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RITUALS AND EMOTIONS
Rituals are highly emotionally charged events. One of the fastest ways to engage emotion is to center the ritual around your product or service . . . and if you can’t identify one, create it.
The drink Absinthe was outlawed around 100 years ago in many parts of Europe and in the United States. Even during the period of illegality, Absinthe maintained a cult-like following for its apparent ability to create extreme creativity in some people (Van Gogh, Edgar Allen Poe and Hemingway were Absinthe drinkers). One of the big appeals in addition to the purported hallucinogenic effect of Absinthe was the ritual of drinking it. Absinthe was dropped one drop at a time through a sugar cube into a glass before being served. The waiting created anticipation for the effect. For people who still drink it there is a sense of doing something forbidden. Absinthe is no longer outlawed in the United States and has a very significant cult following even though it has been declared safe and not a hallucinogen.
When you identify emotions that people are feeling and begin to predict correctly what will happen next, it usually will. This is a version of the placebo effect.
Most people have buying rituals that they follow and those rituals lead to an experience of feeling confident and making a purchase or not feeling confident and avoiding the purchase. These rituals are highly charged emotionally, if you understand the ritual you are able to help them recreate it and activate positive persuasive compliance emotions. You can also use it to set up an “us vs. them” situation with your competitors. In the us vs. them scenario you demonstrate and have them go through the positive buying ritual and point out which emotional pieces are missing in your competitor’s business. Rituals are highly subliminally persuasive because there is a presumption of an outcome implicit in participating in a ritual.
Pay particular attention to the processes that people go through in advance of buying your products and services. Once you’ve identified their ritual, engage them in it earlier. The sooner you engage the emotions the faster persuasive compliance occurs. Here is an example of how understanding a ritual can become highly persuasive.
One ritual for buying for a large subset of buyers is getting a good deal. They enter the store and search through rack after rack of merchandise looking for hidden bargains and celebrate their successes with their friends. So the ritual is: Go to the store, look through many items, find the best deals, celebrate with friends.
If you know that this particular subset of buyers is important to your business, you may identify them and mark them out. You may create an event that allows them to come in early one or two days a month so that they and another small group like them are in the store. Everyone is going through a very similar ritual and they are bonded because they were selected to be there based on their ritual and their label (savvy shopper, frugal shopper etc.). The result is that they tell all their friends who are like them to come to the store with them in times that they are not invited in for the special day in hopes that their friends too will be selected.
Let me give you another example. In the early 1990’s, I owned one of the nation’s first used personal computers only stores. I sold large volumes of PCs and associated components. I was very focused on getting in used equipment, bagging it in static bags and putting it in bins on the shelves so that it could be easily found by me and customers. One day I got in late and a shipment of used parts and components had arrived. Because of the uniqueness of the store it was not uncommon to have a line of people waiting at the door when I opened. This day was no exception. I couldn’t get everything put away before I opened and there was too much to put it all in the back. So, with no choice I let people in and they went absolutely crazy. They dug through boxes with great intensity looking for exactly what they wanted. Nothing was priced so they were offering me what they thought was fair for the products and to my shock it was nearly always at least 25% more then I’d have charged for it and often double.
I realized in that moment that there was a buying ritual that I’d missed . . . actually I’d seen it repeated dozens of times at garage sales and auctions but I assumed that it wouldn’t apply to my business. Boy, was I wrong. From that moment on, everything went in boxes, on the floor and on the shelves, there were no prices in most cases and the lines and crowds got bigger and I sold nearly three times as much the year I discovered the ritual as the year before.
What was interesting was the number of people who eagerly and happily brought their friends to shop with them, people who were just like them. People who purchased a lot of products.
All of those customers shared many similar emotions, elation at finding a good deal, fear of losing out on a good deal, pride in finding one, lust for the most expensive computers in the store, and a very real sense of loss when they missed a deal which was buoyed up by a fierce determination not to let it happen again.
Based on observing the most ardent participants of the ritual, I was able to sell an early morning membership where once a week when my main new stock came in people who spent the most with me got to come in half an hour before anyone else. Those people were willing to pay $250 a year to be able to participate.
Shared Emotions Bond People
Groups most often exhibit shared emotions. If you want to persuade the masses more effectively you simply present them with an opportunity to share their emotions with others who feel the same way. One of the most powerful subliminal persuasion tools you can use is the creation of a group with shared ideas and emotional commitments and attachments. You don’t have to do a lot of work once the group is formed, you simply need to persuade the influencers and leaders in the group and then present them with ideas that they need to promote or support and they will.
People who are truly emotionally engaged are much more capable of raising the emotional level of an event typically than someone from the front of the room who has less emotional intensity or commitment. Simply direct the emotional content of the group to reap the benefit and implant your idea or message or to gain persuasive compliance.
Focus on emotions. The person most in control of the emotions of the audience owns them.
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes