How can we influence human behavior? Manipulation or Inspiration?

There are only two ways to influence people to act: manipulate them or inspire them. Both are effective strategies, but only one is capable of generating a sale AND a lifetime of loyalty.

Manipulations (dropping your price, having a promotion, using a scare tactic) can be very effective, but the gains are usually short term. Over time, manipulations tend to get expensive - marketers must keep coming up with bigger and better manipulations sometimes at the expensive of profits and always at the sacrifice of developing loyal relationships with customers. Price, promotion, fear, aspiration, peer pressure and novelty are used to manipulate people.

But when a company clearly communicates their WHY, what they believe, and we believe what they believe, then we will sometimes go to extra-ordinary lengths to include those products or brands in our lives. This is called inspiration.
Cell phone companies believed people wanted more options and buttons until Apple introduced its iPhone with fewer options and only one button.
People don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it