![]() ![]() It’s very widely used in marketing, most obviously in the giving of free gifts or samples. When people are given something, even if they didn’t ask for it, they feel strongly compelled to give something back in return. As long as there is no trick or deception involved, all parties should get what they want. What’s all this got to do with selling online? Well, buyer psychology is human psychology, and sellers can create the conditions to encourage a normal social response. If for some reason we act against a norm – either actively or by doing nothing – it feels unpleasant, uncomfortable, even stressful. Like the animals, when presented with the right scenario, we respond immediately with a set behavior – a behavior programmed into our genes and reinforced by learning over thousands of years. We don’t need to stop and consider if there is a norm at play, we just act. So social norms are extremely powerful, and largely automatic. Failure to reciprocate could quite literally lead to starvation. But if you break the norm, and refuse to share, when you are hungry they will feel less obliged to share back. For example, sharing food with a hungry neighbor would compel them to share back when they have more than you – the norm of reciprocation. When humans depended on their tribes for survival, good social practices could mean the difference between life and death. The ultimate consequences of breaking social norms can be quite severe. If you don’t follow them, you won’t be breaking any laws (on the whole) but your standing and acceptance in society could suffer. Social norms are the “rules” that say what society expects of us. Humans don’t have those kind of truly instinctive behaviors, but we do have something similar – the social norms that we all follow. These behaviors are completely dependable: given the right trigger (or even a rough approximation of it) they always play out in exactly the same way. The WeaponsĮverywhere in the animal world there are instinctive responses – set sequences of behavior that occur in response to a specific trigger, such as birds’ mating dances. Much (but not all) of the potential to influence marketplace buyers lies with the marketplace itself, as they “own” the relationship with the buyer. But there is an important practical difference: there are fewer opportunities to influence marketplace buyers than direct buyers. Just a note: all this is relevant – in theory – whether you sell on marketplaces or through an independent store. Established sellers have more to play with, and might get a better return on their efforts by working on order value or customer loyalty. If you aren’t getting any orders, it’s a big jump to getting larger orders or multiple orders. Get buyers to buy again – measured by customer lifetime value (CLV).īroadly speaking, new sellers should concentrate on “converting” visitors into buyers before anything else.Get buyers to buy more – measured by average order value (AOV).Get buyers to buy – measured by conversion rate.Each can be measured and analyzed separately: There are three objectives that online retailers typically focus on. Influencing buyers sounds great, doesn’t it? But what do we want to influence them to do? That may sound like a naive question, but the answer is actually more nuanced than simply “to buy stuff”. Although it’s a little sensational, it does capture the brute power they hold. The term “weapons of influence” is Cialdini’s, not mine, by the way. So there’s your social proof! (Don’t worry – if you don’t get that now, you will later!) It has itself been profoundly influential on marketing in every industry and every part of the world.Ĭialdini’s book has sold 2 million copies and been translated into twenty-six languages. It sounds like hype, but this is no new marketing fad – Influence is a classic business book from thirty years ago. In his book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini describes how six behaviours are used in marketing, to remarkable effect (it’s on and .uk). You can use them to be a much more effective seller. In this post, I set out the six behaviors hard-wired into our brains – actually programmed by evolution – that are immensely influential in buyer psychology. We are anything but rational in many aspects of our lives, and shopping is no different. But the majority of buyers don’t buy that way – even though they may believe they do. ![]() Do they carefully define all their requirements, search for a seller and product that ticks all the boxes, then make a purchase? ![]()
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