Well, if you’d like to get a better response from people in your market, if you’d like to make more sales and if you’d like to get more comments on your blog, then your USP might have more to contribute to your goals than you suspected. And instead of talking fluff around the subject or giving you a vapid 10-point list, I decided to give you a very practical example of how to apply a USP, that you can test right away. And don’t worry about branding your entire business just yet. You can use this method for any single piece of content you create.

Watch the video below to see what I mean:

Let me know your thoughts and comments on this video!

Cheers,

Welcome to my second post covering an aspect of psychology in the selling process. This time, we’ll take a closer look at social proof, undoubtedly one of the most crucial and most powerful principles, underlying many methods of persuasion.

Read on to see what social proof is all about and how it’s used in marketing to make people buy, buy, buy…

What is Social Proof?

First, the basics: As you’ve probably heard many times before, humans are very social animals and many theories state that pre-historic life in small, tightly-knit tribes has formed our behaviours and minds in such a way that we always seek out like-minded company, care greatly for the approval of others etc.

To put it more cynically, we are all genetically inclined to be sheeple and instinctively want to follow the herd. Here’s a simple example of social proof you’ve almost certainly experienced yourself:

When someone asks for a show of hands in order to assess an audience’s opinion, be it during a speech or presentation, in school or anywhere else, you’ll often see a peculiar pattern in the audience’s response. At first, only a few people in the audience will raise their hands, but within seconds, a few more will join. As others in the audience are glancing around and seeing more hands going up, more and more hands will be raised and the more hands are raised, the more likely it is that further people will jump on what has now become the “band-wagon”.

This effect is most often seen when the question asked is slightly controversial or about a complex topic. A few people in the audience are sure of their opinion and will either raise or not raise their hands accordingly. Many people will be unsure, however. They might have an opinion, but be uncertain whether it’s “okay” to have this opinion or to express it right now. Others might not be sure about the subject and rather not participate, but once they see a majority of people with their hands in the air, they don’t want to be the odd ones out and they may be afraid that it’s “not okay” not to agree with the majority.

That’s social proof in a nutshell. People adapt their actions according to what they see other people do.

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The “Just Like Me” Factor

Actually, that last sentence is missing a very important element. People don’t necessarily do what they see many others do. It’s more accurate to say that people tend to do what they see many other people, that they perceive to be similar to themselves, doing.

Everyone has a perceived role or place in society – some way in which they see themselves fit into the greater picture (especially those who insist they don’t fit in anywhere). Additionally to this, everyone has a desired role or place in society – basically the person they wish they were.

These are two very important factors to keep in mind when it comes to using social proof as an instrument of influence and manipulation. In order to use social proof to persuade someone to buy, you want them to think: “Lot’s of other people who are just like me have bought this.”

This “just like me” element makes social proof more powerful, however, it still works even without it.

Finally, a message can be made even more appealing if the social proof is provided by people who represent what the target audience would like to think of themselves as. As an example, if you are targeting men in general, you don’t want to show that “average men have bought this”, instead you want to show that “men who are a bit more attractive and manly than your average guy have bought this”. Why? Because every guy likes to think of himself and wants to be a bit more attractive and manly than average.

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How Social Proof is Used in Marketing

Let’s look at some examples of how this psychological principle is used and exploited in marketing and advertising messages:

• Operators Are Busy
  Some bright guy involved in TV infomercials once had the idea of changing the classic “our phone operators are awaiting your call” to “if you cannot reach us immediately, please try again” and had immense success with this. The reason is simple: The first statement evokes an image of phone operators patiently waiting for you to call. The second one evokes an image of phone operators frantically working, trying to process all the calls and orders that are coming in. Guess which one activates social proof?
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• Most Successful / Bestselling / Sold Out
  Whenever any product achieves any kind of status or award that implies many people have bought it, you can be sure that this will be mentioned in the advertising material for that product. Bestselling books are always labelled as bestseller and you’ll often see references stating something like “Version 1 sold out in just X hours!”. These message clearly imply that lots and lots of people decided to purchase the product.
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• Server Crash
  In the online marketing world, a classic example of the use of social proof is the “server crash” e-mail sent out during a big product launch. Shortly after the launch of a product, an e-mail is sent out to the list of prospect that basically states “if you tried to purchase recently and couldn’t, we are really, really sorry. So many people flooded to our site that our servers crashed. Fortunately, everything is back up and running.”
  Again, this statement simply evokes an image of thousands of people swarming to the site and ordering the product.
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• Testimonials
  Testimonials push several psychological buttons, one of which is the social proof one. With testimonials, you demonstrate that others have bought (and you get the best chance to make use of the “just like me” factor) and you also demonstrate that those people were satisfied.
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• Crowds
  Finally, next time you see some ads on TV, simply pay attention to how often groups of people or large crowds are shown. When this is the case, it’s almost always an attempt to make use of social proof.

Are you making use of social proof in your sales-process? If not, I recommend you start with a split-test of one of your pages where you test no social proof vs. explicit social proof vs. implied social proof and see what kind of results you get. I’m sure you’ll be surprised with the results!

Cheers,

This is the first entry in a series of posts I’ll be doing about sales psychology. This won’t be a series of consecutive posts but rather a subject that I’ll post about from time to time. In the series, you’ll learn about specific techniques that can be used to increase sales and conversions. Once you’ve read about them, you’ll soon recognize them in many advertising campaigns online and off.

To start off, I want to introduce an easily exploitable psychological bias called the commitment bias.

An Extreme Example

Since you’re on the Internet, it’s quite likely that you’ve come across the great secret of the Scientology sect. They have this theory about aliens being banned to earth and then nuked and now the alien souls somehow attach themselves to humans and that’s what makes us ill. Something along those lines, anyway. If you want more detail, just Google “what scientology really believes”, there’s lots of info to be found.

The point is that this story with the alien souls and all that is completely over the top and ridiculous. It’s so silly that it begs the question: How can anyone possibly believe something like that?

Well, it’s actually not surprising at all that members of Scientology would believe this. Scientology is a hierarchical organization in which you have to “work your way up” and, more importantly, spend a lot of money if you want to “advance”.

By the time you are “ready” for the “real truth” with the aliens and all that, you’ve likely been a member for years and years, spent a lot of time in the organization, made friends and valuable connections and spent a bucketload of cash on your development.

In other words, you’ve already made a huge commitment to the organization. So huge that it’s easier to believe a completely ridiculous story than it is to admit: “I’ve been wrong all those years and I’ve wasted all that money and effort.”

Something like that can be hard to admit. And the more time, money and effort you invest, the harder it is to admit it. Consequently, you will subconsciously do your best to deny any evidence against the beliefs you’ve committed to.

This is the commitment bias in action.

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Real Life

Okay, as the heading stated, that was an extreme example and you probably aren’t planning to build a cult (though that might be a lucrative business-model), so let’s get this closer to real life.

The commitment bias can be seen in use in many everyday situations, in a much milder way. Quite simply, the marketer wants the prospect to make some kind of a commitment (time, money or effort) towards the product or service he’s selling. This can greatly increase the chances of turning the prospect into a buyer.

Here are some examples:

• Cheap Trials
  Notice how many services don’t offer a free trial, but instead they offer an extremely cheap trial? Like a $1 trial or a $7 trial?
  Well, the marketers behind this aren’t after that one buck. They want you to make a (tiny) commitment to the product and they want your credit card details (for a painless transition to the fully priced service). If you pay even a small amount for a trial, you are much more likely to actually use the product or service. And by using it, you are once again committing time to it and putting some effort into learning how to use it (if it’s something like a software program). You might also get in contact with other members or support staff or coaches and get to like them. Those are all small, but significant commitments that will make it much more likely you’ll opt for the full-priced service after the trial period.
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• High Price
  This is a particularly simple one and it’s especially relevant for non-refundable purchases. It’s a lot easier to say “That thing I just spent five bucks on is total rubbish” that it is to say “That thing I just spent thousands of dollars on is total rubbish”, even if you’re just saying it to yourself. If you’ve spent a lot of money on something, you’ll try harder to find it’s positive aspects.
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• Participation/Interaction
  Many give-away promotions require you to do something like fill out a survey or post a video or a funny picture, in order to enter the draw for the grand prize.
  Again, with your participation, you’re investing yourself in the product or brand (in a small way) and this activates the commitment bias.
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• Yes-Set
  Here’s an old-school one that comes from tele-marketing and face-to-face marketing. Many sales-people will try to ask you some questions that you’ll inevitably answer with a “yes” and that subtly steer you towards wanting the product. You’ll find similar tactics used in sales-copy as well.
  To give a stupidly simple example, a TV sales-person might ask things like “You want to be able to relax and enjoy a really good movie from time to time, right?”, “A bigger screen with better colours is always better, isn’t it?”, “I really enjoy the booming sound-effects you get in a cinema. How about you?”.
  These are all questions with obvious “yes” answers (and the sales-rep might just keep talking, leaving you to answer the questions in your head). Once he gets to the TV he wants to sell you, guess what? It has all those features! Bigger screen, better sound quality, better colours… You obviously want this, right? I mean, you said “yes” to all those questions and this here is exactly what you’re looking for. Or were you lying before?
  Again, this is the commitment bias in action. Also, a good sales-rep will find better questions than I did for this example (hopefully).
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• Unskippable Sales-Videos
  This is hot in Internet marketing right now. Many products are being marketed with videos that cannot be fast-forwarded and that don’t allow you to skip ahead in any way. Some don’t have any navigation at all; you can’t even pause them and you don’t know how long they’re going to last (hint: Usually, it’s very, very long).
  This can be hugely annoying, but the reason this is being done has to do with the commitment bias. If you’ve just invested 45 minutes of your time watching a video and now you hear that the offer is limited and it’s going to expire any minute, you’re much more likely to buy than if you had skipped ahead after a few minutes and seen the outrageous price.

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Bottom Line

I’m pretty sure that in your lifetime you’ve made several purchases as a direct result of the commitment bias. And I’m also pretty sure that you were unaware of it. That’s the beauty of good sales psychology: You never realize it’s happening.

Is it wrong to use such techniques to “manipulate” prospects? I don’t think so. Not in and of itself, anyway. You can go too far with manipulation, but if you don’t do any of it, you’ll never make a sale.

In my sales psychology posts, I don’t want to judge whether something is right or wrong. I simply want to show you some neat little tricks so you can be aware of them. As a consumer as well as a marketer.

That’s all for now. More mind-games will be “exposed” (what an over-used word) in future posts.

Cheers,

P.S.: I caught a pretty bad cold and have been a mess for almost a week. That’s why I didn’t post much. In case today’s post seems weird: It’s not my fault, I’m still not fully recovered. ;)
Once I am, I’ll get to work on those reviews again.

An upsell is when you offer extensions, expansions, “gold-memberships” or related products to your customers. Often this is done right after the initial purchase (instant upsell) and the reason upsells are so popular is that they often work. A customer who has just agreed to buy your initial offer is quite likely to be willing to shell out a little more cash for the next offer as well. In my reviews, I rate upsells and especially instant upsells as scammy. In this article, I explain why.

What Gives?

If you are an experienced internet marketer yourself, your first reaction might be to think that it’s very unfair of me to rate upsells as scammy. Am I against selling? What’s wrong with offering products? It’s not like you’re forcing anyone to buy them, right? Let me clearly state that I am not opposing selling itself in any way. I run online businesses myself, so I also sell to people. More importantly, I am also a customer and I don’t mind being sold to, as long as what you’re selling are products that interest me.

So why do I rate instant upsells as scammy? Because it’s an indication that you are not getting what you just paid for, that you aren’t getting what you signed up for. Take a look at the sales-pages of any number of get-rich-quick programs. They always give you the impression, or even explicitly state that this program is going to teach you everything you need to know to make tons of money online. Some of them even claim that their system is fully automatic and will practically start spitting out money at the click of a button. Now, when you decide to buy the product and immediately after the purchase, you are led to the backend where one or several upsells await, what does that say about the program you just bought? To me, it clearly says that the program I just bought is incomplete. On the sales-page, I was told that this program would solve all my problems and now I’m being told I should also get program X to really boost my traffic and program Y to make website-building a breeze.

Now, it’s one thing if these upsell products are affiliate-offers, but it’s even worse when they are from the same author who made the program I just bought. Why weren’t they included in the base product?

In short, the immediate upsell indicates that the product you just bought is actually incomplete. This is scammy, particularly if the initial sales-page explicitly stated that the program on offer is a complete solution.

Is a Non-Scammy Upsell Possible?

It’s definitely possible to make non-scammy upsells. On the one hand, the upsell product could be integrated into the base product and the combination could be offered at a higher price, right off the bat. In this case, the sales-page would make it clear that there are two or three different packages to purchase, e.g. the “Get-Rich-Quick Basic”, “Get-Rich-Quick Silver” and “Get-Rich-Quick Gold” packages. Of course, this might mean less sales, as many customers are put off by having to make a choice.

The main factor is the relation between the product an the upsell, however. If the product is “here’s the system that will make you money” and the upsell is “here’s really the system that will make you money”, that’s scammy. If the product is about something more specific, say, how to run successful PPC campaigns and the upsell is something like a software that makes creating and tracking PPC campaigns easier, that’s not scammy anymore (unless you were lead to believe that such a software would be part of the initial purchase).

The problem is that promising something like “the secret to making money and living your dream life” and being very vague about the actual product (a.k.a. hope and dream marketing) tends to do much better than if you’re specific about your offer. So, as a marketer in IM, you can choose to be honest and transparent, but that will mean less money in your pocket. Or you can go the typical route,  just push emotional buttons all the way and basically exploit the clueless to line your pockets. Which side are you on?