The Power of Persuasion

If your business is looking to increase revenue, the key is to get to know your customers better, understand their emotional triggers and their decision making process. The six principles of persuasion can help your business address how to influence people, tend to their emotional needs and boost conversions. However, influencing others can be a challenge which is why it is worth understanding the six psychological principles behind persuasion.

Reciprocity
Reciprocity in social psychology refers to responding to a positive action with another positive action. In other words, if you do something nice for someone, they will feel compelled to do something nice for you in return.

But how does this apply to an online business? It is as simple as giving away free stuff and then following with a request. For example, you offer your site visitors a free guide, e-book, discount, etc. but in return they must provide their name and email to obtain it. This shows that your site visitors are willing to reciprocate by providing their information for exclusive content or deals you are willing to give away.

Scarcity
Scarcity in social psychology works much like scarcity in economics. Simply put, we place a higher value on an object that is scarce and a lower value on those that are abundant.

In other words, the feeling of missing out fuels scarcity. People like the idea of buying things that are rare or hard to come by. If something is marketed as a “limited time offer” people will rush to buy it because they feel a sense of urgency and fear of loss. This is a good starting point for any business to see how your customers will respond to a limited time discount.

Authority
Authority is an essential aspect for any online business. As humans, we allow experts and those considered thought-leaders or authority features on any given subject to influence us. Why? Because most of us realize we can’t be experts at everything and we trust and respect those in authority.

This is where having a company blog can play a great role. By putting out great content and proving you are a thought-leader in your industry, you can become someone’s go-to resource on that subject.

Commitment & Consistency
Humans have a deep need to be consistent and they want to be consistent in their decision-making. When we make an internal or public commitment, we tend to follow through with it to preserve our self-image.

Businesses can utilize this by getting customers commitment early or start by asking for small commitments upfront. If you start with a small commitment, your customers are far more likely to say yes to a big request if they have already committed to a smaller, similar one. An example of this could be getting your customer to commit to a one-month trial before taking them to a payment page.

Liking
People are more likely to say yes to a person (or product) if they like them. Likeability is a huge influencing factor and the best way to utilize it is by building trust and good relationships with your customers. However, this will take time since trust and likeability are not built overnight.

In general, people are easily persuaded and like to do business with people they like. People also like those who are similar to them so it is a good idea to find something you can relate to with your customers. If you are genuine and real, people will like you.

Social Proof
Social Proof is a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct behavior for a given situation. In short, people will do things they see other people doing. Humans are natural social creatures and for the most part, will look to the actions of others to determine their own.

It is a good idea for a business to have some sort of social proof or testimonials on their website. People want to feel that they are not the only ones using a product or service. This is why you see businesses using testimonials, reviews, and well-known logos to show off satisfied customers and that they can be trusted.

Businesses and marketers have used these six principles for decades. If you have a clear understanding of these principles and apply them to your business properly, you’ll notice an unmistakable boost in your conversions and customer satisfaction over time.

If you are a vendor with BMT Micro and you have questions or need help with your marketing, we may be able to help. A Marketing Analysis and other Marketing services are currently available for our vendors. If you would like to learn more about the services we offer, please contact our Marketing Specialist via email at leah@bmtmicro.com for more information.