Web Marketing Influence: Scarcity


DiamondsThings that are scarce are perceived as more valuable than things that are plentiful. How can you use this to improve your web marketing and social media?

In the final tenet of Robert Cialdini’s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, he examines scarcity.

Like reciprocity, commitment & consistency, social proof, liking and authority before it, scarcity has an undue influence on us due to our desire for shortcuts.

We have been trained that things that are rarer have more value than things that are common. Therefore, to make things appear to have more value, marketers can promote or even fake the scarcity of an object or information.

Like many people, I subscribe to a number of daily deals, like LivingSocial. I know that if I don’t act now, I’ll miss out on 50% off a massage, food  or snow tires. Interestingly, I’ve noticed I’m less compelled to buy a daily deal these days because I know that if I miss this half-off yoga class, there will be another one from a competing studio next week. The deal is still a good one, but the scarcity has been removed.

Scarcity also plays on our fear of loss. In one example from the book, homeowners who were told how much they would lose by not insulating their house bought at a much higher rate than another group that was told how much they would save.

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Web Marketing Influence: Authority


You Will Respect My Authoritah!People are trained to follow authority figures. How can you establish your authority in your web marketing and social media activity?

We’ve discussed the power of reciprocity, commitment, social proof and liking in Robert Cialdini’s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, so far. Now it’s time to look at the power that authority holds over us.

Like social proof, authority gives us a short cut in dealing with the complexity of the modern world. We listen to our doctors about health care issues, professors about scholarly matters, and talking heads on TV for everything from child-rearing to national security issues.

Often, this is a good thing. People often become authorities after years of rigorous study. However, in a famous experiment by Stanley Milgram, average people were persuaded to shock another person to near death by a person wielding nothing more than a clipboard and a white lab jacket. (Thankfully, there was no electricity and the person being “shocked” was a confidant.)

Experiment after experiment showed that humans are completely unaware of the amount of autonomy they give over to others, just because of a title, clothing, or trappings.

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Web Marketing Influence: Liking


We like to do business with people we like. So, how does that impact your web marketing and social media activities?

You like me! You really, really like me!

In Robert Cialdini’s book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, he talks about the tenets of influence. So far we’ve seen reciprocity, commitment & consistency, and social proof in action, and now we move on to liking.

It’s no surprise that we’re influenced by people we like…what’s surprising is the degree to which we’re influenced by people we like, or even those who leverage the names of people or things we like. (This is why the Tupperware party is so powerful, and why organizations send our kids’ friends to sell us candles and popcorn buckets we don’t need.)

We can see this at work on some of our favorite social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, that “suggest” that we might like a number of other people on the network, thus strengthening the network and lessening the chances that we’ll leave. The social ads on Facebook are similar, when they show a product and let us know a friend “likes” it.

There’s a number of things that impact our liking of a person or brand:

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Web Marketing Influence: Social Proof


Social Proof in Web Marketing & Social MediaWhen we are uncertain of how to behave or react, we look to others to guide our reaction. This is a powerful tool for web marketing and social media.

The first two tenets of Robert Cialdini’s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, are reciprocation and commitment & consistency…two items that are hard-wired into us. The next tenet is all about external forces: Social Proof.

From laugh tracks to tip jars, we are influenced by the actions and reactions of others. This is especially true when we’re unsure of how to behave in a given situation.

In Cialdini’s chapter on social proof he includes a number of examples of social proof gone haywire, from Jonestown to the murder of Catherine Genovese and the lack of action or reaction from 38 witnesses.

There are a number of variables that impact social proof’s influence over us.

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Web Marketing Influence: Commitment and Consistency


Drive SafelyPeople are hard-wired to be consistent, especially when they’ve publicly committed to a belief. How does that impact your web marketing & social media?

In chapter 2 of Robert Cialdini’s masterful Influence: The Psychology of Persuation, we learned that people have a knee-jerk reaction to responding in kind (or better) to favors…a trait referred to as reciprocity. Now, in the next chapter, we learn that we also wish to be seen as consistent.

Cialdini has a wealth of examples of this in his chapter, but one example that stuck with me is the story of people who agreed to put a giant, ugly sign on their front lawn, in front of their gorgeous home, that said Drive Safely. Not surprisingly, only 17% agreed.

However, in another group, they got an astounding 76% to agree to the same ugly signs! What was the difference?

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Web Marketing Influence: Reciprocation


Paper.liAs humans, we are hard-wired to reciprocate a favor. By building favors into your online marketing you can ethically grow your business.

One of the major tenets of influence, according to Robert Cialdini’s Influence: The Psychology of Persuation, is reciprocity. Cialdini says:

“We are trained from childhood to chafe, emotionally, under the saddle of obligation. For this reason alone, then, we may be willing to agree to perform a larger favor than we received, merely to relieve ourselves of the psychological burden of debt.”

This is why Hare Krishnas give flowers to travelers at airports before asking for money; they know it’s difficult for people to receive a gift–no matter how small–and then refuse to give a donation.

In another example, the Disabled American Veterans organization sent a donation request mailing that got a respectable 18% response rate. They did another mailing and included those self-adhesive address labels and nearly doubled their response rate to 35%!

These are interesting examples of human behavior, but how can you use them to market your business? (And to do it ethically!)

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Marketing With ‘Weapons of Influence’


Robert Cialdini InfluenceUnlock the secrets of influence and improve the effectiveness of your web marketing and social media efforts.

Robert Cialdini’s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion starts off with the story of a gift store owner at a tourist destination trying to sell some turquoise jewelery. It’s of good quality and she’s offering a fair price, but no one’s buying.

She tries putting it on sale. No dice.

She moves it to the center of the store. No dice.

She has her sales force push the jewelry. Still, no dice.

In frustration, as she’s leaving for a show, she scrawls a note for her store manager to sell all the jewelry at half-off. When she returns, she’s amazed that it all sold, every last piece.

What’s even more amazing is that her manager misread the handwritten note as DOUBLE the price, which she did.

At the higher price, the jewelry immediately sold out. Why?

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The Top 25 Top 10 Lists of 2011


Making a ListTop 10 lists make our life easier by creating shortcuts of what’s really important.

However, there were so many top 10 lists this year, it got confusing. So that’s why we here at flyte put together the top 25 lists of 2011! (We couldn’t stop at just ten!)

1. Top 10 Tech Stories of 2011:

Technology is rapidly changing and evolving so it is important to be able to look back year after in order to observe how fast change happens. In 2011, the tech geeks of the world as well as the average consumer witnessed many profound moments in history including the death of Steve Jobs, AT&T’s failed battle with the U.S. government when attempting to acquire T-Mobile, as well as the epic hacking of Sony’s Playstation which caused the company to have to take it’s system off-line for a significant period of time.

2. Top 10 for Intergrative Medicine Policy and Action in 2011:

As the cost of traditional medicine rises along with the information generation, alternative forms of medicine are becoming more and more valuable. The Obama-Pelosi Affordable Care Act led the way to help these discoveries and subsequent developments.

3. Top 10 Marketing Infographics of 2011:

Since marketing can be very complex, visual aids tend to encourage further understanding of valuable information. Although infographics have been around for some time, they became very dominant in 2011 as people’s ability to visualize data with new technologies allowed for incredibly creative displays of information.
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12 Web Marketing Articles to Build Your Business


flyte crew - 2011The best web marketing articles of 2011…that appeared on our website.

Which is still pretty good. Because you know, we don’t just publish any old crap.

Here’s the last 12 months of articles that appeared in your inboxes if you’re a subscriber to the flyte log, our award winning web marketing email newsletter.

Well, that’s that!

Have you signed up for the flyte log email newsletter yet? When you do, you get the following articles only available to subscribers:

  • 10 Questions to Ask Before Setting Up a Website
  • The 11 Biggest Mistakes Small Business Bloggers Make
  • 10 Questions to Ask Before Setting Up a Facebook Business Page
  • The 11 Commandments of Writing Web Copy for the Non-Copywriter

 May 2012 be your most prosperous year yet!

Rich Brooks
Internet Marketer

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Go Whitewater Rafting with Northeast Guide Services in Maine


Maine Whitewater Rafting TripsEnjoy some amazing whitewater rafting in Maine with the Northeast Guide Service.

If you like outdoor adventure as part of your vacation, you owe it to yourself to do some whitewater rafting here in Maine.

We’ve got plenty of rivers and falls for all levels of whitewater rafting, from the Kennebec and Penobscot Rivers to the remoteness of the Dead River or the challenge of Canada Falls.

And there’s probably no better group to take you than Northeast Guide Service. This small, locally owned whitewater rafting adventure company is Maine’s only service registered for swift water rescue, putting all your fears to rest.

You can find them near Moosehead Lake in Greenville, Maine. That makes them the closest whitewater rafting service to Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor, Maine. They’re also close to Baxter State Park and Maine’s largest mountain, Mt. Katahdin.

In other words, they’re right in the middle of your Maine outdoor adventure vacation.

You can also find them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, or check them out on YouTube.

The website was designed and build by flyte, and we provided web marketing services as well.

Rich Brooks
Maine Web Design

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