One of the six key means of influence Cialdini identifies in "Influence" is social proof. This is essentially the idea that people will behave in a manner similarly to others around them, and particularly those who they find to be like themselves. As much as we may fight to be unique individuals, such behavior is logical given our built-in survival mechanisms. For example, if you see a crowd of people running in terror, it's probably a good idea to take action quickly. This isn't necessarily always the case, but for most scenarios I can think of, it's better to run. If you run and you're wrong, you might end up a little embarassed. If you don't run and you're wrong, you might end up severely injured or worse.
In "Yes" Cialdini presents additional information about social proof through discussion of research showing it's effect. In that discussion, we find that merely sharing information in our communication with clients and customers about what most people do is enough to stimulate a response. And it is quite an impressive one.
For MwtM, our marketing consists purely of an email list and word-of-mouth. We send one email per month listing our lesson schedule for that month with some information about the lessons and one email per week thereafter reminding people of that week's lesson. We decided to give the social proof concept a try. We simply added the following to the beginning of our email:
May salsa lessons begin this evening. Participation has been picking up every week, so combined with the gradually warming weather and longer days, it’s a great time to join your co-workers to meet some new people and pick up salsa before summer arrives.
While we can't be certain that this has a causal relationship with the participation that followed (as mentioned, participation was already increasing at a gradual rate), we got several reply emails shortly thereafter to ask for more information. The number of participants at the lesson that followed the email was around 18 versus 14 at the previous lesson, which represents an increase of greater than 25%. If nothing less, this does seem indicate that it is worth continuing to excercise the concept.
