Have you used your brain today? Okay, we’re sure you have, technically, but have you really used it? Have you, for example, studied electrochemistry? Calculated the surface area of any of your office furniture? Translated any documents from German to Spanish?

Yeah, we haven’t, either.

Even though humans have these awesome brains that can do all sorts of ridiculously complex things, most of us are happiest when we keep things simple and let our brains relax. In fact, we tend to go out of our way to make sure our brains don’t have to do any extra work.

Don’t Make Them Think!

Enter Steve Krug, author of the popular web design book Don’t Make Me Think. Krug makes many great points in his book, but the title really says it all.

Krug points out that when people visit a website, they just don’t want to have to push their brains to the limit. If you want an effective website, Krug believes that you have to set it up in a user-friendly way that will spoon feed your point to the site’s visitors. Web surfers, he argues, are not going to read paragraph after paragraph of text on a web page; they are going to scan the page to find what they need and move on.

Krug’s book specifically focuses on web design, yet the point he makes carries over to print advertising as well. When you send out a postcard or a brochure advertising your business, you can’t expect its recipients to devote much time and brainpower to reading it. You really have to get your call to action out there in a big way if you don’t want your audience to miss it. In other words, don’t present the information in a way that requires your direct mail recipients to use their brains; tell them precisely what you want them to do and why they should do it.

Maybe one day, putting our brains into high gear will become trendy and we’ll spend our spare time solving calculus problems instead of playing Minesweeper and watching reruns of Jersey Shore. But until then, you’ll definitely have the most success with your marketing efforts if you follow Krug’s advice and keep your message straightforward and simple.