Can’t push the product? Perhaps these problems have not yet been resolved.

Imagine if you tried to convince a traditional Chinese old man who had never eaten Western food to eat steak, what would happen?

The result may be that you find yourself using every persuasion technique you can think of, but the elderly person still finds it difficult to change.

Why? Many people would think that the elderly simply don’t approve of these foreign products from the bottom of their hearts, so no amount of persuasion will be of any use!

In fact, the more critical limiting factor is that you set too high a threshold for change for the other party.

Persuading the elderly to try steak means changing their decades-long Chinese food eating habits, which is difficult to do. The reason why habits are difficult to change is that once you start trying to change them, you have to pay a series of costs, including cognitive costs, learning costs, action costs, etc. The combined costs of these changes are high enough to dissuade them from even trying.

This is why the older people get, the less willing they are to try new things - the older you are, the greater the hindrance of habit and the higher the cost of change.

Apart from this, motivation is also a key factor that hinders their actions . Motivation is relatively abstract, and can actually be simply understood as " whether a person needs to complete a task by doing something ." Obviously, the elderly did not have any task that required eating steak to complete, that is, they had almost no motivation to eat steak. (PS: The motivation for trying new things is very small for the elderly and can be ignored)

In short, for consumers, if a new thing does not motivate them enough to change or the cost of change is too high, they will give up trying and continue on their old way.

This is actually a particularly tricky problem in marketing : when an innovative product is launched but the threshold for consumers to try is unintentionally set too high, or even there is no motivation for them to try, the final result of such product is bound to end in failure.

On the contrary, marketers welcome another type of product. Because they only need to make a small push to often get a very high conversion or purchase of the product.

Why?

Because this type of product meets two basic conditions: lower cost of change and greater motivation for change.

With the horizontal axis representing the motivation for change and the vertical axis representing the cost of change, the matrix can be roughly divided into four types:

• Early adopters: The cost for consumers to try to change is very high, and there is insufficient motivation, such as Google Glass and electric toothbrushes;
• Upgrade products: The cost for consumers to try to change is very small, but the motivation is not enough, such as the latest Apple mobile phone and various upgraded products;
• Ideal products: The cost of change for consumers is high, but their motivation to change is strong, such as typewriters and private car services (need to change past habits);
• Tempting products: Consumers are not only easy to change, but also have a strong motivation to change. For example, discounted brand shoes and clothing on Vipshop , a highly rated movie , etc.

You will find that among the products in these four quadrants, the most difficult to promote are the early adopters, the easiest to promote are the tempting products, and the ideal and upgraded products are between the two.

What marketing needs to do is to transform products in the first, second and third quadrants into the fourth quadrant (temptation products) through a series of actions, thereby maximizing consumer purchases.

To achieve this goal, there are obviously two things that can be adjusted: reducing the cost of change and increasing the motivation for change .

1. Reduce the cost of change

For some products, if consumers want to obtain the value they bring, they often need to pay a very high cost of change.

These products can be roughly divided into two categories:

1. Products that do not conform to past habits or perceptions

Such products often challenge consumers' habits or cognition in terms of price, style, function, etc. This makes it very difficult for consumers to understand and accept the products.

For example, products that are priced unusually high among similar products:

Consumers have already established a price perception of related products in the past. If they are faced with a product that is significantly priced higher than other similar products, they will inevitably find it difficult to accept.

"Mineral water is only a few yuan, why is it sold for 40 yuan? It's not worth it."

"A chopping board is only a hundred or eighty yuan, but this one costs 2,000 yuan. Is it inlaid with diamonds?"

So how to solve it?

An important method is to change the classification of products (equivalent to switching the consumer’s mental account )

For example:

A die-hard Kobe fan is likely to spend a lot of money to buy a pair of Kobe's former NBA sneakers, but if you ask him to spend the same amount of money to buy a pair of Kobe's latest sneakers, he would be unwilling to do so - even though the latest model has better performance and has not been worn.

Why is this happening?

This is because the fan has automatically classified the sneakers worn by Kobe as collectibles (rather than practical items) - in this mental account specially prepared for collectibles, high prices are normal and naturally easy to accept.

Therefore, if your product is priced high among similar products, it will be difficult for consumers to accept it based on their past perceptions. You can use the method of "converting product categories" to transfer the product to a category that is beneficial to you to eliminate consumers' feeling of "not worth it".

For example, a pancake that costs more than 20 yuan is obviously considered too expensive - because in the minds of consumers, a pancake is just a breakfast worth a few yuan.

At this time, simply persuading users is often useless - it is difficult to change users' habits and get them to buy something that costs several times the price.

However, Huang Taiji put the pancake in its exquisitely decorated offline store, thereby converting consumers' traditional classification of pancakes (breakfast) to the category of "casual special snacks", making consumers feel that it is not so expensive - the budget for a meal is 30 yuan, and in comparison, a pancake of more than 20 yuan does not seem expensive.

2. Accepting products with high barriers to entry for the first time

For financial products, insurance products, offline training and other products, the simplest approach is to advocate the simple first step.

for example:

• The promoters of financial products encourage passers-by to scan the code and follow the official account . If they do, they will receive a small gift. Compared with asking them to buy financial products directly, scanning the code is much simpler.
• Insurance salesmen often ask consumers to leave their phone numbers - it is much easier to fill in a phone number than to buy insurance directly;
• Offline training institutions encourage those who are interested to come for a trial lesson and pay only if they are satisfied;
• Therefore, for products with a high acceptance threshold, marketing should try to lower the threshold and encourage consumers to complete the simple first step.

In addition to those mentioned above, there is another type of product that has a high threshold for initial acceptance, but once consumers try it for the first time, they will form a habit.

The best way to deal with this kind of product is to offer consumers a discount they can’t refuse.

A typical example is Didi ’s express service.

In the past, consumers had already developed the habit of taking taxis when going out. At this time, express cars appeared in front of everyone as a "new species", which was actually inconsistent with past habits and cognition. Most people at that time even claimed that special cars were so-called black cars and refused to take them.

In short, most people at that time were unwilling to change their habits and try taking express rides, which created a great obstacle to Didi's promotion at the time.

Later, in order to encourage consumers to take the first step in trying, Didi began to frantically subsidize users, allowing users to spend the same or even less money as taking a taxi and enjoy a better travel experience (such as high-quality service from drivers, free mineral water and tissues in the car, etc.).

“For the same money, why not choose a better ride?”

This is also a true reflection of people's psychology at that time.

As a result, those who are accustomed to taking taxis are gradually beginning to take the first step and choose Didi Chuxing. Didi also achieved its goal in this way, breaking the dilemma of slow progress in the early stage of product promotion.

Similar products include games , cigarettes, drugs, etc.

So, if your product has a high acceptance threshold, consumers will become dependent on it once they try it for the first time. You can lower the acceptance threshold for consumers by offering enough discounts to drive them to try.

2. Increase Motivation

1. Transfer motivation

There is a type of product that, although the cost of change required of consumers is not high, they simply do not buy it, which means they lack motivation. As mentioned before, motivation refers to "whether consumers need to use your product to complete a task." The more eager consumers are to complete the task, the greater their motivation.

When consumers are faced with a specific product, they often have many motivations when making purchasing decisions, among which there may be one or two key motivations, accompanied by some secondary motivations.

So what if the key motivation for consumers to choose our product is small? Do these products have no chance?

In fact, it is not. A key method is to divert consumer motivations and try to find out which secondary motivations can be converted, so as to indirectly increase motivations.

For example, when electric toothbrushes were first launched, they were positioned as “more convenient and faster”, but sales were mediocre. Why? The reason is simple. For consumers, brushing teeth is actually a routine matter, and using an ordinary toothbrush does not feel inconvenient or slow. So there is little motivation to change.

It was not until later that electric toothbrushes changed their positioning, emphasizing that they clean better than ordinary toothbrushes, which successfully activated the market.

2. Strengthen motivation

Generally speaking, consumers are not motivated enough, and the best way is to divert their motivation. However, if it is really impossible to shift the motivation, you can also strengthen the consumers' original motivation and appeal to their importance.

For example, hospitals will strongly emphasize the importance of physical health so that people can have regular physical examinations.

Plastic surgery hospitals will talk about the importance of minor cosmetic surgery. They will say "a minor cosmetic surgery will add the finishing touch and greatly enhance the overall temperament of a person", thus encouraging female friends who are not usually aware of the importance of minor cosmetic surgery to consider getting double eyelids or getting a hyaluronic acid injection.

Conclusion

There are some products on the market that either create high switching costs for consumers, or do not provide services that consumers particularly need, resulting in insufficient motivation, or both.

At this time, it is often necessary to use certain methods to reduce the cost of change or increase the motivation for change in order to maximize consumer purchases.

These methods mainly include:

(1) High cost of change

• Convert product classification
• Advocate for a simple first step
• Give consumers discounts they can’t refuse

(2) Low motivation for change

• Transfer motivation
• Strengthen motivation and appeal to importance

(PS: This article only selects two more important influencing factors. There are many other factors that affect consumer purchases, which will not be elaborated here)