Influencing Consumer Decisions: Five Principles

An individual or organization’s consumer behavior is based on buying certain products and supporting certain brands. Behavioral, motivational, and psychological issues are the primary focus of this study area.

-Several psychological factors influence how a person responds to advertising, including perceptions, attitudes, and a general view of life.

-The demographics of the audience, including age, culture, profession, age, and background, largely determine consumers’ interests and opinions.

-A person’s social group influences how they shop. Education, income, and social class all play a role in purchasing decisions.

When conducting virtual product testing, you can influence consumer behavior more effectively by knowing consumer trends. Consumer habits and priorities change as businesses do. Today’s tastes are different from 10 years ago, and they will be different ten years later. It is important to keep consumer behavior trends in mind when designing and improving your marketing strategy.

5 Principles of influence

In his study of social influence, the researcher formulated six universal principles to understand behavior change. The principles can be used by businesses and consumers to understand purchasing behavior better and determine what strategies are most successful.

1. Reciprocity

Humans are often compelled to repay favors or reciprocate kind gestures. For example, the consumer might get a free product sample or a substantial discount.

2. Commitment

Engaged people are more likely to stick with something. The idea here is to cultivate brand loyalty; once someone has used a product or service, they are more likely to repurchase it in the future.

3. Consensus

The more people who do something, the more likely others will do it. Consumers are likely to buy into brands to demonstrate their popularity or satisfaction among a large customer base.

4. Authority

Experts tend to have listened to more than the average person. To convert new consumers, a relevant expert talking about the effectiveness of the brand’s product or service is more important.

5. Liking

Persuading a consumer to buy is more likely when the person is similar to the target consumer. It is far easier to convince consumers with similar characteristics – whether ethnicity, socioeconomic status, religious inclination, or common interests.

Conclusion

When companies are equipped with these five principles of influence, they can better navigate potential consumers and convert more sales. However, the long-run consequences of manipulation could spell disaster for the researcher as he warned against crossing the line between influence and manipulation.

Whether the principle of influence exists in a given situation should be an issue that people, companies, and marketers consider – that is, do they have to manufacture it, or can they discover it? Nobody wants to be a smuggler of influence and using the power and claiming to be an expert when they’re not will ultimately lead to negative results.