(This article was originally published in the MarketingExperiments email newsletter.)
“If you have something unique — even a single dimension of exclusivity — that’s meaningful and significant to the customer, you help them conclude they can’t get this anywhere else.”
— Flint McGlaughlin, Managing Director, MECLABS Institute
If you are experienced in business, you have heard of using marketing tactics like scarcity, story and influence to increase your sales.
But there is a right way and a wrong way to apply these psychological drivers. Negative manipulation used by marketers to achieve a business objective not only hurts their own brand but also negatively impacts those who are making honest efforts to sell their goods or services.
In today’s video replay, Flint McGlaughlin explains ways to identify and avoid dark patterns some businesses employ to increase sales. He also gives examples of real case studies where people are using the power of scarcity, story and influence in a positive way — and increasing conversion.
Watch the video to learn how to tap into these three motivators in the most effective way.
Here are some key points in the video:
- 8:01 Three factors can impact a customer’s perceived value of your offer.
- 11:02 PVD is the difference between the customer’s perceived value and the actual value.
- 16:40 Scarcity – Examples of using this internal motivator inappropriately.
- 22:37 Dark patterns – Negative manipulation used by marketers to achieve an objective in their business.
- 25:19 Examples of using Scarcity appropriately.
- 29:10 Influence (celebrity, social proof, authority, etc…) – Examples of using it appropriately.
- 32:05 Examples of using Story appropriately.
- 35:33 Value Proposition – Four conclusions to evoke in the mind
Related Resources
Negatives examples…
Dark Patterns at Scale: Findings from a Crawl of 11K Shopping Websites – Research from Arunesh Mathur, Gunes Acar, Michael J. Friedman, Elena Lucherini, Jonathan Mayer, and Arvind Narayanan of Princeton University and Marshini Chetty the University of Chicago
The Endless, Invisible Persuasion Tactics of the Internet – by Sidney Fussell in The Atlantic, discusses negative examples of leveraging dark patterns to tap into the power of influence and the power of scarcity
Positive examples…
Landing Page tests: A/B Testing: How a landing page test yielded a 6% increase in leads – Example of leveraging the power of scarcity
Web Clinic tests: Email Copy Tested: How adding urgency increased clickthrough by 15% – Example of the power of scarcity
Social Media: Social Media Optimization: Engineering contagious ideas – Example of the power of scarcity
Ecommerce: It’s Not All About Price – Scarcity (“limited time/limited inventory promotions”) was the most effective sales tactic for consumer products.
Marketing Chart: Which advertising channels consumers trust most and least when making purchases – We discovered that print ads (newspaper, magazines) were the most trusted advertising channels when customers were making a purchase decision. One reason for this may be the comparative scarcity of print, as opposed to omnipresent digital ads.
Interactive Email: 6 tactics to leverage the influence of social reinforcement – Good example of a winery using influence-based social reinforcement tactics in an email campaign
Marketing Psychology: The behavioral triggers behind success at Amazon, Groupon and FarmVille – GroupOn, in its early days, used both the scarcity and influence behavioral triggers
How to Use Social Media to Increase Your Marketing Conversion – Includes an example of HiSmile leveraging the power of influence in social media
Data Analysis 101: How a nonprofit used data to secure a critical business decision and help find 125 missing children – Using the power of story with analytics for a nonprofit
Ecommerce Marketing: 150% increase in sales from product storytelling and site redesign – Case study showing how the power of story helped increase sales
Content Marketing: How a farm justifies premium pricing – Example of in-package newsletter that leveraged the power of story
Copywriting on Tight Deadlines: How ordinary marketers are achieving 103% gains with a step-by-step framework – (instant PDF download) Slide deck from a presentation showing how the power of story helped lead to a ticket sellout for a summit
5 Steps to Telling Your Team’s Story Internally – Leveraging the power of story for an internal audience
These webinars are gold! Flint does such a great job engaging with the audience, and delivering the content directly and thoroughly were it might otherwise be considered too complex. His ability to not only teach the lesson but provide real world examples helps tremendously to further the experience and comprehension. Will continue to follow along. Key to the good work.