How an Incorrect Opinion Becomes a Belief You Carry for Life

Using Your Customer's Outdated Opinions to Your Advantage

An Incorrect Opinion Can Become a Belief You Carry for Life

Picture this: You’re five years-old and you’re engrossed in your favourite cartoon.

At some point one of the characters pulls a silly face. Being five, you naturally think this is the most hilarious thing you’ve ever seen, so you run to the mirror to learn to pull that face yourself, only to be told by an older sibling that if the wind changes, your face will stay that way permanently.

Fast forward a few years, and it’s raining. You’re on your way out, but you don’t want to get wet as soon as you step foot outside. So you pick up an umbrella from the stand by the front door, and as you're about to open it, you hear a voice yelling at you that opening an umbrella inside will bring bad luck.

Finally, you’re a young adult and unfortunately you get into an accident, break your leg and need to be taken to the ER. Although your doctor is one of the most highly skilled and respected surgeons in the entire hospital, you refuse treatment from them because they are wearing a particular religious symbol around their neck.

While the first two ‘beliefs’ are simply harmless superstitions, the third stems from ignorance and could, in some cases, be quite life-threatening.

The Origins of Wrong Beliefs

Many of our beliefs were formed when we were children, and in most cases we simply outgrew them. Meanwhile there are others which, even as adults, we haven’t considered questioning because we never really thought them to be outdated.

Often, a single opinion which we picked up from someone back when we didn’t yet have one of our own, can become the ‘default’ belief on that subject. This can end up as something which we carry forever, unless we take the time to consciously question it, and if necessary, update it.

For better or worse, some beliefs can be further strengthened if they have seen us through enough hard times, that we have given them an almost ‘superstitious’ status. This can apply to anything we do, from eating a particular food when we’re unwell - regardless of its benefits; to only using a particular brand of appliance, as it’s the only one that has never let us down.

Beliefs and Marketing

When it comes to marketing, my rule has always been to tell the truth and do no harm. As such, this might be a great opportunity to use the concept of outdated beliefs to your advantage.

What do I mean by this?

When conducting your market research, consider wording your questions in such a way as to bring out deeper opinions about certain subjects from your potential customers. Focus on asking questions addressing potential pain points your customers may have in relation to your products or services, or those of your competitors.

Then, analyse the responses based on what might feel like outdated beliefs - however small they may seem. Are any of these responses addressing genuine problems, or are they simply personal opinions which feel like ‘defensive answers’ with no real quantifiable basis?

If your marketing is strong and clever enough, this may become the reason for someone to go with your product, instead of a competitor they’ve used for years.

Lather, Rinse and Repeat

When it comes to changing someone’s opinion about something, one of the simplest, oldest, and most effective ways is through repetition. This is known as the ‘illusory truth effect’; whereby a repeated affirmation affixes itself in the mind in such a way that it becomes accepted, and in the end becomes a demonstrated truth.

Of course I don’t mean that you should lie in your marketing in order to turn that lie into a ‘truth’.

But if your market research is focused enough on weeding out the nuances of your customer’s perceived pain points, then structuring the focus of your campaign around repeating your product’s benefits could be very successful.

As you may have already guessed, repetition is often used in propaganda as well as advertising. That’s why politicians always repeat the same slogan, and it’s how we learn a catchphrase or jingle for a brand, no matter how annoying it may be.

To this day I know several phone numbers for businesses which are long gone, simply because their marketing focused on using their rhyming phone number as part of their jingle.

One such example which instantly comes to mind is the jingle for a popular pizza chain.

Even though better and cheaper options existed, I often chose the lesser quality one, simply because I already knew their phone number from their annoying jingle and didn't have to look it up when ordering over the phone.

There are many other strategies which you can employ when it comes to changing someone’s beliefs or opinions about something, and I will cover those in future blogs, so if you don’t want to miss out, consider subscribing to our mailing list.