Okay now, everybody grab your glass of Kool-Aide and we’ll drink on the count of three!
Do you remember the first time you went to a fancy restaurant, or visited a strange place where you didn’t know the local customs? Remember that awkward feeling when you weren’t quite sure which fork to use with your salad or where you should sit? Do you remember what you did?
The odds are that you looked around to see what everyone else was doing and you copied them. You took your cues from the group. Usually, when a lot of people are doing the same thing, it’s the right thing to do.
The persuasion principle behind this is called ‘Social Proof’. You probably first learned to use this persuasion tool in grade school. When your mom wouldn’t let you go to to the movies with all the other kids you said, “Everyone else’s mom said it was okay to go” – the logic being if they all said yes, your mom must be wrong!
Mom probably followed up by saying, “If everyone else jumped off a cliff, would you jump too…”
——————————————————————-
The Marketing “Gurus” don’t want you to find this site…
——————————————————————-
…The bad news for mom is that the odds are very high that you would, in fact, jump if every else did too.
Social proof finds its way into marketing in a number of ways. Some blunt and some subtle. Movie studios like to promote the box office numbers of their newest releases because they know that you will assume a movie is good if a lot of other people go and see it – even if the reviews are bad.
TV shopping networks employ social proof when they show the little counter on the screen that lets you watch how many other people are buying that cubic zirconium ring. They also take calls on the air from customers who go on to rave about how much they love the ring they bought.
Typical ways that you can include social proof in your online promotions are to include testimonials from happy customers and reviewers on your sales pages. You can also include counters on your web pages that track how many subscribers you have, or allow visitors to rate your products. Many marketers will lead-off an email during a launch by mentioning how many new subscribers they have since the last email.
Less obvious, but equally powerful, is to create a massive launch campaign that is designed to saturate a marketplace with content and conversations about you and your product. This usually involves the efforts of affiliates promoting some kind of free report or video designed to stir up conversation.
When well done, the launch consumes the conversation on forums and blogs in the target market, and soon everyone seems to be talking about it – which means it must be important, right?
Social proof can be even more subtle than that. Every time a visitor bookmarks a page on your site, links to it from their blog, or mentions it to a friend, you gain a vote of social proof that you’ve created something of value.
Social proof is powerful and cumulative. Over time it will build your reputation and it should be a part of everything that you do.
That is the 6th and final weapon of persuasion that the gurus are using to supercharge their promotions.
Now you know all of the 6 secret weapons of persuasion that lie behind all of the most powerful marketing systems available. Now, you can start to strategize your own unique tactic to supercharge your business.
Oh, and don’t forget to tell others about this amazing free ecourse. Send them to my blog and tell them to sign up. While you are at it, bookmark a few of my articles too 😉
Andrew Seltz
The Go-To Guy!
www.GoToGuyEnterprises.com