, all I could find was the phrase “red wine”. Apparently, the manufacturer felt that was all the detail they needed.

I totally understand the push towards simplicity in product design and marketing. After all, maybe the target audience for the wine I saw consists primarily of novice buyers. Perhaps these people start by deciding if they want a red or white wine, and then they choose the particular wine based on who has the prettiest label.

There are several problems with this approach from a merchandising perspective. To see the issues, let’s consider two groups of buyers. The first group doesn’t know a merlot from a malbec from a cabernet. For them, saying the wine is red should be enough, and they’ll likely ignore any extra details about the exact varietal. Next, think about the savvier buyer. This group won’t even consider a wine unless there’s some info on the varietal right on the label. Fail to provide this detail, and you’ve lost their attention and spending power.

If we assume that most buyers fit into one of these two groups, the only logical approach is to always include the specific varietal on the label. Sure, you can still call it a “red table wine” or whatever suits your marketing strategy. But don’t forget to provide the added detail of whether it’s a cabernet or malbec or carmenere or what have you, perhaps in smaller text. Novice buyers will ignore the extra info, but it will make a world of difference for those who know what they’re looking for.

I once heard that adding bright lights to an area results in a significant reduction in crime. Simply put, criminals don’t like hanging out in the spotlight, even if nobody seems to be watching. Yet it seems like cities are much more interested in putting up surveillance cameras. Is this really the best approach?

Here’s a scenario to think about. In order for a surveillance camera to capture good footage, it needs sufficient lighting. So it follows that when cities put up security cameras, they also upgrade the lighting in the area. What if the additional lighting is the main factor discouraging crime, and the security cameras are just tagging along for the ride?

This is a classic case of correlation versus causation. Blanketing a city in surveillance cameras might be correlated with reduced crime rates, when it’s actually the corresponding streetlight upgrades that are responsible for deterring crime. Granted, I don’t know whether the actual data supports or refutes this theory. But when you hear about crimes being committed right next to a security camera, it certainly makes you wonder if that money would be better spent on fewer cameras, and a whole lot more lights.

If you’ve ever scrutinized a food package in the US, you may have noticed that weight measurements are typically stated in both ounces and grams. Since the US is one of the few places that doesn’t use the metric system, it makes sense to provide both units of measure. But when I was in Canada a few weeks back, I noticed that their products are labeled in metric only.

Given the number of people who travel between the two adjacent countries, it’s a little strange that Canadian packages don’t provide the same dual-labeling that American ones do. Perhaps there’s a subtle nationalism going on here, where the US is perfectly happy to acknowledge global units of measure, while Canada doesn’t want to seem overly courteous to a US-centric measurement system.

Whatever the cause, it’s certainly better for consumers — regardless of their home country — when manufacturers include multiple units of measure on a product package. In deciding what to buy, people make mental calculations of value based on a number of factors, including how much is in the package. By making it easier for a larger percentage of customers to quickly recognize the sizes they are expecting, you’ll have a better chance at convincing those people to buy your product versus a competing one.

When someone has purchased from you before, they probably trust your brand enough to forgive minor hiccups in the buying experience. For instance, say you’re searching for some type of canned goods on Amazon, and the first few results are from third-party sellers who charge huge shipping fees. As a seasoned veteran, you know enough to drill down to the products that Amazon sells directly, which include the free shipping you’re looking for. Problem solved.

However, pretend you’re a new prospect who has never purchased groceries at Amazon before. Seeing the enormous shipping charges on the first few results, you figure this online grocery thing is a waste of time and money. You leave the grocery section of the site and may never return.

These contrasting behaviors underscore the need to edit and curate your product selection, especially the types of products that prospective customers are looking for. In Amazon’s case, they could tailor the default grocery sorting to favor products with the highest reviews, which are sold by Amazon and include free shipping. Or, they might make a new customer page that highlights the staple foods that repeat customers tend to buy.

Either way, if you can tweak your product selection to appeal to prospective customers who haven’t made a purchase yet, you’ll convert more of them into loyal repeat buyers. As an added bonus, that same curation will help existing customers learn about new products they might want to purchase, which should increase lifetime customer value among those who already buy from you anyway.

Over the weekend, I used the CTA website to check for delays on the Brown Line train service. While I was on the site, I noticed a featured story about CTA’s new train cars, which are apparently being tested in a few limited areas. The story, and the press release it was based on, included lots of details about what the new cars look like, what the advantages are to riders, and so on. But despite what must have been 1,000 words of text, there were no pictures to be found.

Granted, there was a section at the bottom of the page for a “gallery”. However, the picture gallery didn’t work in my browser, so all I saw was a big black box. What a letdown: they described the new train cars in detail, teased me with the promise of a gallery, and then failed to provide any way for me to view the pictures. It’s often said that a picture is worth 1,000 words, but the opposite isn’t necessarily true. In fact, giving the reader 1,000 words of descriptive text probably can’t make up for a picture that they were expecting to see.

So when you’re working on a press release, news article, or webpage that includes a substantial amount of detailed text, ask yourself whether that text really deserves to have a picture associated with it. And if it does, take the extra time to make sure the pictures are relevant and high quality, and that the images actually show up in popular web browsers. Otherwise, all the effort you spend on creating positive expectations in the reader’s mind will turn to disappointment, when people realize there are no pictures to go along with the text.

About once a week, I receive a big, glossy brochure inside the daily paper. The brochure is for a luxury condo building located about a mile south of me. Inside the document, you’ll find pictures of the outside of the building and the views from the condos, plus photos of happy owners. But there isn’t a single picture of what the actual interiors of the units look like.

I’m not in the market for a condo, but this seems like a big red flag to any potential buyers. I understand that the developers probably think they’re selling a lifestyle, and the views and such are part of that. But the thing people actually see the most when they live there is the interior of the condo itself, so it’s a rather important part of the experience. By leaving out pictures of the kitchen, living room, and other areas, you make it impossible for prospects to form a mental model of what it would be like to live there.

Plus, there’s another problem with leaving out a key set of images. When there are no interior photos in the marketing materials, potential buyers are left to wonder: if the interior is so underwhelming that the designers couldn’t squeeze a single picture into this big brochure, how bad must the inside of the place actually be?

Online store flyers drive me nuts. Instead of being a convenient way to view all the specials at once, you generally get an overly complex and frustrating hybrid of print and online media. Here are some of the issues I frequently see when flyers are presented online:

– You’re forced to view one or two pages at a time, which means you’ll be doing a lot of clicking to browse through the whole flyer.
– The pages are either too small to read, or too big to fit on a normal-sized screen.
– When there’s an option to view details about a product, the details are lacking or the product picture is useless.

Addressing each of these shortcomings would be quite easy:

– Provide an option to view all the pages at once.
– Make the pages big enough that the text is legible, but be sure the resulting images fit within a normal-sized browser window (such as 1024×768).
– If you can’t find a way to include relevant details when people click on a product (like the product’s size and weight and a clear picture of it), then don’t bother including those links in the first place.

By implementing these suggestions, retailers could make the online versions of their flyers a lot more useful to customers. Until then, I’ll continue wishing that they’d go back to a low-tech approach by just scanning all the pages from the weekly ad onto a single page of their website. Sometimes, getting rid of all the bells and whistles is a better, faster and cheaper way to give customers what they want.

Over the past few weeks, two new restaurant concepts have opened in Chicago’s River North area. While you’d never know it based on the restaurant names and branding, these two restaurants are each being operated by veteran Chicago restauranteurs. For whatever reason, they’ve elected to make the new brands totally unique, without any reference to their existing restaurant successes.

When you’re already well-known for something that customers like, it seems obvious that you should use it as a reference point when promoting a new offering. Product manufacturers do a great job at this. For instance, you’ve probably seen lots of ads and in-store displays and package designs that tout a new product “from the makers of” a product that’s already popular. By associating the new product with the existing one, the new one inherits some of the trust and other positive sentiments that people attach to the reference item.

Restaurants and other local business should do the same thing. Even if your new restaurant offers a different type of food and price range and atmosphere than what you’re known for, it can’t hurt to use your existing venue as a reference point. For example, you might say that “John’s Steakhouse is the newest restaurant from the people that brought you the award-winning City Grill,” or something along those lines. If you leave out this reference point, you’re taking away a valuable signal that tells your already loyal customers (and anyone else who happens to recognize your brand name) that your new venture is worth a try.