What is the sleeper effect?
The sleeper effect is a psychological phenomenon in which even if the information is obtained from an unreliable source, the distrust of the source fades over time, and the reliability of the information increases.
It refers to the phenomenon in which even if you doubt the source or content of information when you first hear it due to its lack of credibility, after a certain period of time it becomes easier to believe that it may be true.
The sleeper effect was proposed by American psychologists Carl Ivor Hovland and Walter Weiss around the 1940s and 1950s. It is said that it came to be called the sleeper effect because it causes sleep.
With the passage of time, even information with low credibility is separated from the information source, and in the end, only the information remains and people believe it.
Why the Sleeper Effect Occurs
The sleeper effect is said to be a phenomenon that utilizes the characteristics of human memory.
When people hear a story, they tend to worry about the source of the information, such as “Who did you hear the information from?”
If the source of the information is unreliable, such as information from someone who is usually irrelevant, we will not accept the content of the information without question.
However, after a certain amount of time has passed, we forget “who the information was from” and only the content of “what we heard” remains in our memory.
Therefore, it is believed that the more impactful the content, the more likely the sleeper effect will be affected.
On the other hand, if you trust the source from the beginning, it is said that the credibility of the content tends to decrease over time.
This is because as time passes, people tend to forget who the information came from, and only the information they trust is remembered, leading to doubts as to whether the information is really reliable.
As such, the sleeper effect is more impactful if you don’t trust the source first.
In this way, the persuasiveness of information generally declines over time, but when the sleeper effect occurs, the persuasiveness of information increases over time.
How to use the sleeper effect
persuasion over time
As a use of the sleeper effect, it is effective to persuade over time.
Rather than taking time to persuade once, you can leave information content in the memory of the other party by repeating persuasion with impact many times.
Also, when it comes to persuasion, it’s important to take time to communicate without rushing, because if you repeat the same story immediately after being refused, it will only make the other person feel uncomfortable.
As a feature of the sleeper effect, focusing on the fact that only the content of the information remains in memory over time, it may be possible to get the other party interested by starting the story again at the time when the other party is about to forget.
Do not repeat the same persuasion method
It is important to repeatedly tell the other party about the products you want to sell and the plans you want them to consider.
As a point of caution, if you repeat the same phrase as the same expression method, the other person may be amazed and not listen to you, so change your perspective and use various approaches to retain the information you want to convey as a memory of the information you want to convey. I need some ingenuity. In addition to face-to-face contact, one way is to contact people by phone or email or use SNS to make them recognize information from the outside.
market a product
When developing new customers, there are times when they do not listen to you because you do not yet have a relationship of trust with them.
Even if you persuade them of the attractiveness and value of the product, they will become more cautious because they are meeting you for the first time, and it will be difficult to conclude a contract.
Due to the psychological phenomenon known as the “boomerang effect”, the attitude of the persuaded side may harden by taking a stand, and conversely, they may rebel. When recommending to people with a shallow relationship, such as new customers, to avoid the boomerang effect, it is better to withdraw if the response is poor.
After a while, the sleeper effect will be created, and the disgust toward “people who have come to persuade the product for the first time” will fade, and interest in the product and willingness to purchase may gradually increase.
Utilize step mail
Step mail is an email that delivers pre-prepared content at a predetermined period and time. Even if the customer feels that the information in the step mail is unreliable at first, the sleeper effect will gradually start to work as the mail arrives regularly.
It is effective to set the distribution period as a guideline for one month when the reliability of the information source is weakened. If you make a sales pitch at the time of one month when the sleeper effect works, you can expect to increase the willingness to purchase.
Utilization for content creation
The sleeper effect can also be used to create content such as blogs.
In the initial state of the content, the frequency of contact with the target customer is still low, and it cannot be said that the reliability of the content is high.
By increasing the frequency of updates, you can keep your customers in mind, so they are more likely to purchase your product or service even if your company’s track record is low. However, updating the same content only will give customers a sense of distrust, so it is necessary to give impact to the approach method, product, and service explanation.
Utilize for SNS transmission
When interacting with your target customer, at first, you consciously repeatedly communicate the products and services you want to sell as keywords. Even if the content of the keyword is the same, it is important to change the expression so as not to offend the other party. If you can leave a good impression of keywords in your memory through SNS exchanges, the sleeper effect will work, and you can increase your willingness to purchase products.
