How to get People to Buy - CXL CRO Review of 'People and Psychology' - Week 3
Ryan Lemos (Turning prospects into consistent revenue)
I help business owners save 10-20 hours per week, a minimum of $2,000-$4,000 per month in salary costs, and earn tens of thousands of dollars more with my automated outreach and nurturing system
Hey there,
I’m back with more reviews on courses from the CRO minidegree by CXL Institute.
Let’s roll.
Week #3
Course Name: People and Psychology
Instructor: Peep Laja
Total Time: 2 hours 30 min
Introduction
This course teaches you about human behavior, how people think and what makes them take decisions. Knowing this is important if you want to have any hope of getting your prospects to convert.
Cialdini’s 7 principles of persuasion
One of the first things I learned was not to overdo the ‘psychology’ bit. Don’t introduce fake agitation when there’s none.
“Last couple of products left”, “last PDF left”. Seriously? PDFs are unlimited, aren’t they? Don’t make people doubt your credibility.
No topic on persuasion is complete without a reference to the great Cialdini.
Let’s take a look at how we can apply his 7 principles to boost conversion. Yes, there are 7 principles now. The latest one is “Unity”.
Reciprocity:
Humans are wired to offer concessions to people who have done them a favor:
How can you make use of this principle?
Offer freebies in the form of free trials, free downloads etcetera. People are more likely to buy once they’ve had a chance to sample your product and that too at no cost to them.
Commitment and Consistency:
It is in the nature of people to be seen as being consistent. So when they have committed to doing something, they almost always make sure to do it.
How can you make this work for you?
Do you have a long web form that runs into multiple pages? Your prospects are bound to feel intimidated and you’ll likely find conversions dropping. Split the form into smaller sections and get people to fill in the easier sections first.
For example, the first section of the multi-step form could ask for only their name and email address. The form can get more detailed later on. Once your visitors have started taking action, they feel committed and are more likely to complete the entire form.
?Social Proof:
Safety in numbers! That’s what this principle of psychology refers to.
When it comes to buying your product, people will shy away from being the only ones to use it. No one wants to be first unless you are an established big brand. Like Apple, perhaps.
How can you exploit this principle of ‘Social Proof’ to your advantage?
Put up testimonials on your website. Use pictures of human faces and even videos where possible.
Use logos of the companies you serve (take permission first). This serves as a nice ‘credibility builder’.
If you have an appreciable number of users, setup a counter that shows the user count. Don’t use this if you have a low number of users.
Authority:
People have a tendency to react positively when figures in Authority tell them what to do.
Take a doctor advocating a certain supplement or medical product. Wouldn’t you tend to believe in what the doctor says, more than in what any common personality would say?
That’s why you find fitness companies using famous athletes to sell their products or be their brand ambassadors.
I run a healthcare company and often advertise what my doctors say in reference to the digital products I sell.
Liking:
We like people who are similar to us. Similar in personality or with similar likes and dislikes. It helps us understand them better and bond faster.
The “About Us” section of your web page presents an ideal opportunity to show your visitors and prospects the similarities between them and the people working for you. In fact, it is vital that you create an effective “About Us” page.
Scarcity:
Have you ever bought something just because the advertiser said it would be going out of stock soon?
I have. Airlines tickets, hotel rooms. Happens all the time.
You can use this strategy as well, provided you are honest about it. It can prove to be quite lucrative, with a seemingly insignificant increase in AOV (Average Order Value)leading to huge monetary gains. Like in the case of a huge enterprise with millions of customers; even a 0.01 percent increase in AOV can prove to be a multi-million-dollar profit spinner.
Unity:
This is Cialdini’s newest principle of persuasion and it talks about the commonalities you share with your prospects or customers.
Do you come from the same city? Study in the same school or university? Or speak the same natuve language?
Here’s how you can use this principle to get higher conversion rates:
Use Specific and Unique Jargon:
Research your prospects and use the same lingo they use.
Convey Exclusivity:
I have done this successfully in my business by sending out emails and titled “An Exclusive Invitation” or designing communication around an invite to join an exclusive group of people. Many of the great copywriters (past and present) make use of this principle.
Define the “Out -Group”:
Take a stance against what your company does not stand for. If you are running Facebook Groups for example, clearly state what is acceptable and what is not and ban people who violate the rules.
Invoke Family ties:
For many people, their family is their strongest bond. I have used this principle in the past to good effect. I didn’t know it was backed by psychology at that time.
At the last job I was employed in, I was a Senior Manager and was recruiting people for a critical software position. One of the ladies we ended up extending an offer to, was visibly depressed on the day of her interview. HR had told me that her husband was hospitalized with a kidney stone problem.
I started the conversation by asking her how her husband was and told her that I too had suffered from kidney stones (which was the truth). Her tension disappeared as we chatted and she grew visibly relaxed and at ease during the interview.
Don’t underestimate the importance of family when dealing with your employees, customers or prospects.
Co-creation or sharing an experience:
Cialdini explains that Unity can be conveyed by shared experience or co-creation.
A creative way to do this is by asking your customers for advice.
For example: say you wanted to re-design your company logo. Send an email to your customers asking for ideas. You’d be surprised at the response. You might even get fully fleshed out designs.
These customers will in all probability turn out to be among your most loyal customers. The sheer act of participating in something gives them the feeling of having helped you create your concept and increases the attachment they have for it.
?The FOGG Behaviour Model
The FOGG behavior model was created by Dr. B.J. Fogg from the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University.
It describes three concepts that must come together for a desired behavior to occur.
Motivation, Ability and Trigger.
Simply put:
Behavior = Motivation x Ability x Trigger
You should aim for the top right of the graph. That is where motivation is high, the ability to do the task is high and there is a trigger in place.
Motivation:
People are motivated by the following emotions:
Pleasure/Pain
Hope/Fear
Social Acceptance Rejection
Hope and Fear is important because this is what drives people.
People hope to become better copywriters by buying a copywriting course.
They fear the loss of life and so they go in for life insurance.
BJ Fogg himself considers hope as the most powerful and inspiring motivator.
But there’s one thing you need to keep in mind. Before getting people to buy, you must motivate them to buy by writing inspiring copy; copy that increases their motivation and desire for your product.
Ability:
You need to make it very easy for people to take the desired action. For example, if your web form runs into multiple pages, people will be inclined not to fill it out unless they are motivated.
Writing inspiring copy that enhances your prospect’s desire is always a good idea but when it comes to ability vs motivation, it is always better to plump for ability rather than motivation.
Making it easier for your user to complete a task is much better than trying to increase their motivation.
High motivation and low ability to perform a task leads to frustration.
Low ability and low motivation leads to annoyance.
The ideal situation to shoot for is high motivation and high ability. Motivate the user, make it as simple as 1-2-3 and watch your conversions skyrocket.
Trigger:
Without the right kind of trigger, the desired behavior will not follow even if motivation and ability are high.
A trigger is what prompts you to take action. A button on your website asking people to sign-up or buy is a trigger.
Modify your triggers based on what you are selling. If you are selling an expensive product, don’t lead with a “Buy Now” trigger. Instead use triggers that get your prospects to download a free trial or a free report or something like that.
Design your triggers well because they will directly impact how well your business does or doesn’t.
Another example of a trigger is a drip email campaign. I have used this successfully in my business to nurture prospects and convert them to subscribers and paying customers.
Never assume that your customers are going to remember to buy from you. You need to prompt them and trigger the desire to buy.
Use the FOGG model to think about the following:
Motivation:
Is my copy inspiring enough to motivate my prospects and enhance their desire to buy? Am I successful in doing this even before I lead them to the “Buy” button?
Ability:
Am I making it easy for my customers to buy? Are my forms easier to fill out? Can I make it easier for them to buy?
Trigger:
Are my headlines and CTAs (calls to action) visible and compelling?
?Lessons from Neuromarketing
I have a surprise for you. You have 3 brains. Not in the literal physical sense but yes; your brain has 3 layers: The “New Brain” thinks, the “Middle Brain” feels and the “Old Brain” decides.
The “Old Brain” is primitive and is called the reptilian brain because we share it with reptiles and other vertebrates.
It is this “Old Brain” of yours that that takes all the decisions. Inputs are passed on to it by the New Brain the Middle Brain but the final decision is taken by the Old Brain. And since the Old Brain is so primitive, you need to keep things simple when you talk to it.
Why am I telling you this?
Simply because the success or failure of your marketing efforts depend upon how you communicate with your prospects and customers. To get them to reach a decision, you need to be able to talk to their Old Brain and not to their sophisticated New Brain.
Talk to them in an “Old caveman” voice, like the way our ancestors used to talk. Keep it simple.
The Old Brain is concerned only about survival and does not care about anything else. It is selfish and the sooner you understand this, the better.
According to Neuroscience, the Old Brain can be triggered only by 6 stimuli:
1.????Self-Centered
Your customers don’t care about you. They care only about themselves. Tell them what your product can do for them and how it will change their lives. Do not talk about your company or yourself.
?2.????Contrast
The Old Brain responds to changes. That’s the reasons so many marketers use before/after images of people who have benefitted from using their products. It needn’t relate only to fitness or beauty. You can use this concept to sell virtually any kind of product or service.
3.????Tangible
The Old Brain grasps easy to understand concepts better than ones that require it to think.
?What do you think would be easier to understand? “Make more money” or “Maximize ROI?”
4.????First and Last
The Old Brain is only triggered by a change of state. It notices when something has changed. This has huge implications for your web pages and videos. It really matters how they start and how they end.?The Old Brain will skip over anything that looks or sounds routine and is not novel.
?Here are two versions of a long form sales pages. Which of them do you find more interesting?
The second one, right? Noticed how we spiced up the page by changing the positioning and introducing images?
?Keep your content fresh and interesting. The Old Brain ignores anything that is monotonous and boring.
?5.????Visual
Use images or screenshots in places where they would do a better job of communicating your message than text would.
?Here is an image from Square’s website. Can you tell what Square does??
6.????Emotion
You need to move your prospects with Emotion. People buy with emotion and justify their decision with logic. Unless you are able to connect with your prospects at a deeply emotional level, you will find it difficult to sell anything.
?A Big List of Persuasion Techniques
Turns out that Cialdini’s Principles of Persuasion are not the only principles in existence. The human brain responds to many different triggers and calls to action.
?This lesson had a humongous list of persuasion principles to go through. I’ve chosen the few that made more of an impact on me than the others. I have also listed a few ways in which yiu can make use of each principle.
?Let’s begin.
?Focusing effect
Too many choices make us choose what’s more noticeable to the extent that we end up ignoring the other choices.
How to make use of this principle in your marketing:
Gaze Cueing
Eyes reveal otherwise secret and complex mental states such as emotions, intentions, beliefs, and desires. Research indicates that eye contact accounts for roughly 55% of the information in a face-to-face conversation!
Forer effect
The Forer Effect is our tendency to highly rate the accuracy of descriptions of our personality that supposedly are tailored ‘specifically to us’. In actuality, they’re vague, mostly positive, and general enough to apply to a wide range of people.
How to make use of this principle in your marketing:
领英推荐
?Ambiguity Aversion
People tend to select options for which the probability of a favorable outcome is known (over an option for which the probability of a favorable outcome is unknown).
How to make use of this principle in your marketing:
Belonging & Conformity
Once we feel like we belong to a group, we’ll conform to it and internalize the group’s values and norms.?
How to make use of this principle in your marketing:
Paradox of choice
If we’re offered just one option, our choice is to either go for it or not. However, if we’re offered two choices, we automatically start choosing between these two, forgetting about the “or not” option existing silently in the background.
On the other hand, if we’re offered?too many?choices we tend not to make a choice at all. Too many choices are simply too difficult for us to choose between.
That’s the paradox of choice.
How to make use of this principle in your marketing:
Endowment effect
How does our perceived value of items change depending on whether or not they’re ours? The effect that ownership has on perceived value shows that, when there are two identical products, we tend to value the one we own more.
In other words: We expect more money when selling a product than what we’re willing?to pay when buying it.
How to make use of this principle in your marketing:
Cognitive Biases – We’re all affected by them
We have a tendency to think in certain ways and this affects our judgement while doing CRO work.
Here are a few of the biases we tend to display. There are others but I’ve listed the ones that I identify with completely, out of my personal experience.
False-Consensus Bias:
We think everyone else is like us and we overestimate the degree to which others agree with us.
“Nobody clicks on Ads anymore” is one such fallacy we might pronounce judgment in favor of.
Anchoring:
Anchoring is a cognitive bias that describes our tendency to rely on the first piece of information (the anchor) we are presented with, when taking decisions.
We might obsess over the look and feel of images or the size of text on a page and ignore other aspects affecting conversion, just because we learned about these concepts during user testing.
?Recency Bias:
We opt for newer data over older data. “Old can be better as well”.
Selective Perception:
Don’t lead your users. Be mindful of the way you phrase questions because that will affect the responses you get. Expectations affect perceptions and create bias.
Confirmation Bias:
We often test things to confirm our beliefs.
Doesn’t this text look too small? I’m sure the image will convert better if I increased the font size. Even a small improvement makes us happy.
Maybe the size of the text wasn’t the issue at all. It could have been the white space or the image around the text that could have contributed more towards the page converting or not doing so well.
Emotional and Rational Decision Making
People buy emotionally and justify their purchase rationally. Neuroscientists agree that 90% of our decisions are made out of our consciousness.
As marketers, how do we take advantage of this biological fact to persuade people to buy?
We need to move people to make a decision emotionally. Once we’ve done that, we need to provide them with the data they need to back their decision.
Lead with emotional and inspirational content like large images and aspirational headlines.
Back that up with specific data points and hard facts so that your prospects can justify their decision to purchase, with logic.
?How People view websites
I found this extremely insightful and filled with tips I could implement right away in my own websites.
People start reading from the upper left corner:
When users land on your web page, they start reading from the upper left corner and follow what is known as the Gutenberg pattern.
Tip: Place your call to action in the bottom right terminal area. Don’t consider this as the hard truth. It’s a good starting point but you need to keep testing.
The following areas on your web page get the most attention.
People read in ‘F’ patterns:
Well, most people don’t read; thy just skim through in an ‘F’ shaped pattern: two horizontal stripes followed by a vertical stripe.
Tip: Place your value proposition in the top. Place your menu horizontally on the top or vertically, on the left.
High Quality large images:
Use large, crisp images. Huge photos of customers facing forward and looking at you is guaranteed to draw your prospect’s attention.
Avoid cheesy stock photos.
Use large dominant headlines:
Big headlines in the upper left corner garner attention. Clarity beats persuasion hand down so make sure you present your value proposition within your headline.
Tips to keep your reader hooked:
With the way people read, it’s the left side of the headlines that get the most attention. Let your first couple of words engage your reader and they’ll stay longer.
?Cognitive Fluency
Cognitive fluency is the tendency of humans to prefer things that are simple and easy to understand.
Make your websites easy to read and follow. If your visitors find it difficult to read or understand what’s on your age, they will tend to rate your product or service as being equally difficult to comprehend.
Previous positive experiences matter:
Why do we stick with the same service provider more often that not? Because it’s worked for us before, we find it easy to repeat the experience and we fear that going with someone new might not turn out well for us. That’s cognitive fluency doing its work again.
Make sure you make the first sale to a new customer as easy and value driven as possible. If they find the experience fulfilling, you can be guaranteed of repeat orders.
The bottom line: make everything as simple as possible. When it comes to your website, the more typical your page layout, the easier it will be for the brain to process it.
?Conclusion:
Understanding human behavior and attempting to analyze what makes people take decisions is of paramount importance for anyone in the business of selling. This if of even greater significance when it comes to the online world, for the simple reason that we aren’t in physical proximity to our prospects.
It is our digital salesmen like our landing pages, websites and Ads that have to do the heavy lifting of getting our prospects to buy. The more we understand the way people think and act, the easier it becomes for us to sell.
What I liked about it:
I enjoyed this course. It took what could have been a dry subject and turned it into a fun and rewarding exercise. Many of the principles of persuasion gave me actionable tips that I can implement immediately.
What I didn’t like so much:
Nothing really. If anything, it’s a rant about how big the lesson “A big List of Persuasion Techniques” was ??. Brilliant lesson though.
Time to move on to another review, this time on Landing Page Optimization. One of my favorite topics.
I’ve covered only about a third of the course so far. I’ll review the rest of the course in next week’s post.
Here goes.
Week #3
Course Name: Landing Page Optimization
Instructor: Michael Aagaard
Total Time: 4 hours 22 min
Introduction
I couldn’t wait to get started on this course. I use landing pages a lot in my healthcare business and they have contributed significantly towards increasing the revenue I generate.
This course not only talks about what should go on a landing page but also addresses the overall user experience once the user lands on the page.
Before we begin, let us define what a landing page is.
A landing page as the name suggests, is any page that the user lands on after they click on some sort of a link or an ad. It could be a Facebook Ad, a PPC ad or a link in an email. Think of it as a single page website that has one and only one goal: to get users to take some sort of an action.
The action can be a sign-up, a purchase or whatever other action you’d like the user to take.
A landing page saves users the trouble of navigating through a website and cuts down on the time required to present them with a call to action.
With such great responsibility being placed on the shoulders of the landing page, it is but natural that you would want to design the page for the highest conversion rate possible.
And that’s what this course teaches you to do.
Let’s begin.
Fast vs Slow thinking and cognitive biases
Before you start with any kind of page optimization exercise, it is important that you understand how the human mind works and how users take decisions.
There are two modes of thinking: fast thinking and slow thinking.
Fast thinking is intuitive whereas slow thinking is logical and analytical. As human beings we cannot afford to spend a lot of time thinking analytically, else we’ll never get anything done.
The more we spend time thinking analytically, the more energy our brain expends.
What would you choose if given a choice between an easy way to do something or a harder, more time-consuming way? I’d assume you would choose the easy way. And that’s exactly why you should design your landing page so that visitors to your page don’t need to think. They see your page and they understand what it is you are selling.
Our brain uses mental shortcuts or cognitive biases to keep us from spending too much time in analytical mode. When it comes to landing page optimization, there are three cognitive biases: priming, framing and WYSIATI.
Priming:
You don’t want to surprise your users. At least not in the negative sense. So make sure that everything you put on the page and the way it’s designed, from the point of entry to checkout, gives them a positive experience.
Here’s one way priming can go terribly wrong.
Say you’ve primed your prospects for availing of a free trial and you’ve spoken about this at every stage; in your ad, on your landing page and until the time you lead them to the “Buy” button. But when they click on the “Buy” button, what if they are asked for their credit card details?
You might want to store their card details for future use, once the trial period ends but since you’ve primed them on the free trial, they certainly weren’t expecting to be asked for their credit card information. No surprises for guessing what your users will do next. Right; they’ll likely abandon any thought of making a purchase and you might have lose them forever.
Framing:
Framing is a powerful concept. Your message needs to be framed in a way that supports conversion. The way your message is delivered directly impacts they way your users perceive it.
Take the following messages as an example:
Message 1 talks about meat that is 80% lean.
Message 2 talks about meat that has 20% fat.
If I were to ask you which is the healthier choice, what would your answer be?
If your answer is either message 1 or message 2, you would be wrong. The two messages are the same. It’s just that “lean” is considered healthier than “fat” and hence the difference in perception.
WYSIATI:
“What You See Is All There Is”. It’s critical that you keep things simple. Don’t force your users to interpret things and fill in gaps in their understanding for what’s on your landing page.
Your hopes of conversion will take a nosedive if what they conclude is vastly different from what you intended your landing page to convey.
Keep the design simple and use words that are easy to understand.
Intro to brain chemicals – Dopamine and Cortisol
As marketers, we would be doing our customers and ourselves a disservice if we didn’t learn a little about neuroscience.
I’m referring to two brain chemicals; dopamine and cortisol.?I get it; technically, cortisol is not a brain chemical. But in the context of marketing, these two chemicals play a vital role in shaping our customers’ thoughts and getting them to buy from us or reject us and potentially never come back.
Their significance is further amplified in the online marketing world where we almost never come face to face with our customers. Although our landing pages, Ads, sales pages, websites and whatever other digital salesmen we might throw at our prospects, we get a finite number of chances to woo them.
And if we trigger cortisol instead of dopamine or trigger dopamine and rudely replace that with cortisol at the last minute…boy…that is a surefire way to piss our customers off.
Let me not ramble on...
Dopamine as many people mistakenly assume, does not equal happiness. It can make you momentarily happy but that is not the same as saying that it gives you a permanent high.
Dopamine is released when we are exposed to the stimulus of a reward. It is the same “Woohoo, I got it” feeling that our forefathers probably got when they went out hunting in search of food and found a sackful.
Simply put, it is the joy of finding things that meet our needs. Dopamine also plays a central role in motivation and habit formation.
That being said, it operates very much like the law of diminishing returns. The more habituated we become to getting what we need, the lesser the amount of dopamine released.
Here’s where I get a little technical and talk about prediction errors.
Positive prediction error -> You didn’t expect a reward but you were given one. How cool is that?
No prediction error -> You expected a reward and you got exactly what you expected.
Negative prediction error -> You expected a reward but you weren’t given one. Bummer…think no salary hike?
Disappointment is a negative prediction error. We feel disappointed when our expectations are not met.
And that’s serious…both in the case of our forefathers (who went hunting expecting to find food but came back empty handed) and also in the case of our customers.
Now think about our customers. Why might they be disappointed? Was it on account of something we did wrong? Where did we screw up such that their dopamine took a beating?
Dopamine dips are dangerous and can not only lead to disappointment but also to anger and even stress in some cases. Combine that with cortisol and you’ve got a potent cocktail capable of driving customers away for good.
Let’s see how.
Take the example of a landing page. Say you drive them to your landing page by first showing them an Ad. Your Ad has a certain colour scheme and imagery that your prospects have gotten used to. So when they click the link on your ad and are taken to your landing page, they expect the same reassuring look and feel of the Ad that drew them in.
But what happens if the user experience provided by your landing page does not match that of your Ad? The colors don’t match, the fonts are different, everything looks so out of place. Bam….that’s a dopamine dip for your customer. They might end up not trusting your page and won’t care to fill in the form.
Take another example.
You prime your prospects with the assurance of a free sign-up to your service or course or whatever it is you are offering them. The message of a free sign-up is consistent in your emails, sales letters and Ads. It is even consistent in your landing page right up to the point where they have to enter their credentials to claim the offer. They are rightly expecting to enter only their name and email address, when suddenly, out of the blue comes the blow to their solar plexus…
You ask them to enter their credit card information.
What do you think most users will do? No prizes for guessing…
You have let them down. They experience a dopamine dip but more importantly, it triggers in them, the human stress hormone, cortisol.
Cortisol is like the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach that is a result of the fear you feel. When you are stressed or angry for long periods of time, the body maintains its elevated cortisol levels which is physically dangerous.
But when it comes to marketing, the triggering of cortisol in your customers can make them wary and afraid of dealing with you and in many cases, drive them away for good. They probably won’t fully understand why they feel that way. All they’ll think of is the bad experience they’ve had and stay away.
That’s all from me for this week. I’ll cover the rest of the course in next week’s post. I promise. Scout’s honor.
I hope you found this useful. Comment below or write to me at [email protected].
I read every email.
Sincerely,
Ryan