How to Tap into the Most Powerful Principle of PersuasionIf you're think you understand how to communicate with your prospects thanks to a demographic profile, you're in for an unpleasant surprise.
Here’s a tale about a young marketer who learned a valuable lesson. This young man was part of a study abroad program. His group was tasked with presenting on the topic of biodiesel to the CEO of the largest food products company in Malta, the small island nation off the coast of Sicily. The idea was to collect used cooking oil from Maltese households and turn it into biodiesel, which could then power Malta’s buses and cars in a more environmentally friendly way. The young man’s group prepared a PowerPoint presentation to convince the CEO that this was a smart plan to get behind, and they closed with a slogan for marketing purposes:
When they finished, the CEO said, “I love everything you said… right up until that last slide.” The executive explained that while he understood why they chose Made in Malta, he reminded the students that this wasn’t the United States. That slogan wouldn’t connect with the Maltese people. “While that idea doesn’t carry much meaning with our citizens, there are many things we do care about,” the CEO explained. “Malta has beautiful beaches, stunning views, and 7,000 years of history. Why don’t we focus the marketing on preserving Malta’s beauty? That message will resonate.” Today, that young man is a marketing professional named Billy Broas. And he credits that moment with teaching him the primary rule of Marketing 101:
Unfortunately, people think that “knowing your prospect” means a thin profile of demographic information, like age, income, and gender. But that’s not helpful when it comes to crafting winning content and copy, because people who merely share demographic characteristics often don’t agree on much of anything. Research shows that no matter what demographic bucket you look at — Baby Boomer, Gen X, or Millennial, rich or poor, male or female, college-educated or not — on average, the people in each cohort will agree on a particular issue 10.5% of the time. That means they disagree 89.5% of the time! Crafting messages can backfire spectacularly if you’re not aligned with your intended audience’s worldview, values, and attitudes. Stated another way, what we’re talking about is sharing the identity of your audience in the context of the problem. Without understanding the audience at the identity level, you have no idea what to say and how to say it. And that means you have no chance of connecting in a way that leads to persuasion. The Psychological Power of UnityAs digital marketers and entrepreneurs, we communicate with prospects in groups, or audiences. An audience is primarily composed of people with common interests or problems, but as the example above demonstrates, this is only a starting point. The Maltese people may well have been highly interested in recycling their cooking oil to produce biodiesel, given their national pride in their environment. And yet the initial messaging completely missed the value-based frame that would have worked, instead reflecting a U.S. bias that immediately betrayed the messenger as an outsider. When communicating with prospects collectively — whether citizens of an island nation or prospects for a personal computer — you have to understand the mental story-world they live in, which determines their attitudes toward your offer. Those attitudes stem from shared identities, which include worldviews and values. If you understand the values and attitudes of the group, you’ve set yourself up for success. That’s because the first test your messaging must pass with the prospect is:
This is the power of Unity, the seventh principle of persuasion validated by the research of social psychologist Dr. Robert Cialdini. Cialdini’s classic book Influence explained the first six principles, but it wasn’t until his 2016 book Pre-Suasion that he declared that the element of unity was the most powerful principle of all. Unity involves the shared identity that the influencer has in common with the people they’re trying to influence. In other words, are you part of the tribe or are you an outsider? One of the key consequences of a shared identity is that it leads to people trusting each other. And trust is why people choose to do business with you, which is what we’re after. On the other hand, if you’re relying on your credentials and “informational” content to establish trust, you’ll likely lose out to someone who makes an identity connection. Research shows that people are likely to follow those who are “prototypic,” meaning someone who appears to be one of them. In other words, the group wants a leader who is a living, breathing encapsulation of their social identity, which in turn creates the trust needed to lead people to new ideas and solutions. Unity is also a form of meta-principle, in that its presence determines how effective the other principles of persuasion are with the intended audience. Here are the initial six principles:... Keep reading with a 7-day free trialSubscribe to Further: Live Long and Prosper to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives. A subscription gets you:
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How to Tap into the Most Powerful Principle of Persuasion
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August 21, 2025
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