Tag Archive for: mass email

Manipulative Email Marketing? You Decide

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I received an email one Thursday a while back with “Monday’s ‘oops’” in the subject line. The opening of the email read as follows:

 

Dear Brian,
Monday we accidentally sent an email to you,
which was intended for our members.
Please accept my sincere apology for any
inconvenience this may have caused.
If you’d like to see the video referenced in the
announcement
please click here.
It’s actually a “commercial” of my daughter
telling the story of how she was struck in her car,
5 months pregnant, with her two-year-old son
in the back seat …
…
And how her insurance agent was there to
help her deal with the aftermath

I didn’t recall seeing any email from this company on Monday and wondered why the company would have sent emails like this to any non-members. I looked up the sender online and didn’t see that I was connected with him on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or anywhere else. And by his own admission I wasn’t a member of his group.

Also, if it was indeed an accident then wouldn’t a short apology have been appropriate rather than a second attempt to get people to watch the commercial?

This smacks me as manipulation pure and simple. First, I think a simple apology would have been sufficient if it really was an accident. If it wasn’t an accident but rather a ploy to get people to watch the video then we can add dishonesty as one more reason to not watch.

The principle of scarcity tells us people want things more when they can’t have them or think they’re being taken away. When I share this principle with groups I like to cite a study that’s referred to in Influence Science and Practice. The study was conducted with law students at the University of Chicago where they acted as a mock jury for a test case. They were presented facts and asked to give a judgment for the defendant. In the control group the average award was $33,000. A second group was told the same fact and one more was added – the defendant had insurance. Knowing there was more ability to pay, the average award increased to $37,000. A third group was told about the insurance but then the judge said that was inadmissible and should be struck from the record. He instructed the jury to not consider the insurance when deciding on the award. For the third group the average award was $46,000, a 39% increase!

It might seem counterintuitive that mock jurors awarded the most when told not to consider the insurance but what we clearly see is the psychology of scarcity at work. As soon as we’re told we can’t have something we tend to want it even more. When they were told they should not consider the insurance they placed even greater weight on it.

And think about this; you can’t not think about something. In other words, if I tell you not to think about pink elephants you will think of a pink elephant, even if for just a moment. I can imagine jurors talking about the very thing they’re not supposed to consider which means somehow, some way, it will factor into the decision.

So back to the email I received. By telling people they received it by accident, that it was only supposed to go to members, the company was trying to invoke some scarcity. They were hoping people would think, “I wonder what members get to see that I don’t?” While most of you reading this might see right through the tactic I guarantee a large number of people who are unfamiliar with the influence process didn’t see it for what it was and out of sheer curiosity watched the video.

Not one to let things go I sent a short, simple reply to the sender, “If you were really sorry the apology line would have been enough rather than an attempt to get people to watch your video.” I never heard back from them.

Here’s my suggestion – when you sense people are using the psychology of persuasion in a manipulative way call them out on it. I could have gone on Twitter and done that in front of the world but I don’t think that’s right and that’s why I refrained from using the name of the person or the company. A private reply was enough and now I have more important things to move onto.

Brian, CMCT

influencepeople 
Helping You Learn to Hear “Yes”.

3 Persuasion Tips to Boost Email Response Rates

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A few weeks ago I wrote an article giving readers 700,000 great reasons to use yellow sticky notes as I shared how using the psychology of persuasion helped my company recover from a $700,000 mistake quickly. It’s a great story of putting theory into practice to help the bottom line.

The response to the article was overwhelming so I decided to do a follow up because of a question. Whenever I share the sticky note story at speaking engagements inevitably someone will ask, “I rarely mail things anymore so how can I get a better response rate when I send some type of
email blast?”
To address this, let me start with a blunder I made many years ago. I’d done some training where I shared Dale Carnegie tips with several hundred associates. A few months after the training I followed up with an email to everyone which read:

If you have any success stories based on the Dale Carnegie training please let me know and I might include them in an upcoming edition of our newsletter.

More than a week went by and I had no responses – not one!
So I rethought the approach and the first thing I did was send another email but this time it was personalized, as one email went to each person and included their name. I didn’t write hundreds of emails, I used Microsoft Word and did an email merge with my training database so it was quick and easy.
The second thing I did differently; rather than make a statement I asked a question:

Have you had any success based on the Dale Carnegie training? Is so, please let me know and I might include it in an upcoming edition of our newsletter.

Within a week I had 125 replies! While most people said they didn’t have anything to share what caught my attention was the fact that they still responded. Personalizing the email and asking a question compelled people to answer and I did get more than two dozen good stories for the newsletter.
Why did this approach work so well?
The principle of reciprocity tells us people feel obligated to respond when someone does something for them. In the sticky note study people responded to the survey request more because in the back of the mind attaching a sticky note with a hand written message shows extra effort on the part of the sender because it’s personalized. It’s the same way with an email; writing someone’s name personalizes it and shows extra effort which leads to a better response rate.
Personalizing your email also helps overcome is something known as “diffusion of responsibility.” This theory tells us quite often people don’t respond in situations, sometimes even emergencies, when groups are involved because everyone assumes someone else will respond but in the end no one does
anything. With my email listing so many people for everyone to see (they were all employees so there were no privacy issues involved), I’m sure most people assumed someone else would share a story so they didn’t need to.
The other significant difference with the second email was my question. As noted above, people feel compelled to answer questions. Think about when you walk through the shopping mall and someone from a kiosk engages you with a question about trying their product. At a minimum most people respond with “no thanks,” because we’re conditioned to do so which is an application of the principle of reciprocity noted above. Social norms dictate a response because not acknowledging the person asking a question makes you appear rude, as if you’re
ignoring them.
A third tip I’ll share that can help is to include your photo on your email. Studies show the more familiar your face is, even if someone doesn’t know you, the more compliant people are when you make a request. Every time I interact with new employees, vendors, or consultants I include my photo on my initial email communications because I know it helps when I need them to do something.
To recap: 1) adding a name, 2) asking a question and 3) including a photo will translate into a significantly higher response rate than the standard email blasts you might be sending today.
Lest you think my story was a fluke or the excellent response was simply because I sent a second email I’ll share one more success story. Each year my company contracts with an outside vendor to survey our agency force to see how we’re doing in key business areas. Several years ago, after learning about the psychology of persuasion and how it can help, we tried a different approach to see if we could boost our survey response rate. Rather than just have the
vendor contact agencies directly, we sent an email a few days ahead of the survey to alert agents what was coming. The email came from the VP of sales, was personalized to each agency owner and contained a question specifically asking them if they would take the survey. Hundreds of agents replied to the VP’s email and we saw the survey response jump by more than 50%, going from 900 agents completing the survey to more than 1,400!Of all the insurance companies that participate in that particular survey, every year we now have the highest response rate. Coincidence? No, it’s the strategic use of the psychology of persuasion. Small changes can lead to big differences with very little time, effort or cost when you understand how people think and behave. Are you still sending emails to multiple people the standard way? If so, rethink your approach like we did and you’ll see better results because the science of
influence tells us so.

If you’re viewing this by email and want to listen to the audio version click here. If you want to leave a comment click here.
Brian, CMCT
influencepeople 
Helping You
Learn to Hear “Yes”.