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5 things you should know about numbers

That figure you’ve always wanted is just a few steps away

As the Eurozone inches ever closer to the abyss, I’ve been trying to get my head around the numbers. So have the EU bigwigs, but so far, it seems like they’re having as much luck as me. Which isn’t much. The trouble is – for me, at least – the numbers are just so huge I don’t know what to make of them. It’s a bit like being told that dinosaurs walked the earth 65 million years ago, or that it’s 70 million miles to Mars, which I discovered when I read about a remarkable trip that was simulated in a Russian warehouse recently. When it comes to effective copywriting, numbers can be your friend. They can bring a piece to life, illustrate a point and win the argument. But only if they make sense. And only if you’ve done the hard work.

The final countdown

So how do you get that figure you’ve always wanted? Simple – just follow these five steps, and you’ll be counting the customers and summing up the sales. 1. Make them relevant. Big numbers are meaningless, unless it’s money in the bank or sales on your bottom line. If somebody’s worth $500m, people can relate to it. It they’re told 500m telephone directories would stretch to Mars, they can’t. It’s the same with debt, deficits and cuts. People don’t get it unless you make it relevant. Even breaking down debt by head of population (£x for every man, woman and child) still doesn’t get the point across. Instead, make it relate directly to people’s everyday experience. It’s precisely what a French journalist did recently. To make sense of the jaw-dropping numbers being bandied about by politicians, he simply scaled it down to a human level. He said that France’s  situation is like spending €5,700 a month when you earn €3,000 a month, while starting out with a debt of €339,000 (which – you guessed it – increases by €2,700 a month). Bingo. Now people get it. 2. Make them obvious. Don’t bamboozle people with complex calculations, and don’t let them do the hard work. Recently, UK book chain Waterstone’s announced the end of its famous 3-for-2 promotion, which has run on and off for years. It’s been fabulously successful, often shifting books (the third one, usually) that wouldn’t otherwise have reached such numbers. There are downsides, of course. If you can’t find that third book, you don’t bother with the first two. It’s an all-or-nothing choice, which isn’t the best idea. But the key thing is, it’s obvious. If they’d simply said up to 33% off (which is what 3 for 2 is, of course) the result would have been threefold. First, people wouldn’t have thought of one of the books as ‘free’ (the cheapest one, unsurprisingly). Second, they wouldn’t have bought three books. And third, the ‘up to’ would have watered down the proposition (it’s only 33% if all three books cost the same). People think in simple terms: 3 for 2 / buy one, get one free / buy one, get one half-price. They make snap decisi0ns, so they need simple, obvious choices. And that’s your job. 3. Make them comparable. Would you rather have 50% more minutes on that mobile phone contract, or a reduction of 20% on your bill? Or you could extend the contract  to 24 months, and get a ‘free’ phone? Or get a bolt-on package to make landline calls, which could reduce your monthly bill by 25%, depending on your usage? Clients faced with a this-but-that-but-the-other type of choice often simply freeze. I do, all the time. And my standard response when confronted by choices whose relative merits I can’t weigh up is to do nothing. Buying is stressful, so don’t add to it. If you know what you’d ultimately like your customers to do, arrange the numbers so they tell a story that makes that end-point seem obvious, easy and achievable. 4. Simplify them. Yes, you have lots of numbers. You can build a business case from the ground up, stacking numbers on numbers till you have a solid structure composed of figures that you feel confident about. Great. Now throw it all away and start again. Take the headline figure, and discard all the rest. Recently, I wrote a cost comparison for a client, showing just how much business travellers could save using serviced apartments instead of hotels. The raw data was in a 3D matrix: number of nights (three different numbers), locations (four of them) and whether food was included (a simple yes/no). The result was a complex number of permutations, showing average savings in pound terms. It was completely baffling. So I rolled up the numbers by consolidating the locations, showing only two lengths of stay (short/long, which maximised the difference) and displaying percentages, not figures (why let the reader do the hard work?). The effect was immediate, obvious and striking. One glance and you could see which choice to make. Job done. 5.  Use magic numbers. If you’re going for simplicity – and you always should – round your figures up or down. Use whole numbers or nice big chunky ones (25% off! Save on average 30%!). Or you can take the opposite approach if you want to show rigorous research. Simply follow a tip an old boss gave me many years ago: use two decimal points. (87.65% of clients saw an improvement in productivity over a three-month period). Nobody ever argues with decimals, and people are invariably impressed by your thoroughness. Use numbers that resonate with people (Top 10 reasons to use serviced apartments / Three ways you can cut your costs). Don’t use unusual numbers (Top 4, 7, 9, 11 ways… ). Also remember that all language is musical – so tap into the rhythm. And remember the subliminal power of three. If you  read Shakespeare – or even my blog – you’ll see that what’s called the triadic form is used extensively. Put simply, it’s things listed threes. Cut your costs, improve your productivity and increase your bottom line. Add a fourth element, and the sentence falls apart. Cut one out, and the same thing happens. Why? It just does. Don’t question it – simply use it. It’s powerful, effective and appealing. See what I mean? Find out more: 

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Kevin Ideas, Marketing.
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