Our Online Dialogue colleague and persuasion expert Dr. Dirk Franssens has for Online-persuasion.com wrote an article on the persuasion technique ‘fear appeals.

The success of a good online persuasion strategy sometimes lies in the details. The trick is not only to Choosing the right persuasion technique To convince your customers (preferably from the wheel of persuasion). You also need to know how to use that technique then correctly applied. One such technique where proper application is of great importance is the “fear appeals” technique. It can be an effective online marketing strategy, but only if you apply it properly. In this post, you will learn what ‘fear appeals’ are and how to apply them to increase your online conversion rate.

This post is based on a scientific article which was written by my good friend (and excellent researcher) Dr. Gjalt-Jorn Peters.

Fear appeals

A “fear appeal” is an advertising message based on fear. The goal is to scare people into buying your product (see also Wikipedia). Ads that play on fears mainly paint a picture of what your life would be like if you didn't buy a particular product. They often play on existing fears (illness, accidents, etc.), or create a whole new fear that you weren't aware of until then.

The strategy used is clear: create a fear and offer the solution.

The most famous example of using fear appeals are the “quit smoking” campaigns. Social marketers believe that if you make smokers highlighted the negative consequences for their health, this will motivate them to quit smoking.

Fear appeals in anti-smoking campaigns

Safe driving campaigns are also often based on fear appeals. They focus on showing the serious consequences of speeding/not wearing seat belts/etc. The more horrific and vividly the negative consequences are displayed, the more people will drive more safely, at least; so it seems Australian Office of Road Safety thinking.

Does this really motivate us to wear seat belts?

Scientific research on fear appeals

Research shows that this responding to fears often doesn't work well anyway. Why not? Because people take their attention away from the negative message, or start making excuses why it doesn't apply to them anyway (I may smoke, but I eat very healthy). Fortunately, research has also shown the circumstances under which these ‘fear appeals’ can be very effective though!

Two elements that make fear appeals successful!

To prevent people from ignoring the desired behavior change when you scare them, make sure the following two elements are always present in a marketing strategy designed to elicit fear:

1. Danger: use a reasonable level of anxiety (not too extreme) and make people feel susceptible feel for the danger. For example, insurance companies try to make you fear the risk of car accidents or house fires to a certain degree. That's fine, you need to scare them. But also be sure they feel susceptible to the risk. It could happen to you, too! Once people start thinking, “nah, this won't happen to me,” the campaign will become ineffective.
2. Solution: Tell people what to do. So don't just tell people to quit smoking or get that insurance, but Tell them how to do it! Also, make it easy for people to follow the recommendation. Put your call-to-action right next to the fear appeal so that when you scare them, they immediately hit the “I want insurance now” button. Also make sure you tell them how effective your solution is when they hit the button! “Our insurance covers everything you need as a car owner, so you don't have to worry about it anymore!”

So it comes down to this:

Scare them and Tell them what to do to avoid the danger!

5 online persuasion tips!

So how does this translate to an online persuasion situation? First, you need to carefully consider whether using fear appeals is appropriate for your marketing campaign. If it is indeed, make sure you include the following tips in your fear appeal message:

1. Danger: Scare people, but not too scared! Also, make sure the scare is personally relevant to your target audience.
2. Elaboration/Solution: Then give the solution! So don't just tell people to quit smoking or get that insurance, tell them how to do it: buy my product!
3. Make it easy: Make it as easy as possible for your customer to buy your product. Offer the solution and also show them that the solution is very easy to implement.
4. Call-to-action: Give your visitors a clear call-to-action. This call-to-action should come right after the scare. So first scare them, then give them the right call-to-action right away.
5. Feel free to ask and congratulate: If they followed up on the call-to-action, reassure them. Congratulate them on their first step toward reassurance.

Ok, so now you know how to use ‘fear appeals’ correctly. Leave a comment on what you think about the effectiveness of fear appeals. Would you use them? Or have you already used them? What were the results? Share your thoughts on fear appeals with us!

Originally posted on October 29, 2012 at Online-persuasion.com