https://moneyheaded.com/blog daily 0.75 2022-09-22 https://moneyheaded.com/blog/bottom-dollar-effect monthly 0.5 2022-09-22 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60896ef8a1a6147f2d9e80e1/3d37c9cd-8a44-4906-9bdf-7f7c7113807c/pexels-towfiqu-barbhuiya-10994723.jpg Blog - Bottom Dollar Effect - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://moneyheaded.com/blog/bandwagon-effect monthly 0.5 2022-06-09 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60896ef8a1a6147f2d9e80e1/83eea013-9f5e-47a5-adf6-78614b9bd13e/bandwagon-effect.jpg Blog - Bandwagon Effect - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60896ef8a1a6147f2d9e80e1/4a870b61-2d3f-43d6-a902-da57f6bd8429/jo+ann+stover+image.jpg Blog - Bandwagon Effect - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://moneyheaded.com/blog/7uylwll7tsba018j36ycg5nnghvpd3 monthly 0.5 2022-05-11 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60896ef8a1a6147f2d9e80e1/c04eb3b7-5863-400e-9f43-08a85a2765ed/pexels-pixabay-355952.jpg Blog - Availability Heuristic - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://moneyheaded.com/blog/anchoring monthly 0.5 2021-11-05 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60896ef8a1a6147f2d9e80e1/1629909398499-YEYNB8IH13IBDSHO4FNW/pexels-manuel-keusch-811440.jpg Blog - Anchoring - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://moneyheaded.com/blog/endowment-effect monthly 0.5 2021-08-25 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60896ef8a1a6147f2d9e80e1/1620068106004-0Z26S4GGUVBQBORY2RV1/IUF-Endowment-FB.jpg Blog - Endowed Progress Have you ever signed on to make a donation to a campaign and discovered that the amount pledged so far is only a small amount of the total goal? How inspired are you to give? Does it bring up feelings of embarrassment or pity? If it’s a cause you care about and feel responsible for, maybe you’ll make a gift to give it a kick start. Or maybe you’ll just sit on the sidelines and wait to see if others step up. What about when you check in on a campaign and 75% of the goal has already been raised? Do you feel like cheering them on and jumping in to help? It’s close to the finish line, so maybe you feel more of a desire to be a part of a winning team. Every fundraiser and every donor is familiar with the campaign thermometer. The “temperature” rises as the campaign gets closer and closer to the goal, and your enthusiasm tends to rise right along with it. That’s endowed progress working its magic on your brain and your emotions. What is this powerful force? The endowed progress effect happens when a certain amount of progress toward a goal is achieved. Marketers can create the sensation of endowed progress for their customers by jump starting their progress toward a goal, either as a gift, like free tokens or points in a game, or by making early progress very easy to obtain. Marketing and loyalty program experts Joseph C. Nunes and Xavier Dreze created a research project that tested different strategies for loyalty card offers at a car wash. They created two different cards: (1) a card that required 8 purchases for a free car wash, and (2) a card that required 10 purchases for a free car wash. The recipients of the 10-purchase card were given two stamps on their loyalty card to start them off. So, in essence, each group had to do exactly the same thing: purchase eight car washes to get the free car wash. Here’s what happened. After nine months, 34% of the people with the 10-stamp card redeemed their cards. But only 19% of the 8-stamp card holders redeemed theirs. Both groups needed to buy eight car washes to get the free car wash, so why did the 10-stamp card have a higher redemption rate? Those who were given the two “free” stamps on their loyalty cards were instilled with the sensation of a head start, and in turn, felt more motivated to complete the card. Those two stamps made them believe they were already 20% toward completing the goal, while the 8-purchase cardholders felt like they were starting from zero. Why does my brain do this!? There are a few reasons why your brain reacts this way. The Zeigarnik Effect, named after Lithuanian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik, is the tendency to think about uncompleted tasks more than completed tasks. People who are highly motivated by a “need for achievement” may experience this much more strongly than others, but we are all nagged to some extent by unfinished tasks and unsettled by loose ends. Task Tension is that positive feeling that exists when there's work to be done. This may include a sense of enthusiasm, the thrill of impending accomplishment, the satisfaction of checking tasks off your list, or a sense of eagerness around discovery and overcoming challenges. Goal Gradient Effect is what happens when we get closer to achieving a reward or completing a goal. The closer we get, the more effort toward completion is accelerated and intensified. We are motivated by how much is left to do, rather than how far we’ve come. From speeding up as you get closer to the finish line to staying late at work to put the final touches on that budget, the tantalizing prospect of finishing has a significant impact on effort and desire. How does endowed progress play out in marketing tactics? Punch cards or loyalty cards are a classic example. If you receive a “Buy 10 coffees, get one free!” punch card with a couple of starter punches, then your coffee shop has set endowed progress into action, and you’ll be redeeming that card for your free coffee in no time. Points, stars, and prizes are different versions of rewards that can be used to celebrate progress along the way toward a goal. They help boost your feeling of accomplishment and keep you motivated. The project management tool Asana does this by activating celebration creatures with an animation of a unicorn, yeti or narwhal joyfully streaking across your screen once you’ve completed a random number of tasks. Loyalty programs, like airline mileage plans, encourage you to reach a certain mileage goal each year to receive VIP perks like boarding the plane first or access to upgrades. December “mileage runs” or trips just to earn miles are a common activity among business travelers who are just a few miles shy of their VIP status. Progress bars are frequently used to inspire clients or customers to complete a task. LinkedIn uses endowed progress to encourage users to get to their profile strength from “intermediate” to “expert.” They understand it’s a tedious task for you to complete your profile, but that progress bar does a good job of nudging you along. What does endowed progress framing look like for fundraising? Here are some ideas that put endowed progress into action for fundraisers. Always set goals for your campaigns and track against them. People want to know what they are working toward, they are motivated by progress, and their desire to help you complete the goal will really kick in as you get closer to completing the goal. Never announce a public campaign with nothing raised toward your goal. Preload that campaign thermometer with a few pre-solicited gifts, and make sure your capital campaign has a significant percentage raised (ideally over 60%) from major donors before you invite the wider community to participate. When planning a “Raise The Paddle” fundraising moment at your gala, try starting by announcing a large gift from a board member or major donor. This will help the crowd feel like they are already well on their way to reaching the evening’s fundraising goal. Be Ethical Set goals that inspire but don’t burden your community. Your goals should be aspirational and exciting, while still being appropriate and achievable for your organization’s community. Make sure you are being honest about your progress. Try not to start your campaign from zero, but make sure you’ve actually raised the money that appears on your campaign thermometer. Planning ahead with some loyal supporters is all you need to do. My Experience I am addicted to the Alaska Airlines mileage progress bar. I do a fair amount of coast-to-coast traveling, and I check it before and after every flight. If September comes around and I’m not sure if I’m going to earn my MVP Gold 75K status by the end of December, then I’m going to be planning another flight or two. That priority boarding and a better chance for an upgrade are lovely, but it’s really that progress bar that motivates me to earn those miles. One year, I took a one-day trip from Seattle to San Francisco on December 30 because I was about 30 miles short of my goal. It was a really fun trip, by the way. You can do a lot in San Francisco in only one day. I’m a fan of short trips anyway, but let’s be honest, some real extra joy came from seeing my progress bar completed. That was the shortest vacation I’ve ever taken, but it was great fun. And all thanks to endowed progress. https://moneyheaded.com/blog/social-proof monthly 0.5 2021-06-14 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60896ef8a1a6147f2d9e80e1/1623678468472-GIZ6VZBAFCU2HE4WI3KL/apple-store-line.jpg Blog - The Mysterious Power of Social Proof You’re walking down the street and you see a big group of people gathered looking at something, but you can’t tell what it is. How likely are you to stop and take a look? The bigger the crowd, the more likely you’ll crane your neck and see if you can figure out what’s going on. Or maybe you’re in an office building or a public space and the fire alarm goes off. You see other people looking around, but no one stops what they are doing. After a couple of minutes, you see a group of five or six people hurriedly walking toward the exit, and you find yourself gathering your belongings and following. Everyone around you is doing the same. Have you had a similar experience? That’s social proof at work. Social Proof - What is it? The concept of Social Proof was first introduced in the book Influence, the Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini in 1984. It is one of the six Principles of Persuasion he outlines in the book: Reciprocity, Commitment and Consistency, Authority, Liking, Scarcity, and Conformity (or Social Proof). We look to others when we are unsure of the correct way to behave or the best decision to make. We also look for clues from those around us when we are unsure if an action or product is trustworthy or safe. We are much more likely to choose conformity rather than choose our own path. Our default assumption is that others have more information than us, and that assumption encourages our conformity even more. The principle states that we determine what is correct by finding out what other people think is correct. Importantly, the principle applies to the way we decide what constitutes correct behavior. We view an action as correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it. - Robert Cialdini This concept is illustrated through some fascinating examples in Cialdini’s book. He talks about a restaurant in Beijing, China that partnered with researchers to increase the purchase of certain menu items. They wanted to find a way for customers to choose them more frequently without lowering prices or altering the ingredients. They tried labeling these dishes “Specialty of the House” or “Chef’s Recommendation,” but the label that had the most impact was “Most Popular.” Those two words increased sales of each dish by an average of 13 to 20 percent. Another example of popularity producing more popularity in Cialdini’s book is a story about Netflix. According to entertainment reporter Nicole LaPorte (2018) the company had “long prided itself on being highly secretive about things like watch-time and ratings, gleefully reveling in the fact that because Netflix doesn’t have to answer to advertisers, it doesn’t need to reveal any numbers.” But in 2018, it began to share information about its most successful offerings. The results of internal tests showed that Netflix members who were told which shows were popular made them even more popular. Taking a look at my own Netflix homepage, I see that just below “Continue Watching for Sandra,” is “Trending Now” and “Top 10 in the US Today,” which I often use as a jumping off point for my next movie or binge-watching session. A wonderful piece of opera history, and a great example of the power of social proof, is the tradition of claquers. In this fascinating article, When Paid Applauders Ruled the Paris Opera House, Ameila Soth recounts the history of claques. These groups of opera goers applauded, cried, cheered, demanded encores, and tossed flowers, all in exchange for tickets and money, in order to sway the enthusiasm of the crowd for a singer. The TV sitcom variation on the claque might be a laugh track. We’ve all found ourselves chuckling along without even thinking (or without even thinking it’s funny), once the laugh track prompted us. Why is this such a powerful force in our lives? Humans are a social species. We rely on cooperation and community to survive and thrive. We have a need to share companionship and association. We all experience a pull to conform in order to be liked and accepted by others. Social proof is what happens when circumstances play on our desire for conformity. We seek safety in numbers and relief from ambiguity or uncertainty. We look to others for social guidance in behavior. And when we look at the crowd and see people we believe we share something in common with, we are even more willing to take cues from that group. This is known as implicit egotism, an unconscious bias to gravitate toward others who resemble us, which activates positive, automatic associations with ourselves. Marketing Uses of Social Proof that Everyone Will Recognize A surprising number of our buying and giving decisions are influenced by social proof. What to wear, what to drive, where to live, what to eat - it’s hard to think of a decision in my own life that is not influenced in some way by social proof. You will immediately recognize the way that social proof is commonly used in advertising and marketing. And there are ways that you create your own shortcuts through this tactic to make buying decisions. Here’s what it looks like… The Expert - An expert in the industry praises the company or organization. One familiar example is the use of U.S. News and World Report’s rankings of top colleges. The Celebrity - We’ve all seen those ads: Beyonce’s endorsement of Pepsi and Patrick Stewart and Mark Hamill’s commercials touting Uber Eats are a couple of recent examples. And every athlete seems to have a sponsorship deal—or ten. The User - More and more, we all rely on reviews on retail sites: “I’m giving this drill 5 stars! It’s easy to use, lightweight, and powerful enough for home improvement jobs big and small. A real winner!” The Wisdom of Your Friends - One of my husband’s favorite ways to plan for travel is to pose a question on Facebook: “We’re traveling to Memphis next month, does anyone have a recommendation for a good restaurant there?” There are always some great suggestions, and sometimes some lovely wonderful out-of-the-way surprises. [To note, one of the best restaurant suggestions we ever got was from a cab driver in Honolulu - make friends with your cab driver, and then you’ll get some REAL wisdom.] The Wisdom of the Crowd - Remember the run on toilet paper at the onset of the pandemic? Everyone was lining up at Costco to buy 300 rolls of toilet paper, any kind of toilet paper. Lines snaked around the block just to have the opportunity to shop. Why? Because everyone else was doing it. “Maybe they know something I don’t know” is a powerful motivator. What does Social Proof framing look like for Fundraising? The Expert - A nonprofit Advisory Board can give your organization a stamp of approval, or serve as proof of the importance and effectiveness of the work your nonprofit does. The Celebrity - When you honor a celebrity at a gala event, not only does it sell tickets, but it sends a message that the celebrity cares about your cause and is taking time to support and promote your mission. Donors and ticket buyers want to be near them, and be like them. The User - Testimonials from volunteers or clients of a nonprofit can give potential donors the message that the organization is caring for the community, and the people that are helped or are closely involved with the organization are happy to endorse it. The Wisdom of Your Friends - When your friend asks you to join them at a wine tasting event in support of their favorite cause, you might be doing it as a favor to them, and to spend time with them, but once you are there, you will be much more open to learning about the mission of the organization and consider supporting them. As fundraisers, we all know how valuable that first invitation can be in cultivating a longer-term relationship with your nonprofit. The Wisdom of the Crowd - There are many ways to utilize the wisdom of the crowd to create comfort around and support for your organization: Donor testimonials and appreciation quotes, long and prominently placed donor lists, and messaging about how many people have already donated all help to give a new donor the assurance that they are joining a large group of knowledgeable supporters. Be Ethical Social proof is a powerful force. Be careful not to abuse it. Take a photo from the best angle to enhance the crowd size of your event, but don’t Photoshop in additional people. Recruiting doctors, artists, and educators to join your Advisory Board will give your organization the glow of their knowledge and expertise. But don’t relegate them to just a listing on your webpage for fundraising clout. Engage them in your organization, ask for their advice, and listen when they have concerns and feedback. When your donor materials use “wisdom of the crowd” messaging, make sure your statements are accurate and authentic. “Join us” are two of the most powerful words in fundraising. Make the most of them. My Experience When thinking about the ways social proof has impacted my day-to-day life, I have memories of learning how to jaywalk when I moved to New York from Seattle in the 80s, and then learning how NOT to jaywalk in Seattle when I traveled back to visit. Any New Yorker would have a very hard time standing on the corner of Bleecker and 6th Avenue waiting for the light to change from Don’t Walk to Walk, while masses of people cross the street against the light. My first New York apartment was at that intersection and that’s where I perfected my jaywalking skills. The crowd taught me what to do, and I did it. In Seattle (in those days anyway) no matter how little traffic there was, everyone waited for the Walk signal before crossing. And, let me tell you, once you’ve perfected the art and science of jaywalking, it’s very hard to go back. But social proof had its way with me when I visited Seattle again after living in New York. In a day or two, I’d be following the street corner crowds in Seattle, patiently waiting for the light to change. https://moneyheaded.com/blog/loss-aversion-and-raising-money monthly 0.5 2021-05-05 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60896ef8a1a6147f2d9e80e1/1620067639241-9NNGHW7AZL3NKOMUQ4ZR/bigstock-fundraising-donations-charity--146155910.jpg Blog - Loss Aversion and Raising Money https://moneyheaded.com/home daily 1.0 2021-11-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60896ef8a1a6147f2d9e80e1/1620134121629-S98ENA3XFUS78OUDJ6Y8/pexels-rodnae-productions-7158702.jpg Home - “Moneyheaded is a place to explore our complicated relationship with money, and a place for me to dive into my fascination with behavioral economics, cognitive and emotional biases, and heuristics.” https://moneyheaded.com/about daily 0.75 2021-05-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/60896ef8a1a6147f2d9e80e1/1620133920678-QEV9OF7MRIH1HUVPEJYM/pexels-karolina-grabowska-4475525.jpg About https://moneyheaded.com/contact daily 0.75 2021-05-04