š”Biases in Marketing: Here is What You Should Know...
If youāre a startup founder, run a small business, or do anything around sales and marketing ā these are the "must-have" ideas for you.
This is a collaboration post from MichaÅ Kankowski, the Founder of the Brainiac. MichaÅ is collecting cognitive biases for sales and marketing.
Do you know that a lot of things we do and think are the way they are without us even being aware of them?
Human brains can do things their owners don't even know about. Those āthingsā are typically caused by cognitive biases.
You can think of them as algorithms that affect how certain programs work. The user can't see the actual code, but it still works without one noticing it!
Let's look at a couple of example biases, and their application in marketing.
1. Foot-in-door technique
This is one of the most common principles used in marketing, and it requires a two-step procedure to make it work.
It goes as: āgetting a person to agree to a large request by them agreeing to a smaller one firstā.
It may sound a bit odd, but it's been proven to work.
At first, you make a small request, and then, once the person agrees to that, they find it much easier to agree to a bigger one, which they might have refused otherwise.
In marketing, this is quite often used in sales funnels. It works by starting with lower-priced products and services and gradually increasing them while keeping the customer. For example, starting selling a product for $0,99, then (letās say after a few months) $1,99, then $2,99, andā¦ eventually ā selling a product for ten or hundred times the original price, ending up with $99,99.
There is a scientific experiment that demonstrates this bias: a group of researchers asked people to put small stickers on their cars and houses with the message āKEEP CALIFORNIA CLEANā. Then, they asked them to put larger signs in front of their houses and stick larger stickers on their cars. Many people who had agreed to the first request also agreed to the second one, although it was much more āintrusiveā. More about it here.
2. Framing
The idea behind Framing is that the same information may be presented in various ways.
It's a quite common marketing technique in advertising, for example when a merely good product is framed so that it creates an impression of a really attractive offer.
How to implement it in the marketing of your products and services?
Consider as many different ways of describing your offer as possible, and choose the most compelling āframeā. For example, one way you can do this is by playing with numbers.
Which one is more attractive for potential customers: ā50% off on summer sale!ā or āNow for only $2,99 instead of $5,98ā?
Even though both discounts are of the same amount, the second option looks like that the discount is MERELY $2,99. Although the 50% discount means exactly the same, the bigger number is just much more attractive.
Choosing the right frame of reference can make a huge difference in any business.
And thatās the thing with biases... If you're not aware of them, you're most likely wasting thousands or millions of dollars, EVERY MONTH!
The biggest, the best companies in the world aren't technological. They are psychological companies presented as technological ones.
āPeople buy emotions, not productsā
If you want to know more about cognitive biases and how to apply these ideas in your business you should check Brainiac ā a cheat-sheet with over 150 cognitive biases, principles, and models to influence your customers' decisions and increase your sales on the first week!
Get Brainiac HERE