Stay Away From Hard-To-Pronounce Words

A study printed in Psychological Science experimented with the idea that people think hard-to-pronounce words are high-risk. The participants in the study were given the names of two fake food additives, and were asked which of the two would be more dangerous, their based soley upon the name. In another study, subjects were asked to do the same thing, only this time with roller coasters. They had to decide which ride would be more thrilling and more vomiting-inducing. In both cases, subjects chose the word that was harder to pronounce, regardless of whether the risk worth taking or not.

So why is this helpful to know? If you plan to market your product, you want to pick a name for it that is familiar and easy to pronounce. If you plan to write an article about or advertise your product or service, you should make sure your words aren't too difficult to pronounce. They ought to be commonplace and used in day-to-day conversation. If you can't, at least provide the pronunciation to go with the word. That way, the word is more understandable and will become more familiar with it.

A couple of things to remember:

• What people see as familiar, they also see as less risky and more agreeable.
• When people have to make a decision and there is no information to base a decision on, they will usually choose based on comfortability ("comfort factor").

With online marketing, things like this are crucial to know. When people surf the internet, they make all kinds of decisions: whether to click a website link, reading the text, deciding to buy the product or purchase the service or not, etc. Visitors have to feel comfortable to hook them in, so make every word count!