This guide outlines the reciprocity rule and how it fits into today’s business world online.
Once industries moved online and customers made a habit of using search engines to find goods and services, everything became a great deal more competitive. There are more methods of marketing and even reaching customers on a personal level from miles away, but still, elements such as site authority and decreased attention spans have made landing a customer far more difficult for many small and even medium businesses.
A classic form of marketing, however, may help to bridge the gap and keep those who visit your business website there to make a purchase. This boils down to the rule of reciprocity, giving out freebies, and hoping that the customer comes back for more. Naturally, with competition being so high, business owners rarely want to even entertain the thought of giving away stock for free. Yet, it might just help you out.
What is the reciprocity rule?
The ethics of the reciprocity rule, also called the golden rule, is a moral maxim or moral principle that can be expressed as a positive or negative injunction:
Everyone should treat others as they would like to be treated themself (positive or negative). Each should not treat others the way they would not like themselves to be treated. (negative or prohibitive form, or the silver rule). In both forms, it serves as a directive to treat others as oneself. The Golden Rule differs from the maxim of reciprocity expressed as do ut des – “I give for you to give” – and is therefore a unilateral moral commitment to the well-being of others, without expectations of anything in return.
Reciprocity rule in the online world
The internet becoming a core source of commerce has presented many obstacles, particularly when it comes to connecting to customers. In stores, you could actively help or gauge the opinions of people who enter. Online, people can arrive, look, and leave in a matter of seconds – especially if they don’t find some element of the website appealing. So, businesses battle to grab and hold that attention upon entry.
A sound way to do this is to play into the rule of reciprocity. This concept of psychology explains that we have an innate desire to reciprocate kindness given to us. As detailed by Psychology Today, this tendency was a key survival trait in humans, and now, it presents itself as an almost expected and quite compelling drive of being polite and kind in society.
Online, this rule of reciprocity can be utilised by offering free samples, money off, or entire items for free and posting the offer prominently on the website so that it’s the first thing that visitors see. It’s a daunting prospect, but free samples alone have been known to boost sales hundreds, sometimes even thousands of times over. It introduces a new product, makes your brand more appealing, and encourages repeat customers. There are many ways in which big and well-trusted brands are currently deploying this marketing tool.
The well-known Bed Bath & Beyond send a 20 per cent off coupon to all new email subscribers soon after signing up. In online casino gaming, the review and gaming platform https://www.vegasslotsonline.com/uk/ offer slots to play for free. Being money-based games, this seems even more counterproductive. However, allowing people to play these games for free allows them to find worthwhile title to play, increasing the likelihood of them joining a real-money site that is well reviewed by the site.
Above were two different examples of how to run freebies, with one being more clearly shown and the other being somewhat hidden. Many major companies offer freebies, but only to those who ask. This does help to mitigate the risk of losing money on a huge amount of free goods to anyone who visits the site. Corona, for example, will send beer sleeves and bottle openers to those who ask. The beauty brand Neutrogena will also send products like bath gels and body oils if contacted. Still, small businesses often have to be more direct.
If you fear the freebies, there are other options
As noted, even though the online environment has made competing as a medium or small player increasingly difficult, the internet does offer several marketing avenues, as we cover here. Many businesses turn to Google Ads, given the colossal power of the company over the internet user base. It offers a lot of reach and integrated analytics, making it a useful tool.
There are ways that you can try to compete on the marketing side without advertising costs, though. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a term thrown around by many but seldom understood. It’s all about making your pages and content more appealing to search engines when they crawl the internet to produce relevant results. Adding an SEO analysis plug-in can help a great deal with this, as can writing regular blog posts that promote your products.
You can also look at email marketing, social media marketing, and influencer partnerships, but if you want visitors to your site to get hooked straight away, an eye-catching freebie could be your best bet. Prior to this, you will need to assess your exposure with such a plan – perhaps make it a limited time offer.
