Imagine you're in a crowded place, you're alone and you faint. Your brain is muddled and confused as you fall to the ground. But you have a quick thought, well at least there are a lot of people around to help me. When you wake up, no one is by your side helping you. Some stare at you strangely but no one is offering to help. This certainly sounds like something that would happen on a different planet, not planet earth, right? Sadly this type of situation happens more often than we want to admit. This is a classic principle of child in this tool of influence social proof. After you've fainted, no one helped you because everyone was watching what others were doing. And since no one else was helping, the group assumed you were okay. In this situation, before fainting, even if you have looked one person in the eye and said help me, you would have most likely had not one, but a few people jump to your aid. Again, social proof because one person felt responsible they acted and others would have wanted to help as well. Influencing others is an important aspect of marketing and sales. You will find there are common words and phrases you want recognize and use. With reciprocity, because someone has done something for you, you feel obligated to give something in return or vice versa. Offering free trials and free samples of something causes others to want to do something for others to do something in return for your favor. Phrases that work well for less reciprocity are, since you've been so accommodating, since you've been such a great customer or a question like, what can I do for you in return? Neil Patel's website, QUICKSPROUT offers a ton of free articles about marketing because so much practical information is given to businesses for free they, in turn, are interested in using his consulting services. In the commitment and consistency category, use positive labels with your customers. Tell your customers they are the best. Tell them they are globally minded. Tell them they are intelligent and stylish. In turn, they most likely will become so because they are committed to you and others believe in those words or labels you've given them. Look at those examples sentence, since we know you're a huge fan of our cellphones, we wouldn't want you to miss out on any other offers. Also, if you can get your customers to commit publicly, the more likely stay committed or get them to say yes in small ways. Phrases you can use are subscribe for our newsletter, download this ebook, read this article or watch this webinar. Look at this example from copy blogger, they ask for commitment only by entering your e-mail. They call their customers smart giving them a label, plus it shows that 100,000 people have given their e-mails. So wouldn't it be safe for you to commit as well? This is also an example of social proof. The example at the beginning already showed social proof that there are many more, one effective tool that Amazon uses for social proof is their customers who bought this also bought this section that pops up as you're ready to make a purchase. This puts ideas in heads that if others are doing, it's probably a good idea. Also, invite customers to write reviews of your products or services. Research shows that even negative reviews, if written politely, will help customers trust your product. Another good phrase to use for social proof is McDonald's famous, over 247 billion served. Giving accurate numbers of your product sold or customer served allows others to feel safe in trying your product. With the principle of influence liking as has been discussed, you want your customers to like you, not just see you as a brand. You also want to show them, you are like them. On social media platforms this is fairly easy to do. Some companies will express a personal note of gratitude to one of their customer friends on Facebook or Instagram. For everyone to see or spotlight a certain customer. Proof eyewear has a Friday shoutout where they use fan photos using their Proof gear. Use your words to be friendly, and show you are similar to your customers or even that you are human and make mistakes too. Your customers also appreciate Happy Birthday and holiday cards. Thinkgeek.com designs a creative and enthusiastic website that makes people visiting the website feel, these guys are geeks and there's a whole community of them who are just like me. For authority, we will listen to people with certain titles, accomplishments or even uniform sometimes. Apple, created the clever title geniuses to describe their tech support team. They're geniuses on Mac computers and have spent many hours becoming proficient and certified in computer tech support. Additionally, Apple geniusly applies the principle of liking. This ad is so simple I say so much. Do you want to talk to the uptight guy with complicated problems who doesn't get you or do you want help from the cool attractive easy going guy who is also a genius? Their title makes customers feel secure when asking questions. You can also use words like expert, master, pro, wizard to help have an authoritative presence in your marketing especially when it comes to your customer support. If an authority figure in your industry has made a comment about your product or service, make sure, your customers know it. And the last principle is scarcity. Unlike Andrea's example of the going out of business sell that went on for three years. Scarcity works well in your marketing and sells if you are honest about it. Words that work well are a limited number, meaning there's only a certain amount of something or deadline, meaning there's a set amount of time. Other words to learn are daily deals that only happened once a day or clearance or something that's on sale that wasn't before. Also to show scarcity, here's words like pre-order or available this holiday season only, you can also use phrases like last one left, and you're missing out. I love the clothes at New York and company. But full price, they're a little expensive for me. I get emails that look like this ad, do you see the wording? Final hours, free shipping, a $100 offer, you kidding me? Sometimes I panic, and I just have to browse their website. Well, I probably should be working not to create this course. What's even more entertaining is I get an email similar to this ad almost everyday. Some I do ignore, but some are such killer deals I just have to take a look. So what are the takeaways from this lesson? The language and words chosen for our persuasive influences can be very powerful. We want to offer our customers free trials. We want to show that others love our product too. We want customers to feel like they're our friends and we want to entice them with a little scarcity but we must do so ethically with integrity and trust. Then both sides win and respect is mutual. We'll see you next time in English for marketing and sales.
