Schlagwort-Archive: Association space

The bait – the ideal metaphor for an appeal

Experienced anglers have a variety of baits available: spinners, wobblers, jerk and swim baits, streamers etc. Basically, these baits attract fish by simulating food. Instinctively, the fish reacts, snaps it and is hooked on the hook. The bait is selected depending on the fish one wants to catch. Anglers know that the bait has to appeal to the fish, not the angler. In the same way influence groups act, who want to attract attention of a certain target group.

Even if there is a certain amount of reserve in daily business of luring target groups, everybody is consistently using marketing means in sales, in a presentation, in budget discussions, in team building, in the appraisal interview, etc.
The following four points are applied.

  • Natural triggers
    Most effective are the stimuli that are part of the human nature. These include, for example, the reciprocity rule and the scarcity principle. The reciprocity rule uses small presents that oblige unconsciously the recipients of the gift to make a reciprocal gift – and already the cup of coffee at the barber pays off, since it stimulates for two additional treatments. The scarcity principle often shows up in high-quality offers. The interest increases when the availability is going down. If luxury goods sellers are reducing their offers, customers accept increasing waiting times and prices – and spent gladly the night before the sales opening on the street, only to be among the first, who are allowed to buy the new product without any price reduction. They even become skeptical, if the luxury good is immediately available without limit. Accordingly, the angler uses the natural attraction of known baits to attract a certain fish.
  • Personal advantage
    The personal advantage goes from monetary benefits, to personal acknowledgement, to sensual well-being. For creating the financial stimulus response, all it takes is a sign with one of the following hooks: SALES, UP TO 50% REDUCED or 3 FOR 2. For attracting personalities all it needs is a bouncer, who opens respectfully the door for selected people or forbids the entry to others. The bodily well-being uses our sensory channels to attract and retain us – an appealing illumination and coloring of the location, the pleasant, discreet background music, a high quality floor covering that lets you hover, a meaningful atmosphere that gives you enjoyable exhalation, to the small food samples, which act at the same time as a natural trigger. Even the fish seems hoping for fat prey.
  • Mental association space
    You can not look into the mind of the target group. However, due to behavior, language, and appearance, one can derive certain assumptions that can be incorporated into linguistic magnets that push the target audience in the desired direction. The assumptions can cast linguistic baits, which prepare the target audience for an offer. For example, your competitors know that services like ours have their price – a high price is not surprising. No one said we were cutting jobs. Jobs may be cut back. Next month our prices will rise. Benefit from the currently lower prices. We also offer televisions. There seems to be more. If everyone were able to join in, then … Someone does not seem to be able to. At the moment, I can not exclude that one or the other anglers talk to their prey with magical formulas.
  • Ease of use
    All those offers are enticing, which are usable without a lot of preparation. For this purpose a clear and simple usage, which is understandable for different characters, is just as important as the simple connection to the personal environment. If an Internet radio has obvious controls that have a unique function and is easy to integrate into the home network, then it’s appealing. For the fish, the bait becomes a temptation, because it does not escape and therefore is easy to catch.

Bottom line: The angler attracts the fish with a specific bait. Also in everyday life people have to be won over and over again for something. The required attraction can be generated through the use of natural triggers, the offer of personal benefits, the utilization of the mental association space, and the ease of use. The lure is oriented on the characteristics of the target group as in fishing. Since people call these marketing measures often luring, the bait is the ideal metaphor for an inducement – and as long as this attraction is used for ethically acceptable goals, nothing speaks against it.