One Simple SECRET on HOW You Can Persuade Others

To be successful and remain in business, both profitability and growth are essentially vital and necessary for a company to survive and remain attractive. In the business to business context, direct marketing communication could be an important cue to these objectives. One of the basic variables is by using persuasion skill to promote these initiatives, as far as it improves communication in the seller-and-buyer relationship, which then increases the credibility of the message.

Direct marketing sends targeted messages to a specific group of people through a multitude of channels, including mail, e-mail, phone and in person, where it must create credibility, accuracy and importance for them to hear when making decisions. One valuable mean lies in how messages are conveyed, thus their judgments and decisions are influenced by the way the message is framed.

An attitude towards act deserves special attention where an influencing normative message can effectively persuade people to act accordingly. Persuasive communication in behavior that activates social norms can be effective to mobilize action. Therefore, information dissemination and normative message on social norms have the ability to produce changes in behavior.

As a support to this, the researchers from California State University tested the power of social norms in influencing behavior. Wesley P. Schultz and his group members collaborated with a local hotel to work on a program to encourage lodgers to reuse their wet towels, in order to promote conservation among the hotel guests. They have conducted three experiments where the results reported clearly that normative messages can really impact on the change in behavior, where there is tentative impact on the reduction of the towel use.

One of the significant experiments is where the researchers had randomly assigned cards with two different messages to 132 condo units, as such:

1.    Combined messages of descriptive and injunctive norms.

“Many of our hotel guests have expressed to us their approval of conserving energy. When given the opportunity, nearly 75% of hotel guests choose to reuse their towels each day. Because so many guests value conservation and are in the habit of conserving, this hotel has initiated a conservation program. If you would like your towels replaced, please leave your used towels on the bathroom floor. Towels left hanging on the towel rack tell us that you want to reuse them.”

2.      Control message.

“If you would like your towels replaced, please leave your used towels on the bathroom floor. Towels left hanging on the towel rack tell us that you want to reuse them.”

As a result, it showed that the guests who received the combined message were more likely to reuse (62%) than those who received the control message (57%).

To sum up, different but objectively equivalent descriptions of the same information can yield different responses. By combining descriptive norms (what people typically do) and injunctive norms (what people typically approve or disapprove towards a special course of actions) can optimize the power of normative appeals to the public, hence influencing their behavior. However, the people who fail to recognize the distinction between these two types of norm will jeopardize their persuasive efforts.

By: Yau Che Yan, BAF1541