Cialdini’s six weapons of influence

The following table contains Summary of the online implications for Cialdini ’s six weapons of influence mentioned in the eMarketing eXllence Book.

Influencer	Online marketing implication
Reciprocity	Offer valuable, exclusive content or offers and your audience will remember you and will recommend you through bookmarks, links or by telling their friends. Encourage this behaviour through prompts on the site.
Commitment and consistency	Get initial commitment by encouraging visitors to drill deeper, search, subscribe or engage with product selectors. ‘ Set their alarm clock ’ by providing regular reasons to return, such as new promotions, content highlighted on site and within Ezines.
Consensus	Your audience will believe others more than they believe you! So use reviews, case studies, testimonials and rewards.
Affinity (liking and credibility)	People are persuaded by other people they like or who are like them, so again use recommendations or endorsements by people who are known by your audience or they can relate to.
Authority	Unless you are a well-known brand, you need to prove your authority. So if you are a blogger, for example, you need to show off your authority, expertise and status. Companies need to show off satisfied customers or in the B2B services example, their employees qualifications and reputations!
Scarcity	The fear of loss is more powerful than that of gain, so show site visitors what they could miss. For example, in links to it s site in offline communications, in its PPC ads, it s e-mail communications and of course on it s site, Dell makes use of time-limited offers.

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