Part of the successful marketer’s arsenal is the ability to persuade clients and indeed, other business stakeholders, to move in a common direction. Along these lines, I saw recently a study from Ellen Langer at Harvard citing some the work of our own ASU Distinguished Professor, Bob Cialdini. The upshot of the study: people are much more likely to be persuaded to a request if they are given a reason, even if the reason is totally lame.
Check this out:
In the first group that was studied, the person would say: “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?” In that group, 94 percent said yes and allowed the person to skip ahead in line. In another group, the line-cutter asked: “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?” However, only 60 percent said yes to the person looking to cut. In a third group, the question was: “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I need to make copies?” Even though the reason was seemingly ridiculous, 93 percent still said yes to the line-cutter.
So I looked up Cialdini, and found the rest of his six ‘power tools’ of social persuasion, which can be used in all kinds of technical contexts, including project management, technology marketing, even social hacking .
- Reciprocation – People tend to return a favor, even if the first gift was lame.
- Commitment and Consistency – If people commit, orally or in writing, to an idea or goal, they are more likely to honor that commitment.
- Social Proof - People will do things that they see other people are doing.
- Authority – People will tend to obey authority figures, even if they are asked to perform objectionable acts.
- Liking — People are easily persuaded by other people that they like, which could include showing bias towards more attractive people.
- Scarcity – Perceived scarcity will generate demand.
Some of these are old friends to a lot of us, but I liked seeing them all in one place.
