[ http://tier10lab.com/2013/02/22/marketing-techniques-that-play-on-human-nature/ ] It’s no secret that when it comes to technology, most people want to be the first to have it – whether the product is a device or an app ...

1.
Marketing Techniques that Play on Human
Nature
http://tier10lab.com/2013/02/22/marketing-techniques-that-play-on-human-nature
February 22, 2013
By Xavier Villarmarzo
It’s no secret that when it comes to technology, most people want to be the first to have it – whether the
product is a device or an app. We want the latest and greatest. We want to be first. We want to be part of
an exclusive group that will make others jealous. It’s simple human nature, and companies know this very
well.
LinkedIn is one of those companies. Earlier this month, the company sent an email to 10 percent of its
users, informing them that their profile is in the top 5 or top 10 percent of the most viewed profiles on the
site. This caused many of those users to brag about being in the 90th or 95th percentile, giving the social
media network a little extra publicity.
LinkedIn even made it easy for them to brag, too, providing a graphic with their profile picture and a
message congratulating them on being in the top 5 or top 10 percent. Naturally, this graphic was very
easy to screen grab on a smartphone and – as many people did – post to Twitter or Instagram.
If you look at what LinkedIn did using actual numbers instead of percentages, you’ll immediately see that
there was a calculated effort behind it. As of early January, LinkedIn reportedly has over 200 million
users. Simple math will tell you that 10 percent of 200 million is 20 million, while 5 percent is 10 million.

2.
Now, which sentence below would make you feel more exclusive?
A) “Your profile is in the Top 5 percent of those viewed on our site.”
B) “Your profile is one of the Top 10 million viewed on our site.
To LinkedIn, both sentences mean the exact
same thing, but the different wording invokes a
different reaction from the reader. LinkedIn
obviously knew the psychology behind the
difference.
Companies play these types of mind games all
the time in order to increase brand awareness
or to create hype for a new product. Tech
companies are especially notorious for this.
In 2004, when Facebook launched, it was only
available for students at a small number of
universities. As the year went on, The
Facebook – as it was then known – started
becoming more and more available to
additional universities. As the list expanded,
anticipation started to build. Students with
friends at other universities wanted to have the
same thing as their friends, to be a part of the
same “club.”
Not only did this approach give Facebook the time to build up
their product to accommodate a large number of users, it
helped them build up an unprecedented amount of hype.
Other companies have taken a similar approach to building
up hype for their product with invitation-only access. Gmail,
Pinterest and Spotify most famously took this approach, and
it has led each of the three platforms to a great amount of
success compared to their respective time active. Chances
are 90 percent of your email contacts have a Gmail account.
Additionally, a good amount of the women you know who are
active on social media probably have a Pinterest account.
And it’s likely that your Facebook news feed has been
speckled with notifications that your friends are listening to
tunes on Spotify.
The most recent product benefiting from the hype machine is
Mailbox App, an advanced email management application for
the iPhone. While the app, developed by Orchestra Inc., isn’t
invitation-only, it is based on reservations. Downloading the
app puts you on a waiting list, and opening it tells you your
exact spot in line – how many people are in front of you and
how many people are behind you. Many are already using
the app, some have even started and stopped using it, yet as
of 9:30 a.m. on Feb. 22, there are still over 800,000 people
waiting for their chance to get to use it.

3.
Obviously, it’s too soon to tell how Mailbox App’s initial success will translate in the long run, but having
well over 1 million downloads in less than a month for a product that is still beta testing is very impressive.
Orchestra explains the rationale behind the reservation system on the app’s website:
Mailbox checks email from the cloud in order to deliver it as fast as possible to
the phone, support push notifications, and facilitate email snoozing. The IMAP
protocol is nearly 30 years old and a part of reinventing the inbox is building a
secure, modern API that’s better suited for mobile devices.
While that may be the case, it’s more than likely Orchestra knew delivering the product like this – and
coupling it with a cool video – would generate a ton of buzz, as their tech-savvy target demographic
would want to be the first of their friends to get it.
Orchestra definitely won’t be the last company to prey on people’s desire to be the first or to be exclusive.
The next time you see another product being highly touted before it’s available to the general public,
chances are the company knew what it was doing to get the hype machine going.
http://www.Tier10Lab.com
http://www.twitter.com/Tier10Lab
http://www.facebook.com/Tier10Marketing
http://www.Tier10Marketing.com