2 persuasion techniques Niche could use

For the new digital communications plan I want to start encouraging people to interact more with the company and create possibilites where this is possible not only online, but also offline through events for example. Through increasing the brand interaction I eventually want to create a strong brand loyalty which makes it more likely that people also become brand ambassadors.



The persuasion techniques I selected herefore are reciprocity and consistency. 

I want to use reciprocity in two ways. Online, through promoting games where people can win personalized Snowboards or a holiday to a cool wintersport destination or something similar like that. This would be beneficial for the company since it would produce a lot of valuable pictures from happy customers, it would create exposure that could be used for promotional purposes. Offline I would like to use the technique of reciprocity by giving customers the possibility to try the boards on events, which would secure that there are people from the target audience. Furthermore there are of course the traditional goodies like stickers or posters. I would start adding them to the orders if they don't do this already. Also, with the stickers there could again be a competition under the hashtag #findyourniche and people stick their stickers somewhere and make a picture and upload it on Instagram and the one with the coolest picture wins something.


The technique of reciprocity works because people feel the need to give something back if they receive something for free. People feel the need to show their appreciation by returning you a favour mostly through purchasing a product. One has to be careful with implying this strategy because the product you give the costumer shouldn't be of too much worth and it shouldn't make them feel obliged to give something in return since this could lead to a resistance of this technique. Looking at the ethical side of this technique I think one has to be careful, like already mentioned, that people don't feel obliged to buy something or bad if they choose not to buy your product. It should always be a nice gesture towards the customer and more like a little nudge towards making the final buying process, but it shouldn't represent the only reason why someone buys a product. 

For consistency I thought that Niche Snowboards could start finding new partners to collaborate with that are also standing in for a more sustainable production of goods and are in line with their theme about nature and environmental-friendliness. They already have a collaboration with a environmental-friendly clothing brand where the style of the clothes is also pretty alternative, so it fits into the snowboarding/extreme sports community. This kind of collaboration would be good for both companies, since they would promote each others concept that has similar themes to their own ones. The idea here is that if a person is already buying clothes that are sustainable and environmental-friendly this person is inclined to buy an environmental-friendly Snowboard or at least talk to like-minded people about it in order to be consistent with their own lifestyle choices. This increases concept should eventually lead to an increase of sales and a higher awareness of the brand itself in the target audience. Consistency could also be used to assure that people come to the events Niche organizes. By sending them an personal invitation when they clicked on attend on Facebook would probably increase the chance of them coming.   



I think the technique with consistency works mainly because people want to be perceived as consistent and in line with what they say or with the lifestyle they choose. There is the cognitive dissonance theory, which is about the discomfort someone feels when holding one or two conflicting believes. In order to not feel that discomfort people strive to be consistent in their believes and actions. So, how communication experts use this technique is, they first ask for a small favor that doesn't cost much effort and where a lot of people are likely to say yes. Then after some time they come with a bigger request that is somehow similar in the topic or the implementation of the first favor. When people said yes the first time there's a high chance they will say yes to the second, bigger request in order to be consistent. The restrictions here are that you have to be careful that your first request requires active participation from the person you approach but shouldn't be too big at the same time. Furthermore, approaching a person twice with a similar request could seem pushy and might lead to resistence. From an ethical point of view I think there could occure problems considering the being too pushy part. If people refuse to help with your second request one shouldn't harass them and respect their position.