Internet Marketing – Avoid coupling!

Do you want to streamline getting paid?
Then avoid coupling.

I’d like to share with you why you
should avoid coupling at all costs.

So what does coupling mean? To explain,
I’ll need to refer to some research
done in 1998 by Prelec and Loewenstein,
two behavioural economists.

Here are their exact words on what they learned
from their study:

Sometimes this is referred to as
saliency. What it means is that if we
can change the way that we take money
from the clients, we can reduce the
association of payment pain.”

I can give you a great example of how
this works in practice by taking a look
at the taxicab industry.

I’m sure you’re aware of how it’s been
revolutionised in the last few years by
Uber.

In the past, you’d jump in a cab –
perhaps a black cab in London, or a
yellow one in New York – and sit there
with no idea what the price was going
to be.

Then, at the end of the journey,
when you got out and were told the
final price, you’d take the cash –
whether pound notes or dollar bills –
out of your pocket and hand it over.
That’s a perfect example of coupling.

It creates a greater association
with pain through you having to
physically take money out of your
pocket.

In contrast, Uber provide an upfront
price that you can pay by credit card.

And, as Prelec and Loewenstein showed,
when we pay for things by credit cards
– because it’s a piece of plastic,
rather than cash from our pocket – the
association with payment pain is less.

(Perhaps that explains the huge
escalation of credit card debt, too –
people are far more willing to spend
money using credit cards.) Uber have
also got rid of the ticking clock on
the meter, which is all part of the
saliency.

It’s a reminder of the
payment pain and that’s all gone now.

How we can make clients happy to pay,
too

What can we learn from this? Well, we
need to make sure that when people pay
for our accounting, bookkeeping or tax
services, we offer methods that reduce
the pain association.

The worst method
then would be a client having to take
cash out of their pocket to give to us.

Slightly better would be their writing
a cheque. But best of all would be
letting our clients pay by credit card.

You can learn more about pricing by
watching this: