Play around with the number to make your marketing more powerful
Play around with the number to make your marketing more powerful, so everyone knows that numbers are a mathematical symbol, and their most fundamental characteristic is their objectivity and accuracy. In applications outside of mathematics, such as in various articles and promotional materials, this accuracy is mainly used to strengthen persuasiveness.
For example, the market share of a certain product is as high as 75%, and the performance of a certain company this year exceeds the industry average by 7 percentage points, and so on. However, if the expression of numbers is only for precision, that is wrong. Recently, an article in the public account “Business Model Observer” discussed many clever applications of numbers.
In fact, numbers are not just mathematical symbols, they are also a special language with many expressive effects. Firstly, using numbers to express something will appear authoritative and convincing. For example, the “80/20 rule” is a well-known quantity relationship, whether it’s 80/20, 70/30 or 10/90, it doesn’t matter, it’s just a relationship between the minority and the majority. But if you change it to “the minority and the majority rule”, the effect is much worse, it appears informal, too casual, and not authoritative.
Next, numerical expressions also have a strong impact. For example, there is a book called “99.9% of Science is Hypothesis”, which explains that most of what we think of as science is actually still in the hypothesis stage and has not been rigorously proven. So if you want to write such a book, which title is better: “Most of Science is Hypothesis” or “99.9% of Science is Hypothesis”? Obviously, numbers have a strong impact when used in language.
In addition, they have a strong summarizing power, such as “40 million compatriots unite” and “1.3 billion Chinese people wish the world a happy new year.” These expressions are not precise, but they have a good effect on conveying meaning. If you insist on using an exact number, such as 1.3765 million, it not only sounds cumbersome but also confuses people.
Therefore, numerical language has strong expressive power. Similarly, in some propaganda and marketing, clever use of numbers can also achieve good results. For example, there are three tricks to using numbers.
First, cleverly use the implied meaning of numbers. Since numbers are also a kind of language, they sometimes have an implied meaning. For example, the concept of Web 2.0 is interesting. If it is called 2.0, it means that the past “Web” was “1.0” and the future will evolve into “3.0” or “4.0”. Although there was no so-called Web 1.0 in the past, the concept of Web 2.0 has created an effect that is in progress, which goes beyond the number itself.
Another example is in daily life. For example, to ensure everyone arrives on time, you tell them to “meet at 6:53 pm”, which has a good effect. This conveys the message that the meeting time is not 7 pm but 6:53 pm, which must have a reason, so everyone must not be late. This increases the pressure on everyone to arrive on time.
Second, using the same number repeatedly can create a sense of emphasis and importance. For example, if you say “three times, three times, three times”, it conveys a sense of emphasis and importance that cannot be achieved by saying it once. Using different wording to describe the same number can have a clever effect. This is something we often do without realizing it. When rallying support for a sports team, if you say “Our team currently has one win and two draws, please come and cheer us on,” the effect may be average. However, if you phrase it as “our team is currently unbeaten in three matches,” it sounds much more impressive.
In history, the Swedish team once boasted of being “undefeated against the English team for 43 years.” At first glance, this seems impressive, but in reality, the two teams only played against each other 12 times over a period of 40 years, with Sweden winning four times and drawing eight times. Their record was not as impressive as the claim of “43 years of being undefeated.”
Therefore, when using numbers for promotion, it is important to choose your phrasing carefully to make it sound more impressive. For example, in an election, if you have 3.1 million votes and your opponent has 3 million votes, it is better to say “We have 100,000 more votes than our opponent” rather than “we have a 3% higher vote rate than our opponent,” which would reveal a smaller margin of victory. Similarly, in business competition, you can claim to have the “highest market share,” while your competitor may claim to have the “highest customer satisfaction.” As long as you can find a number that puts you in first place, it can be a selling point for customers.
Third, here is a trick to playing number games, which is unit conversion. For example, if two supermarkets are offering promotions and the competitor offers a 5% cashback on purchases while you can only offer 2% due to budget constraints, what can you do? If you focus solely on the percentages of 5% and 2%, you will definitely lose. Instead, try thinking from a different perspective.
Consider this: your 2% is equivalent to 1/50, meaning that on average, each customer will receive a reward of 1/50 of their total spending. If you group 50 customers together and give all the rewards to one person in each group, the total cost will be the same. For example, if the average spending of each of the 50 customers is 100 dollars, and they each receive a reward of 2%, which is only 2 dollars, the total rewards for all 50 customers will be 100 dollars. However, if you give this 100 dollars reward to one person among the 50 customers, it will be much more attractive. Therefore, if offering a 2% cashback seems stingy, you can offer a free item for every 50 customers, with a maximum value of 100 dollars. In this way, you will spend the same amount of money but achieve much better results.
In conclusion, numbers are not just symbols for counting or measuring. They also have great potential in language and communication. By using numbers cleverly, we can achieve better results in conveying information and expressing ideas.
