How to promote your products effectively?

In most cases, many people are easily influenced by the behavior of the outside crowd, and their perception, judgment, and understanding are consistent with public opinion or the behavior of the majority. This mentality is constantly being exploited by some businesses to promote their products.

In the picture below, which line segment is the same length as the one on the left?

Isn’t this test ridiculously easy? You can tell at a glance that the correct answer is C, but in this experiment, the students made shocking errors in judgment. (They are just like us, their eyes are normal)

What is going on?

It turned out that the participating students were told in advance that this was an experiment on visual testing. When the first student being tested carefully looked at the lines on the two cards, he solemnly gave an obviously wrong answer. Then the second, third, fourth, and other students made the same wrong judgment.

When it was the last student's turn to make a judgment, he was obviously torn and began to doubt his eyesight. In the end, he was influenced by all the previous participants and chose the same answer.

But in fact, all the previous test subjects were staff arranged by the initiator of the experiment (scholar Asch), and only the last student was the real test subject.

Therefore, the experiment found that: in the absence of a reward and punishment mechanism, and without the influence of external factors such as coercion or inducement, the test subjects were still influenced by the choices of the majority. This psychological pressure came from the crowd and affected personal judgment. The final experimental results were shocking. 75% of people followed the crowd and made choices that were opposite to their own answers.

Psychologists call this phenomenon "herd mentality", which means that individuals are influenced by the behavior of the outside crowd, and their perception, judgment, and cognition behave in a way that is consistent with public opinion or the majority.

The herd mentality is often used in commercial marketing . In the late 1970s, Japan's Sony Corporation produced a "Walkman" that could be enjoyed while walking.

In order to improve sales, Sony organized an innovative advertising campaign. All young employees were required to carry "Walkmans" on their way to work every day, and deliberately turned up the volume on the tram to pretend to be enjoying the music. A large number of students were also hired to walk around pedestrian areas such as "Ginza" with "Walkmans" on them.

Soon, under this subtle influence from the public, the sales of this "Walkman" increased significantly.

Taking advantage of the customer's tendency to follow the crowd is also known as the "queueing technique of sales." For example, there is a very long queue at the entrance of a shopping mall, and people passing by the mall can easily join the queue. For a cup of milk tea, consumers can queue for 3 hours. The more people queue, the more people buy.

Xiangpiaopiao’s advertisement is even more well-known, with the slogan “It’s enough to circle the earth ten times”, which also takes advantage of consumers’ herd mentality.

The same is true of the recent Alibaba Cloud advertisement, which tells consumers that we are not only number one, but also have a " market share that exceeds the combined total of the top 2 to 5 ", giving people a strong sense of trust.

However, is this kind of herd mentality only suitable for large companies? What should a small business do if it does not have the advantages of being the number one in sales volume or having a leading market share?

It’s very simple. Since you can’t list the data, try another way. For example: describing the details of why a product is hot-selling; selling quickly, having many repeat customers, or having its product imitated by competitors, etc., to create an atmosphere of hot sales.

1. Treasure of the Town Shop

For example: on a certain e-commerce platform, competition is fierce. When you search for "suitcase", many low-price slogans come into view, such as "The lowest price ever, 88 yuan" and "Limited time special offer, 49 yuan". There is a suitcase that is quite different. It has an ordinary design but is priced at 299 yuan, but its sales volume is not low.

Its advertisement is:

In fact, this data has no advantage over big- brand suitcases, but it emphasizes that "the treasure of the store is not only about sales, but more importantly, quality." Consumers will have a preconceived idea that the sales volume is high when they see these data. They will not compare the data with that of big-name products. Instead, they will develop a strong interest in the product and will go to the detail page to take a closer look.

Then, a soft article on the details page uses the term "treasure of the store" to emphasize the high sales volume and good reviews of this product, making people feel very reassured.

2. Sell Faster

For example: A blogger of a beauty public account wants to promote a loose powder imported from Japan. This product is very easy to apply and does not come off easily. It also has the effects of controlling oil and moisturizing. However, since this product is too niche and its sales volume is not as high as many big brands, the promotional copy is not easy to write.

After much thought, the blogger decided to recommend:

Only one batch of this limited edition powder is produced and sold by pre-order only, requiring reservations six months in advance. Many times, it is out of stock before it even hits the market. It can be said that if you miss the Angel Loose Powder that year, you will regret it for the whole year...

If we directly compete with big brands in sales, we will only lose. But the author immediately found another way to reflect "sales volume" - selling quickly. When readers see that this product needs to be "rushed to buy", they will immediately become very curious and think that this product must have something outstanding.

This atmosphere of creating good sales by "selling fast" is actually the reason why many pop-up stores have been so popular recently.

For example: this "Breakup Flower Shop" pop-up store not only has a unique marketing point, but the key is that it is only open for one day, making consumers very curious about what is different about the flowers inside. Eventually, this flower shop became popular in Shanghai.

3. Many returning customers

For example: Master Zhao has a unique skill - making sesame cakes. After more than 20 years of business, the scale is still neither big nor small, but the taste is very good and the reputation is good. Now, Lao Zhao wants to advertise the product, but readers will become numb to it just by writing “so delicious that it makes you cry”.

So, how do we write copy so that people can believe that Lao Zhao’s sesame cakes are delicious?

There is a paragraph in the advertisement of Lao Zhao Shaobing that goes like this:

Lao Zhao’s bakery is known as “the best in Gulou”. It has been open for nearly 20 years and has become a must-try shop in the local area. Many families have been eating their sesame cakes for three generations.

Lin Ting, 32 years old, who lives in the neighborhood next door, has been patronizing Lao Zhao’s bakery since junior high school, and has been doing so for 18 years. After marriage, she was responsible for cooking at home. My mother-in-law is a very picky eater. She often complains that the dishes she cooks are not to her liking, but she always praises the sesame cakes she brings home. Now, her 5-year-old son has also become a new customer.

Mr. Wang recalled that when he was in high school, he would visit the bakery regularly every Friday evening after school. Now that he has moved to the United States, he often asks his friends to bring him some from China. When he goes home for the Spring Festival, he always buys a big bag and eats it from the first to the fifteenth day of the lunar month to satisfy his craving!

There are countless old customers like this. Lao Zhao's son has specially done statistics and found that there are more than 220 customers who buy at least once every two weeks. It is very stable. Their most common comment is: "It smells very good. I will want to eat it every once in a while!"

Lao Zhao only has one pancake shop. In terms of sales volume, it certainly cannot compare with those chain stores, but he has his own advantages: long history, good reputation, and many repeat customers.

This advertisement cleverly captures this point, describing in detail how these old customers have been eating this dish since they were young and want to eat it again. It creates an atmosphere in which the sesame seed cake is very popular among old customers, making readers curious about the sesame seed cake and wanting to try it.

4. Hint of best-selling

For example: There is a cleaning cloth product, and their advertisement uses a relatively low-key approach to let readers "realize" the power of their brand.

"Always imitated" makes readers subconsciously aware of the power of this brand. Then, the author did not say such cheesy words as “recognize authentic products and beware of counterfeits”, but instead said “we are willing to improve the service level of the industry”, further implying to readers that “we are the market leader”, which makes readers more favorable and naturally more eager to buy.

Summarize

Small businesses can also take advantage of people's herd mentality, stimulate purchasing desire and win trust.

1. Treasure of the store: Create a quality product, emphasizing high sales and good quality.
2. Sell ​​faster: Use the "limited quantity, limited time" approach to create an atmosphere where people are rushing to buy.
3. Many repeat customers: Describes how popular a product is among old customers, thus generating interest among new consumers.
4. Implying best-selling: Creating the concept of being a “market leader” for similar brands by being imitated by peers.

The author of this article @生鲜小龙虾 is compiled and published by (青瓜传媒). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

Product promotion services: APP promotion services, advertising platform, Longyou Games