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When someone gives you something of value, you feel the desire to give something back.
As a child you were probably taught to share your toys and sweets with your friends. You might have been given a ticking off when you acted a little selfish, and you received a warm smile, and praise when you shared your stuff, even if you initially didn’t want too. Reciprocity was installed as a part of your subconscious at an early age.
Outstanding marketers can be seen everywhere giving something free. What they give away is of value to their prospects and customers. They understand this gift will trigger the feeling in many people to give or do something back in return, either by buying a product or staying on a mailing list etc.
• Have you ever received a free sample in the post?
• Have you ever attended a free webinar or downloaded something of real value?
These are simple examples of someone using the law of reciprocity.
The practice is quite easy to use. Give a sample or gift you have created to your prospects and they will be more likely to buy the next time they see it or hear from you, and they will be inclined to buy because of two reasons.
1) They will recognize your brand and feel they have already experienced your product because they pick up on what is familiar to them.
2) You (your brand) are nice enough to send a free gift, and because it was good they will feel that they should (to a greater or lesser degree) at least buy something.
We feel a certain sense of obligation to return the favour. Reciprocity, based on scientific research, appears to be a powerful law when used in the art of selling persuasion. I recently wrote a review of the book Maximum Influence and in there the author; Kurt Mortensen refers to it as ‘the Law of Obligation.’
Now I appreciate you can’t give away a car or a full training course so what do you do if you don’t have sample products and services?
How do you take advantage of reciprocity of share and share alike? The answer is simple, create something! Use your imagination and give away something of perceived value to someone and they will feel a sense of obligation.
You don’t have to give away free samples of the actual product to utilize reciprocity if you don’t wish to. As long as you give away something related and that has perceived value, examples could be;
A Report containing useable information
A How To booklet
A Coaching Session
The main thing is to be creative and test and measure which gift has the stronger influence.
So your next step is to find or create something to give away for free with nothing expected in return. Reciprocity (Obligation) works. The key is that what you give away must be of value to your potential customer. Traditional promotional items like cheap pens, fridge magnets and a mug with your photo on it may be useful and probably funny but perhaps it’s best to steer clear of these!
Courtney
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