The mere exposure effect describes the phenomenon where people develop a preference for something just because it’s familiar.
To study this, Robert Zajonc took out ads in student newspapers at two different universities in Michigan. Every day, the front page of each paper contained some Turkish words. Some words appeared more often than others, and this frequency was reversed in each paper.
After a few weeks, students at both universities were asked to give their impressions of 12 “unfamiliar” Turkish words, some of which had appeared in the newspapers. They rated each word from one to seven based on whether they thought the words meant something good or bad (none of the students actually spoke Turkish).
The results found a direct correlation between perceived positivity and how often they’d been secretly exposed to the words.
This effect highlights the importance of collaboration with marketing in influencing sales psychology. The more familiar a brand is to someone, the more likely they are to think positively towards it, or at least to see it as a legitimate offering.
In the cases where marketing is not involved, salespeople themselves can still reach this level of familiarity by being persistent (up to a point) in their cold outreach. This is one lesson many don’t take on board.
