Especially in this economy, small businesses are tripping over themselves to tell customers about their low, low prices. But in an article at MarketingProfs, Dan Hill argues strenuously against price-leading campaigns and gives reasons like these:

It is not a sustainable long-term strategy. "One of the key advantages of a sale is the element of surprise," he says. And the stopping power of a low price will fade quickly when repeated surprises lose their power to surprise.

It reminds people that they're paying money they don't want to pay. Research has shown that any price tag produces disgust in a buyer's mind. A discounted price doesn't cause positive feelings—it simply lessens the degree of disgust.

It shifts a customer's mind from right-brain emotion to left-brain analysis. "That's a bad tradeoff, given that everyone feels before they think," he notes. Especially when you consider an IPA study that found "emotion-oriented campaigns generate twice as much profitability as traditional, hard-sell, reasoning-oriented campaigns."

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