How to influence people’s behavior? M.A.T.

Making decisions about buying, using a program, apps, and anything else related to consumption has long been a subject of research. One of those who have succeeded in studying the social dimension of our behavior is Briana Jeffrey Fogg, Ph.D. and founder of the Behavioral Design Lab at Stanford University. Let’s talk about his model today.

Maksym Prokhorov, founder and managing partner PM PARTNERS

Professor Fogg argues that in order to manage the actions of people, you need only three components:

1. (Motivation).

2. (Ability).

3. (Trigger).

If all of them will be present at one moment and relate to the need to use your application or program, then expect success.

An example can be found in the statistics on smartphone users. App Annie analyzed the last two years and got the following data:

1. in the 1st quarter of 2021, the average time spent using smartphones increased by 30%, exceeding 4 hours;
2. Over the past two years (2019–2021) in India, Brazil, South Korea and Indonesia, people spend 80% longer in apps;
3. in the world, people now more often spend their leisure time playing mobile games — in 2020 they spent 296 billion hours on them (35% more than in 2019).

Another company, AdColony, conducted a similar study and said that over 60% of social media users are spending more time on them.

There is also data on the average time people spend in digital media — 7.5 hours a day, which is comparable to almost a full working day.

It turns out that in 2020 Fogg’s formula worked exponentially: the motivation was the need for more communication and entertainment, the opportunity was provided by smartphones, games and social networks, and the pandemic became an irritant, “closing” people to their homes.

Fogg’s model in detail

When we are talking not about global developments, but about local products, the likelihood that they will quickly “shoot” and conquer the world is rather small. Rather, here you need a clear understanding of how to interest the user with your offer and stand out from the competition. Therefore, we will analyze in more detail what Professor Fogg is talking about.

Let’s start with motivation, which is presented in the form of feelings, expectations, and belonging. Each has two sides: one we like and the other not, respectively, we try to avoid it. For example, sensations are divided into pleasure and pain, expectations consist of hope and fear, belonging — of acceptance and rejection.

If you are honest with yourself to the end, then you admit your desire to experience only pleasure, comfort and safety from what is happening in life. However, in reality this happens very rarely. And the further we are from this ideal picture, the higher the motivation to achieve it. This is where the developers force us to do complex, but necessary actions for them: fill out questionnaires, install applications, go through multi-stage registration, etc.

At the same time, it works the other way round. For example, if you don’t want a user to uninstall your program on an impulsive decision, make the process more difficult. Until he figure it out, it is likely that he will change his mind.

Now let’s move on to the possibilities. This step is simpler. Its essence is how easy it is for the user to do what you want him to do.

Fogg suggests three ways to simplify the possibilities. The first is training. Give people more skills and options to carry out targeted actions, but remember that not everyone is fond of gaining new knowledge, therefore it is worth teaching only in desperate situations.

The second is to provide a step-by-step guide to make the task easier, and the third is to boil it down to very simple implementation.

There are many examples in our daily life: “Payment in one click”, “Registration in two steps”, “Purchase in 1 minute”. It is not for nothing that marketers focus on such slogans. They show us how simplified everything is, so that we would like to spend our money or time on their product.

It remains to deal with triggers. In fact, they become that cherished “Start” button that every developer dreams of pressing, creating the necessary impetus for the user. Here it is important to get to the moment when the user is most motivated to perform the targeted action.

There are two types of triggers:

1. External — affect sensory stimuli. For example, in advertising, these are all calls and motivations for action.
2. Internal — associations, they are subconsciously evoked by familiar things, situations or a product. This activates the behavior developed at the level of thoughts, emotions, or already gained experience when interacting with a given object / service / program.

So, in order to get the desired result, you need to understand the goal you want to achieve and work it out according to the Fogg model: think about how to understand user motivation, simplify actions and find a trigger (research, surveys and a user journey map will help here).