Discover Best Ways To Grab Friend's Interest
Posted by Anil (3 years ago)
Do you get a sudden urge to buy things? Do you want to market your products effectively? In this video, you will find out how marketing controls us by influencing our 3 basic instincts, and how you can use the same information to grab anyone's interest.
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How we think
I think therefore I am, said the famous French philosopher, René Descartes. According to Descartes and other such Cartesian philosophers, our conscious brain does the major thinking. But research says that’s really not the case. Our emotions do the major thinking. You see, without emotions, we would never get addicted to anything, we would never crave for junk, care the least about luxury, we would be satisfied with whatever we have. But that’s only a dream. So maybe, Descartes should have said, I feel, therefore I am.
It doesn’t stop there though. Research goes on to say that our entire body is responsible for our thinking. That means, even if there were two persons with the exact same brain structure but different bodies, they would think differently. This really amazes me! And that’s why we’re so different and unique! The thought that even a seemingly insignificant feature like our finger nail could possibly influence our behavior, that really blows my mind!
And that’s why in our solutions, we have a mixture of psychology and technology. In today’s advanced, open source ecosystem, creating the technology is the easy part, but what really matters, what keeps these top social media companies on top are psychological factors, like switching costs, for example. They make it extremely difficult for their users to switch between competition. And we get trapped in their world.
I know, it’s very difficult for us to concede the fact that we’re not in control of our lives, but that’s how it is. Our emotions control our lives. And do you know what controls our emotions?
Marketing.
3 Basic Instincts
Let's find out how marketing controls us by influencing our 3 basic instincts and how you can use that information to grab anyone’s attention:
1. Avoid danger
2. Keep more
3. Multiply
1. Avoid danger
You may have heard of Charles Darwin, that famous biologist who talked about natural selection. According to him, human beings were an evolved species, the biological descendants of a line that stretched back through apes. So all our instincts have a long backstory.
For our ancestors, avoiding danger meant not being food for animals. Today, thankfully we’re on top of the food chain and we’re not as threatened by animals, so this instinct evolved into anxiety and stress.
Fear is the emotion we feel when we’re driven by this instinct. When fearful, we seek safety. We prefer following others, following well established routines and systems to be as safe as possible.
Being different is considered dangerous. Even the company of people who are different is considered dangerous. We go with familiarity. (That’s why new companies come with money back guarantee, to remove any risk of losing money while trying their new products)
We gravitate towards what’s already known, even if that’s a terrible option. Popular is considered safe. (That’s why fake popularity measures are on the rise, like artificially created long queues at shops or fabricated reviews posted on websites.)
Fear also makes us blindly trust repetition. We choose ones we have seen over and over; even repeated lies is better than no repetition (like some junk food companies claiming to be health focused).
2. Keep more
The key emotion here is greed. We feel nothing is enough. We want more and more. (So companies come up with keep all you can offers and free trial and on top of that they offer money making opportunities with referrals.)
We feel, rare is valuable. (So companies induce artificial scarcity; and instead of lowering price, they increase price and then offer discounts.)
This instinct also makes us hate giving things back - it’s called loss aversion. (So once we try a new product on free trial, we’d like to continue using it and we’re ready to pay the price.)
Research also says that it’s not just about keeping more, but keeping more than the people around us. So we’ll only be content with this instinct if we have more than our neighbors.
Maybe that’s why sages prefer being alone in remote areas, there’s no one to compare!
3. Multiply
This instinct controls emotions like care, nurture, love. When we’re driven by this instinct, cute little babies do the trick on us, including baby animals, especially kittens and puppies.
In current times, this instinct seems to have evolved into also multiplying our ideas or beliefs. That’s why more and more people are comfortable not having kids as long as their ideas or beliefs are passed down for future generations.
Those were the 3 basic instincts that marketers use on us. Hopefully now we’d be immune to those dirty tactics. Just kidding. As we saw earlier, it’s not our conscious brain but our emotions that control us. So, good luck fighting emotions!
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