The 6 Rules of Persuasion are:

1. Authority

2. Likeability

3. Commitment & Consistency

4. Reciprocity

5. Social Proof

6. Scarcity

Let’s define these 6 ways of influence:

Authority

Authority is the principle of creating credibility and expertise within your audience, so your

customers get the confidence that they can trust what your say.

Creating the authority is all about communication. Here there are some ideas of creating online

authority:

Create an informational blog

Send newsletters about timely industry updates

Publish case studies

Host webinar

Generate inbound links to create authority for your website by posting articles on

directories

Stay active in social media and engage in discussions about important topics in your

industry

Create a Questions & Answers section in your website

Publish eBooks or how to guides

Create Video Tutorials

Create Testimonials and Portfolio sections in your website

The magic of being considered by other an authority in your industry stays in language that you

use and “keep going” (refer to the Commitment & Consistency section). You should use

palatable language, an easy and clear language that anybody can understand. Confusing language

will not help your readers to understand what you want to tell them and they will not follow your

guidance.

Likability

The business principle is an interpersonal relationship. We do business with persons that we like.

When the buyer likes you he or she will be more likely buying from you. If he or she does not

like you, your offer will remain sterile. This is way the saying in marketing “Sell yourself!”

unveils an essential true: a likable personality makes a good salesperson.

Create and maintain likability within your business by:

Keeping in contact with your clients and customers – engage with them on social media,

send newsletter and special offers

Creating a great atmosphere for them to shop with you – allow them to easy shop online

after business hours

Making them to feel appreciated by you – reward the loyal customers and clients

Be part of relevant moment in your customers’ lives: send them birthdays greetings and/

or season greetings, offer them gift vouchers to be spent into your shop, sponsor events

that make part of their life

Commitment & Consistency

You have to demonstrate your Commitment & Consistency over a long period of time in order to

generate recall and trust.

Many successful business people are hailed as visionary leaders. They are found to be

individuals who hold firmly to a simple set of commitments, usually grounded in beliefs such as

“the best product money can buy”, or “the highest possible customer service”. It is the strength

of these commitments, consistently followed, that led to their business success.

The commitment is the existential reason and the fuel of any business. Through commitment you

prove expertise in your business: you have the technology and the know-how and you have

experience, so we can rely on your products and / or services.

People have a general desire to appear consistent in their behaviour and they will also value

consistency in others. Through consistency we can easy understand what to expect from other

people reactions. In particular, when we intend to do business with a company, the consistency

will be a compulsory attribute of that business: Is this company reliable? Will complete its

promises in time?

Very often when we engage in doing business with a company and that company demonstrate its

commitment, is more likely we will stay loyal to that business because it is easy and we know

that we will get what we need. It is easy to stay loyal with a business because we skip the process

of sourcing and evaluating a new business.

Any kind of effective advertising will show your commitment in front of your audience and will

help your business to gain trust if you prove consistency in your actions.

Reciprocity

Through reciprocity you give something upfront and then get something else back. The FREE

INTRODUCTORY OFFERINGs are a smart marketing tool to attract new clients / customers.

The Free Introductory Offerings are used to:

Create the market demand for your products or services

To build your customers trust you will need to demonstrate your products or services

quality

Also, Free Offerings are a smart marketing tool to reward customers and clients’ loyalty. These

are some customers and clients rewarding ideas:

Reward points programs

Gift vouchers

Discount bonuses

Volume discounts

Trough reciprocity you will build a long and close relationship with your clients and / or

customers.

Sample of Free Offerings:

Free samples

Free trials

Free demos

Free professional advises

Free restricted accounts

Free quotes

The Free Offerings have to be used with care and with financial understanding by business

owner to not hurt the business. Any marketing tool should be used only with a deep

understanding of its results.

Social Proof

We all are driven by social behaviour, so if other before us did bought something we need, we

will decide to buy ourselves too, just because so many before us did it. This is the principle on

how the enterprise systems work. A good example of “I follow what others do” is Facebook, this

big conglomerate of people together. I have my Facebook account because my friends have

theirs. We tend to outsource our process of decision-making. If they bought before us it means

that we will buy today.

Social Proof can be reinforced trough:

Reviews

Testimonials

Study Cases

Portfolios

Recommendations and word of mouth

Most popular, best sales

Social Networks are playing an important role in businesses today because trough social

networks people communicate and share their experiences that will have a viral spreading effect.

The word of mouth is a valuable and inexpensive marketing tool that works for every business.

Scarcity

Scarcity principle is all about “I want now what I may not be able to get in the future”. Scarcity

drives demand up by being believable and having integrity: you will honour your offer.

By using the scarcity principle you will motivate your customers and / or clients to make their

buying decision now. For effective adverts the advertisers should focus their efforts to create the

scarcity for their offerings.

Sample of offerings scarcity:

Limited offer in time

Limited stock available

First 10 who call receive a bonus (any number and any action is applicable)

If you buy now you can get a discount

Conclusion

So, you should focus on reflecting a big image of your business, because if you are big as

business, you are less probably to disappear from the market overnight. The dimension of your

business is reflecting you Commitment and Consistency, even your Likability and of course you

have a lot of experience, so you are an Authority for your industry.

These are the Call principles of Persuasion for Online and Offline businesses, but not only!

These persuasion principles apply for everyday life as well. Following them you can persuade

your kids, friends, co-workers or family.