Dr. Robert Cialdini has spent his entire career researching the science of influence earning him an international reputation as an expert in the fields of persuasion, compliance, and negotiation. Harvard Business Review lists Dr. Robert Cialdini’s research in “Breakthrough Ideas for Today’s Business Agenda,” Fortune Magazine lists Influence in their “75 Smartest Business Books,” and CEO Read lists Influence in their “100 Best Business Books of All Time”.
Following up one of the most influential marketing books written wasn’t going to be easy. Robert Cialdini, author of Influence was well aware of the mountain he was about to climb when writing Presuasion.
Influence talks about what to put into a brand’s message.
Presuasion talks about the moment right before that message gets sent.
This is the moment that allows a communicator to create a state of mind in recipients that is aligned with the message they have yet to experience. Let’s look at an example.
A forty year old man is asking for donations to an after school program. He’s going door to door to ask for the donations and he happens to knock on Cialdini’s front door. When the door shuts, Cialdini immediately thinks to himself, “That man didn’t show me any of the six principles and he got me to give him more money than I normally do. How?”
How did the man convince one of the most influential marketing experts to donate more money than usual to his cause?
He brought his four year old daughter with him.
The man had pre-framed Cialdini psychologically and cognitively towards children before he asked for a donation.
Royal Caribbean Cruise lines is using the same strategy. They sent out two emails, the first to half of their former customers promoting a discount program that was only available for a limited time with a digital clock ticking down within the email. The second email was identical to the first, except
it had two ticking clock emojis in the subject line. Without saying anything differently, they placed the idea of scarcity and a diminishing opportunity within the reader’s mind. This led to a 3% increase in opens and a 15% increase in click throughs to purchases.
Digital stores implement “presuasion” as well. An online furniture store sent half of the visitors to a website with a landing page that had fluffy clouds in the background wallpaper. They sent the other half of the visitors to a landing page with pennies and small coins int he background. This is what they found:
Visitors directed to the cloud landing page bought more comfortable furniture.
Visitors directed to the pennies landing page bought less expensive furniture.
The concept that was elevated in attention drove people to that connect in the offering that were there.
When asked if the clouds or pennies made any difference in the buying decision, customer’s said of course not. They never realized that their preferences in the moment had been shifted by the first thing they focused their attention on, in this case softness or price.
Landing pages need to inherently link to the central differentiator or the central core element of the product being offered.
Two things happen when an individual pays attention to something:
- The presumed importance is elevated. For the online furniture store, the importance of comfort was elevated after seeing clouds. The importance of cost was elevated after seeing pennies.
- An assumption that a feature was casually created. Viewers directed to a concept allow it to change them without realizing that it has any effect.
Focusing on this casual feature highlights the concept that relates to the feature. Concepts like safety and reliability can be highlighted in an image, slogan or setting where those things come to mind.
The more focused a feature can be, the better it will perform. Instead of highlighting the quality of a product, highlight the features that make it high quality. For examples, is a piece of furniture high quality because of its comfort or softness?
This presuasion affect doesn’t take time, it takes immediate impression. For example, a study found that when people walked up to individuals on the street and asked them to help fill out a survey they had a 29% success rate. When the same individual walked up to them and started with, “Excuse me, do you consider yourself a helpful person?”, the success rate hit 77.3%.
How did the success rate increase by 48.3%?
By elevating the idea of helpfulness.
A Swedish supermarket used presuasion to increase the amount of organic bananas they were selling. They used three groups with various signs above the bananas. The signs read:
“Organic Bananas”
“Organic bananas are now the same price as regular bananas.” “Environmentalist?”
The sign reading, “Environmentalist?”, out performed the others. Why? People were presuaded to register themselves as a certain type of person. This sparks the commitment and consistency principle from the six principles.
Seeing the “Environmentalist?” sign creates an inner dialogue of, “I am that sort of person. I should behave in ways that are congruent with the commitment I have made in the past.”
Danial Kahneman, Nobel Prize winner, found a similar effect in his prospect theory. He found that people are more willing to make a choice that
allows them to avoid loss, than a choice that allows them to gain the very same thing. Yet, within this choice there isn’t one thing that marketers and communicators could know to better understand human behavior. In fact,
Kahneman explained “Nothing is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it.”
If marketers and communicators can get people to think about a particular concept, feature, strength, or differentiator it becomes more important. This concept is the reason for the variation in furniture sales.
Where can presuasion be used? Anywhere it can be placed.
Subheadings within text can highlight the major feature of each paragraph. Copywriters use this technique to persuades each time there is a shift of attention to a new feature or idea.
It can even be used romantically, as a study in France saw double the success rate of an attractive man acquiring phone numbers by asking in front of a flower shop instead of a bakery.
What’s the best way to start a job interview?
- The individual being interviewed talking about their best qualities
- The interviewer talking about the individual’s best qualities
The latter automatically starts with the interviewer being presuaded into hiring this particular prospect.
What determines which influence and presuasion approaches to use in a situation?
Look for what’s available in each situation. Is there scarcity there? Is there true authority? Is there true commitment already made that could pick on sales?
Identify the relationship level. If the relationship is new, use reciprocity and liking to build the relationship. At the level where people feel good about
a brand but are uncertain as to whether they choose it, use social proof and authority to reduce uncertainty.
Presuasion is the moment before a message gets sent. If a communicator can create the state of mind in the recipient, prior to influencing them with a marketing message, they have the control.
Presuasion is followed by the six principles in Influence. The concepts in each book are driving sales and highlighting what most marketers are missing, the very first impression.
If it works on one of the most influential marketing experts in the world, it can work on consumers.
- Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Dr. Robert Cialdini
- Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade by Dr. Robert Cialdini
- Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
- www.influenceatwork.com