Fundamentals of business psychology: Psychology and people review
Hello everyone, this is my first post here on this platform. I feel really excited to be part of a growing community where people are passionate about self improvement.
As the world awaits an urgent solution to the covid 19 pandemic, I deeply sympathize with everyone who have been directly affected through loss of a dear one, livelihood,etc.
Enrolling for the CXL Institute’s Digital psychology and persuation minidegree program has been one of my biggest points this year. I am truly grateful for this opportunity. I will be giving a review of what I have learned this week. Subsequently for the next 12 weeks, I will be reviewing diverse topics related to the human psychology and how it spurs persuation in the business and general life setting.
Love it or hate it, persuation is one of the most difficult things to do in Marketing and business in general. The best way to get attention is to employ psychology techniques to your advantage(since we behave in line with our psychological wiring).
It is true man is a complicated animal. We evolve with the fast paced changes affecting technology and internet. For millions of years,the human brain constantly improves in similitude to it’s environmental changes. I learned from the first segment (people and psychology),and I was able to cover the following;
• Cialdini’s 7 Principles of persuation
• Fogg behavior model
• Lessons from Neuromarketing, and
• A big list of persuation techniques
Cialdini's 7 Principles Of Persuation
When the topic of persuation is brought up, Cialdini happens to be an authority figure. He gave 7 principles of persuation capable of working in various context. These principles are brainchild of his years of research and observations;
Reciprocacity : The human nature likes to pay back favour or wrong doings. We are naturally wired to reciprocate in like manner what was done to us. Being indebted makes people uncomfortable.
Commitment and consistently: If we are publicly committed to something or someone,we are more likely to go ahead with it.
Social Proof: It assumes that that the human brain gets safety and solace in numbers. We tend to follow an idea a large number of people subscribes to. Internet Likes,followers,and testimonials are indicators of popular opinion.
Authority: influential figures have the ability to sway people towards a particular direction. Even though they have questionable characters, as long as they are authorities in a field,they wield influence on people. Celebrity endorsement is a way brands utilize this technique.
Liking: Our brain is wired to go ahead with things that catch our fancy. Eg ; beautiful people get more attention In ads.
Scarcity: This follows the traditional law of demand and supply. By creating a sense of urgency on a product/service, people are more likely to patronize. However,it at be done well and not faked else, it would backfire. Time and quantity can be used as the scarce commodity to boost patronage.
Unity: We are more likely to patronize a brand that has a sense of shared identity with us.
The Cialdini’s 7 principles of persuation is still much relevant in our day to day human interactions.
Fog Behavior Model
This model simply explains that any desired paid behavior is a combination of 3 distinct variable: the ability,triggers and motivation. When a desired paid behavior does not occur,the model states that it is as a result of one of the 3 variables absent or insufficient.
Ability: it asks the question of " is the task hard or easy?". It is more important than motivation. Action taking should not be too difficult. Always simplify as much as possible your action taking steps.
Triggers: This is the Acton propeller. It can be in form of ads or copy. Almost no behavior happens without a trigger . That is why you need to send promotional materials often.
Motivation: A good sales copy can be a good source of motivation. As businesses,we should asked people to take action only when we have invested much into their motivation.the 3 frame8of motivation are ; social acceptance/rejection, pleasure/pain, and hope/fear.
The B.J. Fogg behavior model assumes that behavior = motivation × Ability× trigger
Lessons from Neuromarketing
Neuromarketing is the application of neurometrics, psychometrics, and biometrics to marketing. In a less technical sense,it is the act of findi6the buy button in our brains. Basically, the study of Neuromarketing assumes we have 3 brains namely; Old brain, Middle brain and New brain.
Old Brain: this is also called the reptilian/survival/instinctive brain. It processes very fast and with little cognitive speed. It can be triggered by 6 stimulus. The old Brain is;
1.Self centered: Ability to care for only ones benefits
2.Contrast: likes seeks and identifies a clear difference before patronage.
3.Tangible: Prefers a clear and succinct form of information.
4.First and last: Takes most cognizance to the first and last aspect of anything.
5.Visual: Can be triggered by strong visual representations
6.Emotion: Can be swayed by emotions.
In our delivery to the old Brain of people,we should always
1. Start with an attention grabber or catchy content, and
2. Use large photos that are descriptive and expressive.
New brain: this is the rational part of the brain that does the processing. It processes faster and accurately than any part of the 3 brains.
Middle Brain: this is the emotional part of the brain that feels.
In the study of neuromarketing, there are actions that hinder the decision making process;
1. Excluding the needs of the people while focusing on the brand.
2. Not providing clearly contrasting reasons that support your USP.
3. Lacking emotions.
4. Relying so much on words instead of visuals.
OTHER LIST OF PERSUASIVE TECHNIQUES
Here I learned about other persuation techniques that are relevant to diverse areas of life;
Focusing Effect: This technique shows that the human brain focuses unequally on an aspect. It is clearly related with the attention bias. For brands, always focus on a very few USP and ake sure your most USP is emphasized so hard that their 4 benefits are also highlighted.
Context dependent memory: the technique shows that when we’re out of context, we tend to forget things. Always have consistency in your positioning,so as to make people remember you through the cues.
Self generation affect effect: We would like things better if we figure it out by ourselves. Customers love the idea of co creation.
Facial distraction: Subconsciously, faces take up a huge amount of cognitive capacity in our brains from birth. Use faces to attract attention and not to distract (in banners, fliers,Ads, etc) especially recognizable faces.
noteworthy techniques to research on are;
Attention bias, fear appeal, Reflection effect, Gaze cueing, Forer Effect, Mimicry,. Country of origin effect, domestic country bias, Facilitating triggers, Sparking triggers, Conceptual and Associative,. Commitment bias, Hyperbolic Discounting, Equivalence framing, Front loading, immediacy effect,and emphasis framing.
Next week I would be concluding the review of people and psychology and also introducing the concept of neuromarketing. Stay safe everyone!
