One of Dr. Robert Cialdini's six principles of persuasion is reciprocity -- when you do someone a favor, they tend to feel obliged to return the favor. I've heard this plenty of times before, but I recently read an article that got me thinking about it again.

A few days ago, Dr. Cialdini tweeted a link to an article by Douglas Vermeeren about how reciprocity and the power to persuade increases sales. Vermeeren says:

Often you see sales agents attempting a form of reciprocity ... when they spring to buy a coffee for the prospect. While this is a gesture of reciprocity, research ... indicates that most prospects remain more or less unaffected by this gesture. In many [cases,] they even expected that the person who ... was doing the selling was kind of expected to take care of those things.

Speaking of the little gifts companies hand out at trade shows, he continues:

The problem why they no longer work as gifts of reciprocity, and rarely work as tools of marketing, is that these gifts at this level of value given are too common and they really make very little impact on us.

Does the same apply to the freebies internet marketers give out to get people on their mailing lists? I think so.

So what can internet marketers do now to capitalize on the power of reciprocity? Here are a few thoughts:

  • One of the problems with the freebies we pass out is that it's done impersonally. Make it more personal, and it will have more power. For example, you might send an autoresponder message a week after they subscribe asking if they have any questions or for them to tell you about a website where they've implemented whatever you were giving away. Then watch your email and respond personally to anyone who responds to the message (eg. answer their question, or actually look at their website and write a real comment about it). Now you've done them a personal favor, and are in a position to ask a favor (you might tack it on in the P.S. of your email).
  • Participate in forums, answering questions. Again, it's more personal, so should have more impact. On the other hand, people are accustomed to getting questions answered in forums, so it probably won't have the same power as an email response. Plus, you'll probably get in trouble with the forum if you ask for a favor in return. So you might want to respond by direct message or email if the forum makes that possible. Or you might put the meat of your response on your own website and send people there from the forum. On your site, you can include a tell-a-friend script or some such thing to ask for a return favor.
  • Give more value. The problem with this tactic is that more people are giving more value for free these days, so even that may be seen as expected. To avoid that perception, you might state up-front that you're giving them something that you'd normally sell, so you're going to ask for a favor in return. Though that may turn some people off, the loss might be made up for by getting others to reciprocate (I haven't tested this, but thought it'd be worth throwing out there). You'd want to test whether you get a better response (both in terms of signups for the freebie and getting the return favor) by disclosing what the favor you'll be asking for is in advance or not.

The big takeaway here is that whenever you give something away, you have a chance to ask for something in return. You'll get better results if you consider how you can present both your gift and your request in a way that will increase the odds of people reciprocating.

Reader Comment:
Antone Roundy said:
Rachel, Thanks for pointing out the error! I've fixed it.
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