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Persuasion and Influence Part 2: Reciprocity Principle
Rick Henkin
In almost all societies, we feel obligated to repay in kind for something that someone has done for us first. It's practically an unwritten rule of society. You smile at someone on the street, and more often than not, they'll smile back. Someone holds a door open for you and you hold a door open for someone else. This is the principle of reciprocity at work. We're programmed to help those who help us. Reciprocity principle definedAs defined by Robert Cialdini, in his book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials)  , "The rule says that we should try to repay, in
kind, what another person has provided for us." We obligate
ourselves to repay this "indebtedness," whether now or at some point in
the future. This need to relieve ourselves of this debt is so great
that it doesn't even matter if the favor done was requested by
us or not. This need to repay or not feel indebted becomes
even more urgent on our part when the favor offered is done without any
expectation of a return favor.Example of reciprocity in actionIn Cialdini's book, he writes about a 2-part experiment done in the early 1960's by a college professor in which a "student" (the experimenter, call him Joe) left the room for a break. He returned after a few minutes with 2 Cokes, one for himself and one for the person sitting next to him (the subject). The subject hadn't asked for anything at all but was of course gracious and accepted the drink. Later on, Joe asked a favor of the subject. He told the subject that he was selling raffle tickets to win a car, and if he sold the most tickets, he would win a $50 prize. Joe asked the subject to purchase a few of the 25 cent tickets. In the 2nd part of the experiment, Joe returned to class after the break with only a Coke for himself. Again, he later asked the person sitting next to him if he would purchase some raffle tickets and told him the story about possibly winning the $50 prize. Needless to say, the people for whom he had done the favor of bringing the Coke purchased twice as many raffle tickets as those who didn't receive the favor. But what's even more astonishing is that those who had received the Coke bought an average of 2 raffle tickets for 25 cents apiece (some had even purchased more) when the cost of a bottle of Coke at that time was just 10 cents. That's a 500% return on Joe's investment. Applying this principleto your businessOne of the simplest ways to apply this principle to your Internet business is to offer your prospective customers something for free. However, it has to be something of real value, that's perceived by your audience as being something of value. The easiest thing of course, is information in the form of a report, a white paper, an ebook,an audio or video that can be downloaded. It can be in the form of a trial membership or subscription. It might be coupons, discounts, bonus points. You want to offer things that cost you very little but can be perceived as being of high value as long as the information contained is something that will actually benefit your prospects. Whatever you offer, don't fill it full of ads for your product or service. It's already understood that this is, in effect, promotional material for your business. The concept is to offer such valuable, good quality information that the customer says to himself, "Gee, if I'm getting all of this great advice for free, what will they send me if I pay for it?" This shouldn't be done only at the beginning of your relationship with your customer, you can and should do it throughout. Here's an example: We all receive newsletters from certain sources. As time goes on, we're probably less likely to open it, especially if it's filled with the same basic content each time. But what if every now and then, you, as the Internet business owner, included a link to a free bonus, resource or tool that could really help your subscribers, even if they haven't become customers yet? Not only is it a great thing to do for your people, but I'll bet you'll get a lot more opens because people will begin to look forward to your surprises. Make sure that in the relationship between business and customer, you're the first to "offer" something, rather than just "taking" your customer's business ARTICLE DATE: 2009-03-12 REVISED DATE: Share this Article as a Tweet on Twitter
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