In his book on Influence, Robert Cialdini highlights a number of ways that you can help persuade people to make the decision that you want them to make.

I saw it in effect today when I received a note from Myra Norton, CEO of Community Analytics, who is running the Richmond Half-Marathon as part of the Miles for Melanoma team in memory of her recently deceased father.

Certainly, a worthwhile cause and one that I am happy to support.

Since I tend to receive A LOT of these solicitations over the course of the year, I opt to give $18 to as many of them as possible.

[For those of you who don’t know $18 is the numerical equivalent of the Hebrew word “Chai” which means “life.” In Hebrew, each letter has a number associated with it, as if A=1, B=2 and so on.]

What was interesting (and I don’t remember seeing this before) was that in the checkout process, they showed my donation compared to others.

Now, I don’t know if it was intentional that it was people who had donated more than I entered, but it had the effect of making me reconsider the amount of my donation (I don’t want to appear too parsimonious—religious stereotypes notwithstanding).

What I should have done, in hindsight, was go back and see if I raised the amount, would that have changed the comparison table at all?

Regardless, there’s a marketing lesson here…(isn’t there always?)

People want to feel like they are behaving in “expected” ways.  If you can leverage your data to imply that “others like you are doing X…” then you may be able to make them change their mind in a non-hard sell way.

I’m sure Myra would appreciate any donation (no matter how small) to her cause, if you are so inclined.