Here are 6 scientifically proven ways to successfully persuade and encourage rather than ‘demand’ to achieve a behaviour change.

Here we take the position that persuasion is a science, not art, hence with the right approach anybody can become the master in the skill of persuasion.

6 Ways to Effective Persuade Others

1. Inconvenience the audience by creating an impression of product scarcity.

It’s the famous change from “Call now, the operators are standing by” to “If the line is busy, call again”, that greatly improved the call volume by creating the impression that everybody else is trying to buy the same product.

2. Introduce the herd effect.

A hotel sign in the bathroom informed the guests that many prior guests chose to be environmentally friendly by recycling their towels.

However, when the message mentioned that majority of the guests who stayed in this specific room chose to be more environmentally conscious and reused their towels, towel recycling jumped 33%, even though the message was largely the same.

3. Ads quoting negative behaviour en masse reinforces negative behaviour.

Petrified Forest National Park A/B tested two versions of a sign imploring people not to steal pieces of petrified forest from the park. One mentioned large amounts of petrified forest taken away on an annual basis, the other one simply asked the visitors not to remove petrified wood. The first one actually tripled the theft ratio as it showed stealing petrified wood as something commonplace.

4. Avoiding the magnetic middle.

A survey measured energy usage of a certain neighbourhood on a week-by-week basis. When the average electricity consumption for the neighbourhood was calculated, researchers sent thank-you cards to those using the energy conservatively, and a nice reminder to perhaps conserve to those who used electricity liberally.

Net effect? Reduced electricity consumption.

5. Too many options necessitate selection, and hence frustration, when the brain decides it’s unnecessary work.

The example here is given by a company that manages retirement funds for other companies, and hence has access to retirement information of 800,000 employees. When employees were offered a choice of 2 funds, roughly 75% signed up for a retirement programme.

When the number of funds was increased to 59%, even though qualitatively this was a better deal for employees, only 60% decided to sign up. When Head & Shoulders brand killed off 11 flavors of the shampoo, leaving only 15 on the market, the sales rose 10%.

6. Giving away the product makes it less desirable.

Researchers gave one group of people a picture of a pearl bracelet and asked to evaluate its desirability. Another group of people was given the same task, but prior to that was shown an ad, where the same bracelet was given away for free, if you bought a bottle of expensive liqueur.

The second group considered the bracelet much less desirable, since mentally a lot of potential buyers (35% of them to be exact) shuffled the bracelet onto “trinkets they give away for free” shelf in their brain.

These are just 6 ways, what ways have you found effective in persuading others to make a decision?