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The word reciprocity is defined by the American Heritage Dictionary as a “mutual or cooperative interchange of favors or privileges”. What the dictionary doesn’t say is how amazingly powerful it is when you give someone something. They almost always feel obliged to in some way return the favour.
The Hare Krishna sect discovered this fact about 30 years ago and found their coffers swelling with money because of one very simple thing: they gave away flowers.
The Krishnas hadn’t had much success in raising funds through donations and were finding opportunities to expand severely limited. They decided to have their followers give away flowers as “gifts” and then — and only then — make the unsuspecting givee aware that they were collecting money. There was no explicit barter involved, no “if you give me some money, I’ll give you a flower” arrangement. If a flower was given and no money donated in return, it was a net loss. The Krishnas banked on the fact that people would feel a sense of obligation and would, however unwillingly, reach into their pockets for some coins. Some people took the proferred flower and gave no money, but a lot of people did give. The expenditure on a few flowers was more than made up for by the new money coming in. And all for cheap flowers that nobody wanted and which were most likely immediately thrown away.
It was a fantastically successful operation and led to the huge 1970’s expansion of the Krishnas. But what does it mean to you and me?
I’m by no means telling you to force unwanted items on your potential customers — therein lies anger, contempt and a customer you will never get, in these more worldly-wise days — but be aware of the concept of “giving to receive”. The sense of obligation your potential customers feel when they get something useful from you for free and with no hidden catches can sometimes mean a net loss to you, but will more likely benefit your business in the long run.
What kind of thing do I mean? How’s about some of these:
That’s just three examples. I’m sure you can think of some that would be relevant to you and your business. Some of what you spend in producing your giveaways will be lost; that’s unavoidable. But you will get something back. Whether it’s an enhanced reputation as a “thought leader”, a gentle reminder to some customers who haven’t used you for a while that, hey, you’re still around and ready to be used again, or customers buying the upgraded version of the free software you’re giving away, there will be benefits to you and your business.
Can you think of a way you could induce that feeling of reciprocity in your customers?
You’re very welcome to reprint any of the Good Business articles on your website and/or newsletters free of charge, provided:
Daniel O'Connor is a website copywriter, advertising copywriter and marketing copywriter using the name Daniboy. He can be contacted in the UK on +44-1892-518269 or at mail@daniboy.com. Visit http://www.daniboy.com for further details of his services, including bespoke article writing, and more free reprint articles.
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© Daniboy 2008 Marketing Copywriter
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