Psychological Persuasion Techniques
Are you an easy target of the peddlers and salesmen? Do you often find yourself buying things that were not intended to and subscribing to unwanted offers? These are the results of powerful persuasion. If you’re looking for some tips to influence people or learn not to be easily swayed by others, these psychological persuasion techniques will help you in your daily life.
First, you must understand that persuasion is not about an argument or counter-argument. It is more than that. Learning how to use them will make you a better negotiator and help you get the things you want. They’re not only beneficial for you, but they’re also essential for your business. You can use them to influence your clients and improve your sales results. The key to persuasion is to know the psychology of your target audience. There are several ways to do this, simply follow these 6 principles of influence:
Reciprocity
In our human evolutionary history, we learnt that the main key to survival is cooperation. Therefore, when someone gives, it made the recipient feel a sense of indebtedness and the need to give back. Which in return will make them more likely to comply with your subsequent requests.
When trying to persuade through reciprocation, the key factor is to allow them to feel indebted to you by offering something in the first place, such as a small gift or a sample of an item. Let them know that it is something exclusive and they are the few special selected ones to have it. Last but not least, it is crucial to make sure they know it’s from you.
Commitment And Consistency
In most cultures, keeping our word is a noble quality and earning respect from others. Thus, people are afraid of being labelled as inconsistent and the social shame that affects their reputations in society. Therefore, when someone gave their word, they will then feel an automatic compulsion to stick to it.
We can use this principle of consistency to make them commit to something, be it a statement, a stand or an identity, starting from something small as they will most likely stick it. Encourage them to commit through a public declaration. In that way, they will less likely to back out due to the need to “save face” and remember to reward them for investing their time and effort in you.
For those who are hesitant, try to highlight and emphasize the similarity of your request to the one they have made in the past. That is because for convenience when people made a single choice, they will then subconsciously stick to it for all subsequent related choices.
Social Proof
The idea of following the crowd will minimise our mistakes and ensure it is socially acceptable. Skilled persuasion salesmen know how to utilise this concept of social proof to their advantage by creating an impression that “this thing or action” is in the latest trends and everyone else is doing it so, you do not want to miss out on that.
It is this principle of social proof that people are more accepting and willing to commit to a product, service or behaviour that has already been endorsed by a person they trust. That is the main reason why social media today has become one of the most powerful tools in persuasive techniques. You can see merchants of all trades tapping on various platforms and the influence of social media influencers to reach out to millions of customers. They even used Celebrities for endorsements, engaging Experts to validate the credibility in the relevant field and sought-after users’ ratings, reviews and testimonials for their products.
Liking
According to the findings, people are more likely to comply with requests made by those that they like and have more perceived credibility than those that they do not like, especially if they are physically attractive. When we interact with them, we tend to be more open and accommodative as the mind tends to believe that this person we like is trustworthy and begin to find similarities between ourselves.
From this perspective, marketers understand the vast impact of using the liking principle to influence and persuasion over their target audience. That is because they knew we trust the word-of-mouth recommendations from our peers as well as stuff endorsed by our favourite singers, actors, social media influencers, or bloggers when we like and follow them.
Authority
It is no surprise that people respect and trust those who are credible experts in their field. This is why people are more willing to purchase the item promoted or endorsed by them. This is so true where we are not knowledgeable enough about a specific topic and it is easier to trust an authority figure in the field than it is to do our own research. You can see why cost so much for a company to get the relevant person to do an endorsement for a product.
By using the Authority Principle, you will see a lot of marketing using headlines phrases like “scientifically proven”, “scientists say”, “experts say” or “research shows” in their campaign or blogs post. These titles are meant to create a position of power and experiences, strengthening the faith and confidence in the consumers.
Scarcity
“There are only a few available …” “Don’t miss this one-of-a-kind Special …” “Here’s what you’ll miss out on if you don’t call within the next 15 minutes …”
It is not uncommon to see all these statements in shopping malls during the sale season or even late-night TV infomercials. We always presumed that things that are rare or hard to come by are usually much better than those which are in abundance. The feeling of being in the competition to fight for scarce items has a very powerful motivational drive and the triumph result of owning one is not all about the experiences of the product but the egoistic of possessing it.
The principle of scarcity here is to create a sense of urgency and the impression that you are about to lose something that is exclusive and hard to come by. Psychologically, it affected people’s decisions when they have the idea of a potential loss. Results show that people are more motivated by the thought of losing something than by the thought of gaining something of equal value. Use the technique to emphasize what people will miss out on if they don’t react rather than emphasizing the benefits alone.
Final Thoughts
These few pointers are powerful and effective in marketing strategy as they bypass the rational minds and seem appealing to the subconscious instincts. However, do take note that while these principles can help bring more awareness to your brand, the main factor that ultimately drives customer satisfaction, loyalty and sales is a great product that brings true value to customers.
