Stated vs. Revealed Preferences
What consumers really believe
I’ve always said that you need to learn about psychology if you want to get good at marketing.
The best marketers simply understand what makes people tick on a fundamental level.
No amount of ‘studying tactics’ or spamming AI is going to change that.
The concept of Stated vs. Revealed Preferences is one of the psychological concepts that applies most directly to marketing.
It doesn’t matter what people say they want.
Words mean nothing.
If you want to know what people really think and what’s actually important to them: watch what they do.
It’s common for people to learn this lesson the hard way when they start their first business.
You tell your friends and family about your idea for a product. They swear up-and-down that it’s the best idea they’ve ever heard and that they would buy it immediately if it was available.
In your mind you think you’ve stumbled upon a goldmine. All you have to do is source the product and build the Shopify store and you’ll be rich forever.
So you do just that.
Then a month later you go back to those same friends and family who previously swore that they would buy your product and give them the good news: “it’s available for sale”.
All of a sudden it’s alligator hands all around. No one reaches for their wallet or their laptop.
You’ll hear every excuse in the book.
“Next month when I get paid.”
“I actually don’t need it right now but I’ll definitely buy when I do.”
“Oh wow I remember you talking about this. Let me think about it for a bit.”
That’s when you realize that words are quite literally nothing but air passing over vocal cords in a way that makes a particular sound when it hits the human eardrum.
Just because someone said it doesn’t mean they meant it.
You see this all the time.