Covert Influence...
Creating Irresistible Impulse
(Part 2 of a multi-part series)
Kevin Hogan
Page 4
People Want to be Influenced
Know... that I am well aware of this...
fact that I am being influenced, and it's JUST FINE BY ME.
I WANT TO BE INFLUENCED.
As Jeffrey Gitomer says, "We don't like to be sold, we love to buy."
THINK about that....because when you buy, you don't have
objections, you might need clarification, but not much more....
The airline's loyalty program is not designed to save me money
but to make my life easier and more comfortable. (The program
is in fact to virtually guarantee I pay for a ticket on every flight I take
even though I could easily fly for free that day. They make it
worth far more to me to pay for a ticket than to fly free.)
Now, I have a LOYALTY question for you.
How easy would it be to get me to NOT fly Northwest Airlines?
What would it take to get me to fly United, or some other option?
I'm a loyal customer with a high degree of loyalty at that. This is
in part because Minneapolis is a "hub," which means I can fly
nonstop to a lot of places instead of having to switch planes at
other airports. Right there that is worth a lot....
So, how do you persuade me to switch? How do you
capture the mind, the brain of someone else's LOYAL
customer?
Because I am loyal, it will take a LOT to cause me to switch,
but there is a threshold where I will switch. There is a
threshold where EVERYONE will change.
And it all is about the presentation of information first. Then and
ONLY THEN does it become about the content of the information.
Recent research uncovers that the truly loyal person
will look for flaws in competitors products...to show it is
not a good brand.
This is easiest to understand in the context of religion
or politics.
If you are a Baptist, you don't think, you know that most
of the other people who go to specific other churches are cooked
because of the things they do differently than you do.
If you are a loyal Democrat and someone asks you to switch
to be a Republican you quickly point out the defects in the philosophy
of the Republicans showing them to be inferior.
You seek out and find evidence to show that non-Baptist,
non-Democrats are bad and your brand of religion or politics is good.
That is how the human brain thinks when it comes to loyalty.
So, when you hear friends, family, loves, customers denigrate
the competition, you can be sure you have a loyal person in
the group.
Meanwhile, the LESS LOYAL, say Democrats, perhaps those
that voted differently in the past, these LESS LOYAL people
are more likely to listen to messages from Republicans and
match up the messages against their current brand and find
similarities.
KEYPOINT: Ultimately the less loyal customer, friend, spouse sees
the competitor's brand as roughly the same as the currently
used brand.
By shifting the focus from differences to similarities and vice
versa you can begin to shift the thinking of these very
different life experience lenses.
Just how critically important is the "presentation"?
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