Great to have you coming by.

Indeed, your point of people forming attachment to what they have than what they imagine having is a very valid one.

Time and time again has proven that the “fear of loss” is so much more powerful than the “benefit of gain”.

Cheers,
Jag

Just thought I’d take a sec to jump in here. First, on the idea of the “fear of loss” as a motivator. Someone here mentions Cialdini, which is a great reference. I think you hit the nail on the head with some of your other examples too.

A further thought I’ve had is that “fear of loss” works so well because, for one, people form attachments with what they already have much more quickly than they can with what they have to imagine having. Thus, to take away the familiar forces a more immediate response than the threat to deny something that still exists only as an abstraction. It’s much more difficult, for instance, to be a rich man gone broke than it is to be a moderately poor guy who never got rich.

Also, I wonder how much social stigma plays into this. When you get traffic points added, people seem to sympathize. The system is out to get you. When you get them taken away, I imagine there’s some scorn involved. You’ve been deemed measurably a lesser driver, so much that you’re not able to guard those points that have been placed in your care. I think there must me many more examples of this, but the short of it is that we hate to look stupid or incompetent.
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Dan

Julie

Thanks Jag,

Mr. F
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When I am doing a sale for some products I will always talk about the pain of what will happen if they dont buy the product straight away. This gets people to act far faster.

John Forde is a well-known copywriter and he publish the excellent “The Copywriting Roundtable” newsletter.

@Wendy:

Fear can be a powerful marketing motivator. Robert Cialdini has done a lot of studies that make use of fear to motivate buyers to act now. That’s why we have the “principle of scarcity” as an effective persuasion tactic.

Having said that, you don’t want to keep using it. Because customers will grow weary of it after awhile.

So while you may not want to use it in the long term (as in all the time), you want to keep it as part of your marketing arsenal.

Emphasizing the benefit of “comfort” works too. It’s dependent on what you are selling though.

@Nathan:

Well, it just shows that it’s more effective to “deduct points” rather than “gaining points”. In this case, “fear” has a greater emotional pull than the “benefit of gain”.

Not too sure if you can get what I mean. You may want to read the post again.

@Deborah:

Glad that you made your way here. Hope to have you on board for the long term. =)

Warmly,
Jag

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