How to influence the target-behaviour by communication

Femke Hulleman
VivaioLab
Published in
4 min readNov 21, 2018

Obviously, the ultimate goal of the effort you put into the communication process is to influence the behaviour of your prospects. You might want to put them on to purchasing your product or maybe extending the relationship you already build. This article is all about how to achieve your goals by communication.

Communication might sound easy. Just communicating your developed device to your customer right? This thought might ask for some reconsideration. Namely, when it comes to communication there are a lot of factors which must be taken into account. There can be a lot of influences from the outside and every customer has their own needs where you have to adapt your message and communication on. Get informed by these seven statements about what you need to take into account when trying to influence the behaviour of your target.

Goal
Ask yourself; What kind of behaviour do you want to achieve? This is a very important factor when it comes to communication. Do you want to persuade the customer into purchasing your product? Or do you want to make the customer aware of your product’s existence? Each message you communicate has a different influence on the customer and asks for a different communication form. Therefor, the intention of your communication has to be clear up-front.

Customer concerns
With what purpose you think the customer might be willing to purchase your product? What does the customer wants to achieve, this is where you have to adapt your words on! Tell them what they want to hear, let this be the input of your communication form. Because telling people stuff they don’t want to hear about a new-product, does not make any sense right? On top of that, with just high-lighting the parts of your message they are interested in, you stay truthful to yourself and your product but in a more effective way.

External influences
What external factors influence the purchasing behaviour? What’s the importance of other opinions, the weather, or maybe their income? You have to investigate the importance of all these factors, you have to be aware of all the influences on the choices your prospects make. After knowing their worth you have to adapt your communication strategy on this. Always stay flexible and up-to-date of these external factors, they are more likely to chance often.

Awareness of your message
Be very aware of the message you are communicating through the form you chose. Online, offline, all the channels you choose are influencing the behaviour of your prospects. People tend to have the desire to speak with you in person when it comes to high-standard products. You’re offering standard products everyone uses daily? Then online communication is a low-cost effective way to inform the target. It all depends on the message you are tending to create.

Initial message
Consider yourself walking into a room with people you have never seen before. This lady comes up to you and compliments you right away, you initially like her. With communication there is no difference. People tend to remember the first impression of things/people for a long time. With your initial message you have to be aware of the considerations people are making afterwards. Adapt your strategy on this, be prepared to jump in with statements where necessary.

Packaging
The concept of things basically never changes. The eyes of human always get attracted to a good appearance, same with words. It al depends on the way you put things, the package you create for your message. When putting your message in an attractive way of communication you tend to attract a lot wider audience right away.

Stereotype
There is no such thing as a stereotype customer. Every customer has a different vision and so they all ought to seek for their own preferable communicational approach. Especially with a wider target you have to communicate through multiple approaches.

Put in a few words, all these statements from above basically say you have to be aware of all the factors which have an influence on the behaviour of your target before you are able to have an influence yourself. Because you have to out-see all the other factors with your communication form. You are the one who has to make sure there are no doubts left to create re-consideration. This can be done with a proper; general message, initial message, packaging, background research and adapted communication.

When attending these easy tips you should be able to have an influence on the target behaviour by the way you are communicating your message.

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