Your brain, my brain, your customers’ brains…are lazy. Instead of working through things step by step, our brains use shortcuts. It’s how we get through thousands of decisions every day.
These shortcuts, called heuristics, usually work. But they can also go wrong and lead us astray. A prime example of this is with the “halo effect, ” when we allow our positive impressions in one area to spill over to our opinions in another, unrelated area. For example, studies have shown that if someone is attractive, we tend to assume that they are also intelligent. We perceive one quality and then assume that the person has other, unrelated qualities.
How the Halo Effect Can Hurt Your Dance Business
As dance business owners, we need to be aware of the halo effect so we can leverage it to only help our business. One area where the halo effect can hurt us is in managing our staff. We’ve probably all made this mistake. We have an employee who’s smart and has already excelled at a certain function, so we give them work in unrelated functions, thinking they’ll be great at those, too. When they aren’t, we’re disappointed. Yet there was no reason to assume they’d be good at that unrelated function. That’s just the halo effect in action.
The halo effect can also distort how we look at our entire business. You see this mistake all the time in the business press. If a company’s numbers are good, then everything they’re doing—from marketing to product to service—has a glow on it. When a company is struggling financially, the assumption is that everything they are doing is bad.
That’s why it’s best to evaluate your efforts independently of your business’ overall financial picture. If you didn’t know the numbers, how would you rate your marketing? Your social media? Your service? Looking at each element individually will remove the halo effect and help you make better decisions.
How to Turn the Halo Effect to Your Advantage
The halo effect can also be a powerful tool for your business. For instance, in your marketing. Just ask Apple.
The year is 2004, and the iPod is selling well. Although it accounts for less than a third of company sales, Apple decides to put most of its advertising dollars behind it. You probably remember the ads. They were everywhere.
Why did Apple focus on its minor product? Because the iPod was cool. Apple hoped that coolness could create a halo effect around its other products. It did: In 2005, Apple reported that its sales had increased 68 percent overall and their profits were up 384 percent. Apple’s astounding growth came from the sale of other products that were suddenly cool because of the halo effect of the iPod.
Notice that Apple focused on one product. Dance retailers should do the same. It’s tempting to try to tell the consumer everything that’s great about your company, but that can create confusion. Instead of the halo, you’ll get a fog effect.
Focus on one thing at a time. Whether it’s your convenience, over-the-top service, or fashion-forward leotards, find what matters to your customers and lean on that. Remember that what you think matters most about your store may be different from what’s most important to your customers. Survey them to find out what really matters most to them and promote that aspect of your business. This article will help you run a good survey.
Your Website: Is the Halo Effect Working For or Against You?
Consumers are forming an impression of your company from the look of your website. Like an attractive person who people automatically think is intelligent, the attractiveness of your website will affect how consumers judge your company’s offerings.
Research has shown that more often than not, people’s impressions of a company from its website are design-based. Consumers decide if they like or trust your business by how your website looks.
Thankfully, looking good is pretty easy. According to a Google study, people think a website is attractive if it has low visual complexity and high prototypicality (meaning it looks like other websites in its category). So keep your website simple, the design clean, and don’t reach to be too original. That will hurt how people see your company.
Make sure you have reviews on your homepage, too. Studies have shown that positive reviews will predispose consumers to like you. In a halo effect of sorts, the reviews will positively affect how they view subsequent interactions with your company.
Be thoughtful about which reviews post. You can curate positive reviews to sync up with what you’ve chosen to focus on to create your halo effect. For example, if you’re focusing on friendliness, post reviews about how friendly you are.
For maximum impact, include the customer’s photo; it makes the review feel more real. (Get permission and pull the image off their social media.)
The Bottom Line
The human brain isn’t going to stop being lazy anytime soon. Whether we want to or not, the halo effect is impacting our dance businesses. If we are aware of it, we can make sure it doesn’t hurt our business. The better we understand the halo effect, the more we can leverage it to help our businesses thrive.
Gilbert Russell is a seasoned dancewear retailer who helps independent stores thrive through his book “Retail AI Unleashed,” coaching programs, speaking engagements, and weekly newsletter.