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July 2, 2007

Principles of persuasion in marketing

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In my last post Broaden your marketing knowledge, I mentioned about the Robert Cialdini and his book. Today I will summarize what I learned from him.

Principles of persuasion in marketing:

1. Reciprocation
2. Commitment and consistency
3. Social proof
4. Liking
5. Authority
6. Scarcity

In layman terms, reciprocity means exchanging gifts. When you give gifts, people feel obliged to return the favor (to reciprocate). The entire Internet is based on reciprocity. Almost everything is free. But have you noticed that there are always options to pay for more personalized service?

One example of reciprocity is giving something for free. You can offer free samples of your product or few hours of service free. Giving something free is always a smart marketing strategy. People tend to taste first before taking risk of anything. Those who taste and want more can pay for the full treatment.

The next principle is commitment and consistency. In layman terms, this means calculated small steps. This principle is proven to be the powerful on influencing a target audience and to say yes. If a person will take a small but calculated step or make a small commitment toward a goal, he or she will be much more likely to continue.

I hope you are familiar with the one-step and two step marketing process. If not, no problem. In a one-step process, you try to go from an ad to a paid order in one step. For example, suppose you are a web designer trying to attract new business. You run a ad campaign in local papers that tells about your services and gives your telephone number. you are trying to go from an ad to an order in one step. This approach attracts only serious customers. It’s like walking up to a total stranger on the street and asking for loan. This approach can work-if you talk to enough strangers, you’re bound to find someone who is in the market who believes you on first approach. But be prepared for a lot of rejection with a lot of frustrations.

A two-step, in the similar ad you offer the prospective customer a free taste. Your ad doesn’t sell your web development services, but instead offers people to come and get a free web service for few hours. Be sure, you will get a lot of people get their hands raised and show their interest in talking to you and taste your service. This approach attracts interested people while at the same time giving you a chance to talk to a more qualified group of people. Certainly, in a group of interested people, there must be some serious customers. In the marketing business, this is called lead generation, or getting people to raise their hands. This is one of the best approach to generate quality leads to your business.

You should learn the skills and develop your competency to make people raise their hands. You have to give them something of value. This will satisfy the both principles “reciprocity” and your “commitment and consistency”.

Another important marketing principle liking or the power of consensus. In layman terms, this means popularity. If you see a thousands of web visitors visiting your blog, you can assume that the blog posts you are writing is useful to the visitors. People always want the new, useful and exciting things. If you can provide proof that your product is in demand by a large number of people, it will include potential buyers to say “yes” more easily.

You might have noticed, some of your customers, always wants to deal with you. Not even your designated staff. Do you know why? This is nothing but your credibility. People like to deal with experts. It lowers their risk of failure. This is the principle of authority. As a thriving marketer, you should learn to use methods of building such credibility.

Another very important part of the marketing is principle of scarcity. You must have noticed, most of the promotions highlights the remaining number of products, last date and time for subscribing e-books, first come first serve methods and so many other messages. This highlights the very special, unique, importance and scarce nature of this promotion. This is the principle of scarcity, which make people rush to get your product or service. It sometimes drives those people to you, who really don’t need the product or services you are offering.

Try designing your marketing campaigns using the principles I described and see how it works!

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14 responses to "Principles of persuasion in marketing"

# Principles of persuasion in marketing pingbacked on July 2nd, 2007:
[…] Rajesh Shakya Filed under Blog by Permalink • Print • Email Related EntriesGerry McGovern: […]
# The Information Marketer’s Hotsheet #30 « The Information Marketer’s Hotsheet pingbacked on July 2nd, 2007:
[…] http://www.rajeshshakya.com/principles-of-persuasion-in-marketing.htm […]
# Christian Saxeide commented on July 3rd, 2007:
Hi Rajesh

I’m a kid (21 y.o.) from Denmark, Europe, and I just discovered your blog.

I have not gotten to know your blog that well yet. But I will.

Since I began reading Blog´s, my hunger for it has grown and grown. You learn so much if you read the right ones.

If you have the time of course it would be great to hear which blogs you find interesting.

Best regards,

Christian Saxeide
# Mark B commented on July 3rd, 2007:
I am also interested in learning more about persuasion marketing and was glad to see your post on the topic. Great stuff here! Thanks
# admin commented on July 3rd, 2007:
@Christian
Thank you Christian for your interest. Let me know your interest area, I may suggest you few good blogs to read.

@Mark
Thanks, Mark. I will be posting more on persuasion marketing and other issues in my future posts.
Keep watching…

Rajesh Shakya
# Christian Saxeide commented on July 4th, 2007:
Hi Rajesh

Well my interests are business, upstart (not far from launching my first company), books, great people, history, and stuff like that.

I´ve just created my first blog. The reason it has taken me so long is that I´ve never felt I had anything to say people did´nt already know, and I still don´t. Therefore I´ve created a blog where I put out the things that inspire me, like great people, books, websites, blogs, etc. etc.

Hope you´ll stop by once in a while and check up and maybe comment:)

Christian
http://christiansaxeide.wordpress.com/
# Anish Shrestha commented on July 9th, 2007:
Dear Rajesh ji,
I find that your blog is filled with plenty of quality content. I admire and appreciate your effort. This persuation skill you are talking about here is simply great. I do have a plenty of books for persuasive marketing and aftergoing through your article I beleve that you must have summarized it through a years of experience. Hope to see more of your creative skills in near future.

One more thing, if you are seriously into dissimination information and knowledge why don’t you try posting into www.hamrodharana.com. I hope you will have a look and encourage and accompany a pool of journalist and laymen who are thy to have their say and hear your say on the website.

Wish you success, keep it up.
# admin commented on July 9th, 2007:
Dear Anish,
Thank you for your comments. Yes, I have been trying to disseminate my experience to other entrepreneurs who are thriving to succeed.

I will visit your site and also will make my marks.

Rajesh
# Klaus Wiedemann commented on July 10th, 2007:
Dear Rajesh,

I just read your excellent summary of Caldinis great book (which I think is an essential if you’re interested in marketing) .
The effect of the human need of consistency is the one which I think is the most stunning: that people tend to continue to head in a certain direction just because they did the first step (and because they want to stay consistent with that).

This has -IMHO- not just implications for marketing, but also for working on your own goals: once you started working on a certain topic (and made that fact public), it is much more difficult to stop that undertaking.

Best regards,
Klaus
http://www.not-for-slaves.com
# admin commented on July 10th, 2007:
Hi Klaus:
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. I am happy that you have read my article so carefully.

Cheers,
Rajesh
# Paul Hancox | InternetInfluenceMagic.com commented on July 27th, 2007:
Hi Rajesh

Nice article. You missed out the details of “social proof”, but then I think you covered it pretty well under “liking”, so I can’t complain

We’re discussing this subject on my blog at the moment - particularly “social proof” - and how to apply these laws to the Internet.

Since you’ve read Cialdini’s book, I think it would be great to have you leave a comment on the blog

Best,

Paul Hancox
# admin commented on July 28th, 2007:
Hi Paul,
Thank you for your comments.

Rajesh
# Rajesh Shakya - Helping Technopreneurs to Excel and Lead their Life! pingbacked on July 29th, 2007:
[…] Paul Hancox from Internet Influence Magic has posted a contest to run an experiment to prove the “Social Proof” of Cialdini. Paul wrote me to comment on his blog social proof but I decided to write blog post about it. If you have not read my blog post with the discussion on “social proof” and other principles, please take some time to read my article - “Principles of persuasion in marketing“. […]
# Friday’s fun « Marketingeasy’s Weblog pingbacked on August 13th, 2007:
[…] Rajesh Shakya writes about Persuasion in Marketing […]