It is never the size of the step that a person takes that counts, but its direction

 

The Psychology of eMarketing, Internet Marketing, Internet Advertising, eMarketing Strategies, Website Design, Content Analysis, and Online Branding; a unique and innovative analysis

Why do customers buy your product?

eMarketing and Online Branding is much more than just attaching a name or an strategy to a product. Branding is about making a lasting promise on delivering a fulfilling experience.

One of the wonderful things about well-formulated theories is that they can lead you conceptually and empirically to places that you never intended to go. No theory illustrates this better than Edward L. Deci theory of intrinsic motivation. Deci's theory was conceived with subjective aspects of motivation in mind. Much of the research inspired by the theory has been physiological in nature.

Majority of websites are found through visitor's (initial) intrinsic motivations using search engines or other search methods. This is an important premise behind our theory and our model. It is the visitor who is intrinsically motivated and highly involved to find your website using Yahoo or Google. You must first appreciate two very important keywords which are Intrinsic Motivations and High Involvement.

Intrinsic motivation are the type that are originated within. Extrinsic motivations are externals such as rewards and money. Let's first look at extrinsic motivations. A good example of extrinsic motivations to buy something, perhaps would be observing an ad in a newspaper about a product that you really don't need, but extrinsically motivated (maybe just because there is a coupon).

Those websites that ignore visitor's intrinsic motivations and high involvement will have a hard time selling. On the contrary, websites that understand their buyer's intrinsic motivations and try to foster such motivations will sell easily. Incorporating the elements of buyer's intrinsic motivations and high involvement into your Internet Advertising is the key.

Let us look at the implications when a website visitor is highly involved in purchasing. When a visitor is highly involved, strong arguments inside the website produce acceptance, but weak arguments are not merely unpersuasive but actually can be antipersuasive. This means websites who dedicate a page or two explaining the logic behind the product with strong arguments will do better. In fact research has shown that weak arguments might have negative impact or boomerang. That strong arguments are persuasive and that this pattern peaks under high involvement seem straightforward enough; what happens in relation to weak arguments is more complex. Message recipients under weak argument conditions face a potentially interesting dilemma: The message position suggests a conclusion at odds with its supposed supportive content. I cover the science of persuasion inside the Internet Marketing through Persuasion page. In this page I will focus on the theory of Intrinsic Motivations.

Intrinsic motivation is defined as the inner life force or inner energy for an activity such as Internet purchases or any Internet activity. Extrinsic motivation is opposite and is defined by any outside force or energy for any activity. Intrinsically motivated behaviors are ones that are aimed at establishing certain internal conditions that are rewarding. This article is about the buyer's intrinsic motivations and why people buy Internet Brands. This article is very relevant to Internet Marketing since Internet Marketing has become Search Engine Marketing. In this article we will discuss Branding on Internet and also show that buying Brands has many advantages in the psychology of consumers.

Buying Brands, based on buyer's intrinsic motivations, helps alleviate dissatisfaction, brings about improvement in some situations and effects better consequences.

If certain Brands are targeted to make a person more autonomous or relate to his/her intrinsic motivations (rather than extrinsic motivations), they are even more sought after. This is a very powerful concept. We will discuss our theory mainly around the two concept of autonomy and intrinsic motivations. We will show that marketing campaigns that consider making people more autonomous and also foster buyer's intrinsic motivations are more powerful and influential. This is the essence of these laws and this article. The notion of marketing and Branding is vast and perhaps is best explained by examining an array of advancement in the field of psychology, persuasion, economics, sales, communication research, and human experiences.

Human motivation falls in two categories, intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivations. Majority of method and techniques used in motivating people to buy Brands are unfortunately of buyer's extrinsic motivations. We like to encourage the reader to design Websites, Branding or Advertising campaigns based on buyer's intrinsic motivational factors. The concept of autonomy plays an important role here. Autonomy and intrinsic motivation are almost identical. Here is an overview:

The main and first ingredient of intrinsic motivation is autonomy. Autonomy is when one acts in accord with one's self; it means self-governing and feeling free to take responsibilities for one's actions. Autonomous people go about their activities with a sense of interest and commitment. According to psychological reactance theory (Brehm, 1966; Brehm & Brehm, 1981; Jones & Brehm, 1970), persuasive communication poses a potential threat to freedom. Essentially, reactance is motivated by the individual's basic need for self-determination in effecting his or her own environment. This need for effectance and autonomy is predicated on the basic assumption that, in regard to certain limited and specifiable areas of behavior, people have a distinct and strong preference to perceive themselves as masters of their own fate.

In 1968, psychological theoretician Richard deCharms published a book discussing the importance of a concept he called personal causation. He believed that the key to intrinsic motivation is the desire to be the "origin" of one's own action rather than a "pawn" manipulated by external forces (extrinsic motivation).

Intrinsic motivation is associated with richer experiences, improving self esteem, better conceptual understanding, greater creativity, achieving competency, and improved problem solving. Using his line of thinking and several experiments with subjects seemed to suggest that extrinsic motivations (such as rewards or fear) do indeed undermine subjects' feelings of personal causation, and thus their intrinsic desire for mastery.

Extrinsic motivational factors seemed to turn the act of playing into something that was controlled from the outside: It turned play into work, and the player into a pawn. Hence any Website, Advertising or Branding campaign that uses extrinsic motivational factors (such as rewards, Fear, Apprehension, Controlling, Evaluative Feedback, Ego Involvement rather than Task Involvement, Pressure, Negative emotional tone, and Constraint) for branding or Internet Marketing purposes target the extrinsic motivation of the buyer and hence is not as effective or fully influential. Our ninth law of Branding deals with this method. If you notice rewards is not used as often as it was used in 60's or 50's.

Perhaps the best example of Branding campaign that targeted buyer's intrinsic motivation is the Ford Focus Campaign (see below) and the concept of freedom (autonomy) that an automobile might effect for the buyer. We discuss this in our third law of Branding. Next we discuss autonomy.

 

Freedom Car http://www.ford.com/en/innovation/engineFuelTechnology/freedomCar.htm

Last year, president George W. Bush proposed $1.2 billion in research funding towards a bold vision of a transportation system powered by hydrogen. "With a new national commitment, our scientists and engineers will overcome obstacles to taking these cars from laboratory to showroom, so that the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen and be pollution-free," he said. Delivering this vision is the responsibility of the FreedomCAR program. The "Freedom" in FreedomCAR represents: • Freedom from petroleum dependence • Freedom from pollutant emissions • Freedom to choose the vehicle you want • Freedom to drive where you want and when you want • Freedom to obtain fuel affordably and conveniently The ultimate vision of FreedomCAR is a transportation system powered by hydrogen. The president's vision of a child born today driving a hydrogen-powered vehicle is both compelling and timely. It also recognizes that significant technical and infrastructure challenges must be addressed, barriers must be overcome, and commitment by government and industry is crucial. FreedomCAR is poised to deliver on this vision.

A person is defined autonomous if he/she uses his/her own information to make a decision or to change the environment to enhance his/her well being. The importance of autonomy can be summed up in the following slogan: No meaning without intention; no intention without function; no function without autonomy. We will show that many skills and qualities (such as purchasing, learning) are significantly facilitated by autonomy, and further by qualities that are functional for autonomy. To feel and to have an autonomous personality, requires that a person feel flexible, open to new information, capable of decision making for change and most important, be able to evaluate his/her decisions and the results of the change. Another quality of the autonomous person is the ability to facilitate an environment that can contribute further to his/her autonomy. All these modifications and change must be self-guided. We will show that Websites, Advertising, and Internet Marketing that actually influences these factors are more effective.

We believe autonomy (regarding Internet Purchases) is multidimensional and varies in degree. If the dimensions are distinct enough, we can talk of kinds of autonomy, such as material autonomy, psychological autonomy, social autonomy, and informational autonomy. These kinds of autonomy arise at different levels, and in differing hierarchies of levels, so autonomy is also relative to level and hierarchy. Autonomy must always be self generating, or an autonomous person would not be able to maintain it. Furthermore, autonomous persons are best formed spontaneously. We have the experience and the knowledge to design your Website, Internet Advertising and Marketing considering the powerful effect of these concepts.

 

Factors affecting Buyer's Intrinsic Motivation:

Self-Determining

Support Autonomy

Positive emotional tone

Consistency

Warmth, energy, fun

Being Credible (we have covered website design to achieve credibility and trust)

Informational Feedback

Task Involvement (rather than Ego Involvement)

Liking

Novelty, Enthusiastic, and Interesting

Removing Incongruity; Removing Anxiety, Providing Assurances; Guaranteed Work

Effective in interaction

Inducing Curiosity

Originality

Direct Involvement

Playfulness

Feeling of Efficacy (adequacy, capableness, effectiveness, efficiency, energy, influence, performance, potency, power, productiveness, strength, success, sufficiency, use, vigor, virtue)

Imagining Future Outcomes

Adaptability and Receptive

Mastery

Independence Enhancing

Knowledge Enhancing

Skill Enhancing

Growth Enhancing

Exploration Enhancing and Adventurous

Discovering and Inquisitive

Satisfaction and Affectionate

Removing Anxiety, Uncertainty and Fear Reductions

One's Interests are understood

Other Self Determination Factors

Self Directing

Society and Human Relatedness

Enjoying and Elated

Benefiting

Saving Money

Freedom

None Regulating

Positive Feedback

Ease and Flexibility (flexibility that allows one's attitudes to direct action toward the effective achievement of one's aims.)

Volitional Responding

Rational Processes

Zestful and Cheerful

Engaging

Informative

Security

Comfort

Happiness

Hope

Optimism

Reduction in Pain

Cure

Solution

Resolution

Joy

Love

Conquering

Being Understood with Positive Feedback

Being Appreciated

Being Competent

Being Young, Energetic, Active, Successful, Winning, Improving, Achieving, Creative, Goal Oriented, Having Choices, Healthy Curiosity

Address the concept of courage, confidence, compassion, an idealized behavior, an idealized person to be, self-esteem, and achievement of an ideal image.

 

Selling By Extrinsic Motivations

We have been testing our theory on several Websites using evaluative feedback (extrinsic motivation) and informational feedback (intrinsic motivation). Here are the results:

Our research results show that those website visitors who rated themselves controlled exerting significantly less effort to complete the purchase or their search (abandoning) than those buyers who were not. It may be that those visitors who had been controlled superficially complied by doing what was asked, but they also reacted against the controls by putting in less effort on the buying process than the subjects who got informational feedback. In essence the cognitive theory says:

Amotivation: According to cognitive evaluation theory, when environments allow neither self-determination nor competence for a given behavior, people will become amotivated with respect to that behavior. This may be accompanied by such affective and cognitive states as helplessness, depression, and self-disparagement. As we said earlier, a situation will be amotivating when it is interpreted as unmasterable, that is, when one perceives oneself to be incompetent to attain one's desired outcomes. This would typically occur when one receives persistently negative feedback about one's performance, when one repeatedly fails, or when one believes that outcomes are noncontigently delivered.

This is a powerful theory that summarizes what could exactly happen when a website visitor gets amotivated in the process of searching the website.

 

Factors affecting Buyer's Extrinsic Motivation

Controlling (no buyer's control over the desired outcome; date product will be received, colors, shapes, sizes,....)

Evaluative Feedback

Ego Involvement (rather than Task Involvement)

Pressure

Perplexed and Bewildered

Negative emotional tone

Constraint

Hopeless and Annoyed

Defiant and Disgusted

Surprised and Shy

Afraid and Hesitant

Repetitious

Boredom Inducing

Manipulative

Rewards, Token, Toys, Gold Star, Red Ribbons..

Contingencies

Money

Prize

Competition or competitive

Force

Regulating

Fear, anticipation, concern

Uncertainty

Doing it for someone else

Duress and Hostile

Unknown

Unexpected

Too Futuristic

Deadlines

Avoidance of Punishments

Anxiety Provocation

Surveillance

Evaluations

Goal Impositions

 

Ryan (1982), who first introduced the concepts of internally informational and internally controlling regulation, hypothesized that internally informational events facilitate intrinsic motivation, whereas internally controlling events undermine it. Intrapersonal events differ in their qualitative aspects and, like external events, can have varied functional significances. Internally informational events facilitate self-determined functioning and maintain or enhance intrinsic motivation. Internally controlling events are experienced as pressure toward specific outcomes and undermine intrinsic motivation. Internally amotivating events make salient one's incompetence and also undermine intrinsic motivation.

Any of these motivational factors, intrinsic or extrinsic, could also be important to advertising. Sadness would be aroused by a commercial showing an older woman reflecting on the loss of a mate or by an advertisement attempting to gain support for resources for a famine stricken country such as Somalia by portraying an undernourished child.

Enthusiasm and joy might be created by commercials showing people playing volleyball at a beach with upbeat, active music in the background. A political ad might try to raise hostility toward the opponent.

There has by now been substantial research on the different types of feelings that can be and are created in advertising and on how different kinds of ad content can lead to different kinds of feelings. Rajeev Batra and Morris Holbrook, for instance, have identified twenty different types of distinct feelings that ads can create and have shown how to measure them validly and reliably. They point out that other researchers, such as the psychologist Carroll Izard, have developed classification schemes that contain even fewer types of emotions, while psychologist James Russell has argued that all feelings fall into one of four cells in a grid defined by two axes, "pleasant-unpleasant" (or positive-negative) and "low-to-high arousal." Thus, while anger is unpleasant and highly arousing, fear is unpleasant but less arousing, and while joy is positive and high arousal, a feeling of relaxation is positive but low arousal. Similar dimensions (axes) have been found using feeling-evoking ads, by researchers Julie Edell and Marian Burke, and by Holbrook and Batra.

Based on such research, some advertising agencies consciously decide which kinds of feelings they need to create in particular situations and then design ads that have appropriate content and executional elements (such as the type of music, visual editing, and celebrity used). The ads can then be copy-tested to see if the targeted feelings are indeed being created, and if feelings that are not sought are inadvertently emerging. For instance, BBDO uses a card deck of people's faces, each of which displays a distinct emotional state. McCann-Erickson uses a list of emotional adjectives, as does Ayer.

In general we believe in advertising that are clever, tasteful, warm, believable, entertaining and creative. They have to build trust and credibility with a common touch.

Example:

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