We all have the opportunity to interact with one another as individuals in the society we live in today. This frequently occurs in a variety of settings, including those related to schooling, politics, religion, sports, business, and other social settings. By doing this, we use the written or spoken word to affect one another's beliefs, attitudes, intentions, and behaviors. Persuasion is the broad term used for this. Thus, the process of persuasion has been merely defined as one that aims to alter a person's attitude or conduct toward something. These include things like emotions, events, ideas, and objects. To convince a person's perception on something, one needs to be tactful in the approach by laying openly specific and firm attributes about the issue in question. Therefore, persuasion is a process that requires skillful and tactful approach if it should be aimed at success of the event in thought. The way people wear, eat, drink or even walk is influenced by others though persuasion. In a school setting, persuasion has proven to have a great impact in teaching. It's an excellent way of teaching because an instructor is able to convince learners in the right direction of thinking.
Persuasion can be used to search for new ideas in pursuit of information. This can help for example, election campaigning and sales promotion. The information gathered can be used to influence an outcome of an event. For commercial purposes, marketers use persuasion to convince potential and existing buyers to continuously purchase a given product. This paper shall look into how persuasion has been used worldwide for commercial to improve on the success of products. It shall discuss in-depth the approaches of persuasion that various organizations are using to gain market and make their products successful.
Commercial
The term commercial refers to employing commerce in trade of something that has an economic value for example goods, services, information or money. Whereas commerce refers to trade, commercial services includes a range of activities from advertisement, insurance, communication, warehousing, banking, product promotion to many others. Currently the term commerce refers to a system in which companies try to maximize profits by offering goods and services to the customers at the lowest production cost.
Most of the companies worldwide let their products known to customers though commercial ways (Dawson, 78). Of the many ways that they use is marketing of their products rigorously though advertisements. Advertisement is the process used by marketers to tell potential customers more about their products. This is the paid classified information on magazines, newspapers, fliers, billboards and paid announcements on radio, television and internet. The approach used by salesmen on conducting an advertisement determines to a great extent the success and acceptance of the product being sold.
Persuasion in application
Persuasion has had to a great extent influence in the commercial world. Firstly, customers get to know the existence of a certain product in the market through advertisement. On getting to know the product alone is not sufficient for them to make a decision to buy the product. They will in turn need a push through a soft written or spoken word for them to get to accept to buy the products (Pullman, 38). Persuasion is a key advertisement strategy that most companies have successfully used to attract and retain their potential customers.
The Persuasion Techniques that Apple uses to influence Customers
Apple is worldwide company that utilizes technology to create products. These products have generally been accepted to be among the competitive ones in the world. The company's advertising techniques have been an inspiration to many people across the world who have hailed some of its most innovative and attractive work ever made. This strategy has worked remarkably well for the company as discussed below.
The persuasion marketing strategy for the company has been its ability to create a large group of brand advocates who have influenced and changed the market and its structure. A person does not want to lose an opportunity that will not be available on the following day. Apple has created the element of scarcity as a persuasive tactic whereby salespeople create in the minds of the potential customers that their products are limited in supply. This means that the products will not be available in the next day which in turn makes them to purchase their products ((O'Shaughnessy and Nicholas, 19). When a salesperson warns the potential customers about the offer on the product, say an Apple phone, ending on the following day, it creates fear in them. This makes them to start getting worried that they would probably miss a great deal. By so doing, they end up buying the Apple phone on the spot with no much thought. This is sure indicator of how companies use persuasion to sell their products.
Secondly, persuasion is reflected in the salespeople through their commitment consistency. A salesperson will approach a potential customer politely and in a very gentle way. He will then try to get the contacts of the customers maybe a telephone number and email address. After which, he will commit to consistently contact the person through constant visits and demonstration until the potential customer's belief and attitude is positively changed. This makes the customer to make up his/her mind to purchase the product. Apple's commitment and consistency principle is seen on is branding practices. Every detail of its product has been designed in detail to include features that are distinct and attractive that makes the customers to have the desire to buy it on the first sight.
Moreover, human beings are social creatures and its through their interactions that relationships are created. Apple uses the principle of reciprocity to persuade its customer to buy its products. Reciprocity is a term that refers to a situation where an individual returns favors and something good to people who did treated them well. Therefore, what Apple salespeople do is to give out free goods to potential customers who remain indebted to the company (O'keefe, 24). The next time the salesperson presents an item to him/her, the customers will be obliged to purchase it in return of the favors earlier given. This again makes another indicator of how persuasion is used for commercial services.
Also, another principle of persuasion that Apple Company is using is authority. This is a situation where the company uses a prominent person for example a leader, a lawyer, a pilot a doctor, a chef, an actor in conducting its advertising. What this means is that other people will remain with the belief that if the prominent person is using the Apple product, then it must be a credible and appealing in the process. Human beings usually trust more on the information given by an authority figure for it is perceived to be reliable and credible (Howell, 67). Apple company uses its geniuses who are always available to assist the customers with technical related issues to their product. Thus the Apple Genius conveys authority to the customers by communicating matters with a lot of expertise with no doubt. By so doing, they have created a lot of trust in their existing and potential customers thus expanding their markets extensively.
The social belief principle is yet another approach that is used by Apple Company in persuading the potential clients.
The social belief principle is yet another approach that is used by Apple Company in persuading the potential clients. Human beings will always have the belief that a group of people cannot be wrong on an item. When a group of people give a positive opinion about a particular product, say it gives a great satisfaction, then an individual will purchase it with less doubts on it. This tendency becomes more and more solid when the group tends to grow bigger and bigger (Dawson, 97). Social belief has been a core persuasion principle that apple has used profitably advance its market share. When a set of people stage to give sure testimonials about a product with no matters of concern, then customers will get convinced on the usefulness of the item with no disappointment.
Generally, people have the tendency of inclining to a particular product over the rest. The feeling of liking has a great effect in persuasion of a product. Liking principle has many components ranging from attractiveness, attributes, compliments, similarity and cooperation. Apple's products have distinctive features that make it different from other companies. This in itself has a persuasive effect to the customers which make them buy the product. Often people tend to relate and trust other people who are similar to them in terms of likeness shared interests personality and such kind of features. Apple Company has borrowed this principal to make its marketing strategies a success from the past. This element depicts greatly the use of persuasion in selling product.
Furthermore, human beings are creatures who tend to direct their energies towards a rewarding affair. Apple uses rewards to persuade its clients to purchase their items. Rewards provide an intrinsic motivation which makes people to strive to acquire a particular item (Larson, 91). Thus, when apple rewards loyal customers, this boosts their confidence in the company which in turn translates into increased sales volumes of their products.
Persuasion in other fields
In as much as persuasion can be extensively used in advertising by the use of the persuasive techniques (pathos, logos and ethos), it can as well apply in many other fields across the world. This can include writing, politics, sports, insurance and relationships just but to mention a few. It's through persuasion that marketers get their products known and bought by customers. Persuasion similarly makes scholarly write-up and materials to be generally accepted by the readers (Howell, 80). Politicians, leaders and religious organizations let their manifestos, ideologies and beliefs in that respect know to the followers through persuasion. Insurance companies get to sell their products to the people through a long process of persuasion and convincing. Similarly, relationships flow smoothly when one party convinces the other persuasively on the best route possible to follow in addressing a particular issue.
Firstly, in writing the writer will persuasively try to convince the reader that the written literature is the correct one and thus generally accepted as the truth. However, it is not an easy process for one has to do persuasive writing where he/she persuades the reader to perform an activity of which gives the directed results. This can be for example performing a scientific experiment in the laboratory. The directed results will thus convince the reader that the writer's opinion is the correct one in regard to a question in study (Lakhani, 106). This, therefore clearly indicates the argument for persuasion as an art to convince the readers that a given written material is true about a given phenomena.
Aristotle defines an appeal to ethos as a process that a given claim is believable and credible. When writers provide tangible evidence on the written literature and his/her claim through logic, then this is known as logos. Consequently, the vital appeal other than the ethos and logos is the appeal by emotions commonly known as pathos. However, most competent and influential writers use the combination of the three to support their claims. Always persuasion writing is directed towards gaining the attention of the readers. Conversely it should also gain the interest of the readers and leave with them the impact to believe that the writers' claims are true, valid and credible.
Another application of persuasion is in the field of insurance. Insurance has been defined as the act of protection of individuals and property against loss. This loss can be in the form of life or financial loss. For an individual to take insurance cover against a risk of a contingent, uncertain he/she has to undergo a process which is normally done by the insurance companies and their agents (Larson, 58). Therefore the insurance companies and their agents use the art of persuasion to convince the potential people of the importance to take the insurance covers against uncertainties. The process of selling an insurance cover to an individual is quite cumbersome and needs a lot of patience. However the salespeople need to use persuasive skills to complete the sale and close the policy. As much as insurance is a broad field that has a great impact to the economy, not so many people who readily take it up un less persuaded to.
On politics, leaders influence people through persuasion. When leaders are seeking political positions and ranks in leadership, they get to convince people by selling their ideologies and manifestos. There is a great power in language, which is a key element in persuasion. Therefore, leaders use language in speeches to influence the direction of leadership (Lakhani, 38). For instance the president uses the power of persuasion to influence those around him to achieve his political agenda. Moreover, the leaders reputation is indicated on his/her influence on the power to persuade, when a president waves his hand, he expects a return of the same from the audience.
Similarly, persuasion is highly applicable in sports and related activities. A prominent sportsperson influences automatically the audience whenever he/she is in the field. For example, Serena Williams is just an admiration to many people every time she is in the pitch sporting tennis. Betting industry has also used the power of persuasion to grow extensively. Betin, Sportpesa and many other firms in betting industry have grown immensely due to persuasion.
Conclusion
In conclusion, persuasion is a technique that has proved to be a great asset in most fields especially the business world. Most companies use persuasion techniques to convince buyers into buying their products and not their competitors' products. Advertisements plead with the customers and educate them on the importance of the product over others. Persuasion insists on distinguishing the product from other similar products in the market ensuring that it gains a competitive edge over other products.
Persuasion has been used in different fields to add value to the field. The fields include political fields, sports, and business among others. Politicians use persuasion to convince their voters to support them over other politicians. Persuasion buys the trust of the voters and through it one is able to convince the clients that he is the right candidate for the job. Sports industry is not left behind either. Gambling has become a great business in the world recently especially in the sports world. Companies such as Sportpesa, Betin, and Betway have become multibillion businesses due to persuasion. The companies have managed to persuade sports fans that they can make money through betting on games and make their lives better.
Apple Company is one of the best companies in the world in terms of technology. The company has invested a lot on persuasion techniques in order to attract buyers to their products and remain to be a leading company globally. It is not easy for such a company to get to the top, let alone staying at the top. The heavy investment on persuasion techniques is a clear indication that persuasion is very effective on its target audience. Apple has managed to maintain a strong status in the market due to application of good persuasion techniques that have kept their customers intact.
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