The Power of Place in Persuasive Marketing

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Persuasion…

One critical marketing mistake made often, is thinking the value of a product is intrinsic – that something, even something as simple as bottled water, is worth what it’s worth – no matter where it’s sold.

Nothing could be further from the truth!

Location plays a huge role in shaping consumer perceptions of value and price.

Location Provides Powerful Persuasion Context

The same bottle of water can sell for wildly different prices – $.50 at a budget retailer, $3 at a corner store, or $6 at an airport – based solely upon where it’s being offered. The same exact bottle.

Why does place matter so much?

It comes down to the context it provides.

When you see a bottle of water at the airport, you’re likely thirsty, rushed, and have limited purchase alternatives.

This is very different from shopping at a grocery store on a Sunday afternoon.

The airport location frames the water as more urgent and more scarce, and also benefits from having a “captive audience” with few other options. Thanks TSA!

This allows airport sellers to charge a premium.

Convenience Stores Know Power of Place

Convenience stores offer another example.

That $3 water bottle may seem expensive compared to the grocery store. But when it’s late at night and you desperately need a drink, paying a few extra dollars seems reasonable.

The convenience store’s location and extensive hours establishes it as the most accessible, convenient option at that moment. You’ll pay for the convenience – hence the name!

Prestige Locations Denote Status

Prestigious locations like 90210 Beverly Hills can denote status.

A bottle of water feels elevated and exclusive at an upscale restaurant or salon on Rodeo Drive.

Simply being in that 5 DIGIT ZIP code enables sellers to command higher prices, because the location signals something special.

Did you know you can request a listing of the U.S. zip codes with average income as a selector?

Can you think how that might help you in your marketing?

I did this when I was selling my Photoshop book. Reasoning that serious photographers and users of Photoshop might (must) have a few bucks. So I targeted my ads to certain high-income zip codes.

Subsequent sales never failed!

Leverage Location For Maximum Persuasion

When crafting your marketing plans, remember to carefully consider place.

Not just zip code, or salon vs. convenient store, but online spaces and places as well.

Look at not just where your product is physically located or advertised, but the context that location brings.

What customer needs can you meet by being in certain places?

Scarcity. Prestige. Urgency. Convenience.

How can you use location to frame your product as more valuable?

What prices can you reasonably charge based on situational factors like convenience, urgency, desire and prestige?

Context is King for Persuasion

While it can be tempting to think your product has one objective, intrinsic value, remember that context is king.

Your customer’s willingness to pay ultimately depends upon where, and when and why and how they encounter your offer.

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Your job is to leverage location to establish the highest perceived value possible for your product or service.

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By optimizing location and contextual factors, you can powerfully shape perceptions and persuade consumers to pay way more for your products.

Place plays a critical role in effective marketing.

Are you not earning enough? Maybe you are marketing in the wrong place?

Some coworkers and I used to visit this small breakfast cafe every Friday before work.

It was run by J and his wife. Just those two.

It was so small and busy that regular patrons would often get their own coffee to help out, and then ask around the tables who else wanted more.

Very casual, very cozy corner diner.

J was always very busy cooking eggs, making bad jokes, and serving food as well.

Upon delivering the finished orders to our table, he would often get the recipient wrong.

Inevitably, a strange look was given him.

Unfazed, rather than move the food to the proper person, instead, in his thick, Indian accent he would simple say, while making the appropriate hand gestures…

“Oh, Oh, sorry. Change the seat!”

Everyone would laugh. Then pass the plate to the proper person.

Controversial comedian Sam Kinison shed light on this misplacement phenomenon many years ago…

Maybe, if you’re not getting what you want or what you ordered, – you’re in the wrong place!

Change the seat!

Or, perhaps you are simply guilty of casting pearls before swine?

Food for persuasive thought.

– Robert Schwarztrauber

P.S. Not sure who your best prospect is? Where they live? What they do? What scarcity might motivate them? What urgency? When is the best time to present your offer? How you could find and then press THIER buying hot buttons? Trigger THIER impulse to buy?All of this gets identified, sorted out and put to best profitable use by using The Copywriter’s Persuasion Toolkit.