Everyone is af­fected by in­flu­ence. We use in­flu­ence tech­niques in our everyday lives and don’t even no­tice. In order to be ef­fec­tive in the market today, you have to un­der­stand how in­flu­ence drives con­sumer be­havior in order to at­tract not just con­sumers, but loyal consumers.

In this ar­ticle, we’ll rely on the well-​​known book, Influence (by Robert B. Cialdini), for its model of spe­cific in­flu­ences. For each in­flu­ence tech­nique, we’ll talk about how it can af­fect con­sumer be­havior in an m-​​commerce context.

Authority Bias

With this bias, a person tends to follow or­ders from someone they con­sider to be in an au­thority position.

To use this bias in an ef­fec­tive way, an m-​​commerce system has to pro­vide a knowl­edge­able and trust­worthy image. If the ap­pli­ca­tion is suc­cessful in doing so, it is easier to con­vince the con­sumer to follow its re­quests and op­tions. People are used to trusting ma­chines and elec­tronics; how­ever, there are some tricks to im­proving on this nat­ural authority.

First, the ap­pli­ca­tion can show con­sumers that it is “thinking” or searching from a data­base. This is im­por­tant be­cause it pro­vides a sense of work and in­ten­sity. As hu­mans, we tend to hu­manize ob­jects (like saying that a ma­chine is “thinking”). Even if the system is able to give a re­sponse in­stantly, it is al­ways good to show that it is thinking for even a few sec­onds. This is the same tech­nique used in movies in which big com­puters make noises with lights on everywhere.

The second tech­nique is based on in­for­ma­tion au­thority. In this tech­nique, every time the app gives a sug­ges­tion it has to come with ex­pla­na­tions. For ex­ample: “This sug­ges­tion was of­fered to you be­cause of your product pur­chase of XX on day XX”. This tech­nique in­creases the sense of au­thority and thus au­thority bias, be­cause it shows a basis for the ac­tion in some kind of knowledge.

Reciprocity Bias

With this bias, someone gives you some­thing and this ac­tion cre­ates a force that makes you want to give some­thing back (such as, the free sam­ples in the supermarket).

To use this bias in an ef­fec­tive way, the system has to un­der­stand the right time to give a gift or im­por­tant in­for­ma­tion. Much of the time, the system doesn’t even have to give some­thing tan­gible like a gift. In fact it is often re­ally useful if you use a cross-​​marketing coupon such as: “Because you bought the product XXX, you win the right to buy the product YYY with a 50% discount”.

Scarcity Bias

With this bias, some­thing is valued more be­cause it is per­ceived to be rarer. For ex­ample, as a seller of a product, you might make it sound like you are run­ning out of product in­ven­tory when you are not.

This bias can be suc­cess­fully used in mo­bile com­merce with coupons and pro­mo­tions to in­duce a per­cep­tion of scarcity. That could mean in­cluding a lim­ited time offer and ad­ver­tising some­thing like “the first 100 that an­swer this mes­sage will gain 40% extra dis­count.” This ap­proach will not only make con­sumers buy the product faster with less ques­tioning, but will also give the con­sumer a good feeling at the mo­ment of pur­chase with the sense of being a chosen one, cre­ating a win-​​win situation.

Social Bias

With this bias, we be­have in ways that in­crease our feeling of being part of a group by fol­lowing the pat­terns of that group. It tends to be in­ten­si­fied with the net­working ef­fect or when there is par­tic­i­pa­tion by an au­thority figure.

In m-​​commerce, this bias can happen when a large number of people start using the same ap­pli­ca­tion cre­ating pres­sure for others to enter also. (You don’t want to be the only one left out.)

To take ad­van­tage of this bias, an m-​​commerce system has to create con­vincing pro­mo­tions for people to call and in­teract with others such as: “Call 10 friends and ask them to sub­scribe and you will gain a second product for free.”

Liking Bias

With this bias, we tend to listen to and be more con­nected with people that we like (or em­pathize with).

M-​​commerce can use this bias par­tic­u­larly through the cre­ation of a net­working ef­fect due to the in­creasing role of mo­bile de­vices in our lives. Consumers tend to trust their mo­bile de­vices more and have a spe­cial con­nec­tion with the de­vices, a feeling that can in­crease the lik­a­bility of soft­ware ac­cessed through these de­vices. This process causes an in­crease in the in­flu­ence of the system over the consumer.

Consistency Bias

This is the bias that oc­curs when people feel that they have to be con­sis­tent with a pre­vious com­mit­ment or self-​​image of them­selves. For ex­ample, asking ques­tions or filling out a survey to get ini­tial agree­ment from others can often lead to fu­ture agreement.

M-​​commerce can use the con­sis­tency method by asking ques­tions to con­sumers about their pref­er­ences. At the end of the ques­tion­naire, a con­sumer would be of­fered a sug­ges­tion that be­comes too hard to turn down be­cause this sug­ges­tion was cre­ated by the consumer’s own in­for­ma­tion. People in gen­eral have a ten­dency to ac­cept op­tions if they feel some con­nec­tion to the idea of the option.

Conclusion

M-​​commerce has a great power to in­flu­ence people’s be­havior. Those com­pa­nies that re­ally un­der­stand the tools to put this into prac­tice are the ones that will dom­i­nate this channel.

Tags: m-commerce, marketing, mobile apps, mobile commerce