Being a business and learning to market can sometimes feel like you need to have many different heads, a psychologist, an anthropologist and maybe a sociologist. You need to know how people behave, how they think, otherwise, how can you sell to people, when you don’t really know people?
Change the message
Social normal campaigns are now becoming extraordinarily successful and there are one or two examples that illustrate this. The tax revenue is one, with many people citing this as hard evidence that social norm campaigns can and do work. With many people behind with payments, the tax revenue changed their message from threats to more subtle tactics. They gave an explanation of what the money was spent on, and how, without paying on time, resources and services would suffer as a consequence. It worked and there was a significant increase in payments.
It would seem that appealing to a person’s sense of duty and obligation rather than using threats seemed to do the trick.
The use of psychological techniques and using tactics that employ social norms is what seems to generate a more positive response. With this in mind, businesses are encouraged to use these tactics as part of their marketing strategies.
Changing the tone of the message
Yes, changing the tone of your message can result in better responses. See what the majority of people are likely to do rather than telling them what they should do. People are more likely to comply with social norms than they are to anything else. People on average, like to be like everybody else, nobody wants to be different. Oscar Wilde may have believed that the tyranny of conformity would be the end of us, but conformity is what people do. Tell someone that everybody is doing a particular thing and in all likelihood everyone will follow suit.
Be careful what you normalize
But be careful, if you tell people the results of those that refuse to do something, then in likelihood this will backfire on you. Talking about the frequency of what people do wrong, and pointing out common mistakes, could result in everyone else doing exactly the same thing – the exact opposite of what you want them to do!!
What if no norm exists for your particular area?
Then the use of surveys or statistics may be of use. You can also cite popular opinion, the popularity of something is bound to get people’s attention.
However, surveys don’t always work and if that is the case then try tracking people’s behaviour, devise a simple yet thought provoking experiment of your own and see how people react, this is a social norm campaign that may elicit some interesting responses, ones you can use in your marketing strategy.
Nobody understands why they do what they do
Although people like to follow social norms and do what everyone else does, they can’t tell you why they change their minds. They may follow a decision that they’ve been guided to through carefully written phrases and purposefully written content, but they’re not aware of what made them change their mind or do what they did – they’re just struck by the fact that everyone else seems to be doing the same thing.
The power of social norms
So there you have it, social norms are powerful, and they influence how people make decisions and change their minds. If you’re clever, you can take advantage of this. Yes, it will take a certain degree of research, but it will be worth it in the end. If there are social norms then use them, if there aren’t then yes, try surveys and market research. However you may find that devising simple experiments of your own may result in better answers and in turn get people to go your way. There’s too much evidence to ignore.