CXL — CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) Review Part 4
Hey, guys today we will be reviewing the People and psychology in Conversion rate optimization a course I have been doing on CXL. In this review, we will cover how people behave and think when they visit our website, & how to use their behaviour to increase conversions on your website.
People are irrational. People are cute. People are bad. People are good. People are all kinds of things — and science hasn’t figured us out yet.
You can spend years in universities studying human behaviour. This course is not aiming to compete with those programs but will teach you some of the more important concepts that you need to be aware of.
What is also important to keep in mind is that while the internet and technology have changed at a rapid pace, the human brain has been pretty much the same for millions of years.
Persuasion is the tip of the pyramid — we’ll have to make sure everything else, the fundamentals, have been taken care of before we move on to applying persuasion techniques.
That doesn’t mean that we should hold back from using them. Some of the principles — like social proof and urgency — can be very effective. Some principles should also inform our design and copywriting.
One of the interesting topics covered in this module was Cialdini’s principles of persuasion. His 7 principles of persuasion –
- Reciprocity
- Commitment/Consistency
- Social Proof
- Authority
- Liking
- Scarcity
- Unity
Keep in mind that Cialdini’s book Influence mainly talks about these principles from the perspective of how to not get taken advantage of when someone tries to use this on you. We focus on how you can use them to boost conversions.
The reciprocity covers the part of giving a little to get a little. You need to make an offer to your users as it gives them a feeling of instant gratification and reduces friction while promoting them to give in. It can be understood as the expectation that people will respond favourably to each other by returning benefits for benefits and responding with either indifference or hostility to harms.
Example of Execution
Give people free tools, free downloads, free goodies — that they benefit from — and they’ll be way more likely to buy something from you.
If your products are expensive and/or complicated, it’s often better to avoid asking for a sale from new visitors and instead offer a free download in exchange for their email. Then you start nurturing the lead by constantly adding more value until you finally ask for the sale.
Example: South Beach Diet. They give you a free diet profile!
The Commitment section says that once a user is publicly committed towards doing something they usually tend to complete it.
Example of Execution
Web forms are one area where this can be used. You split your large form into multiple small steps (multi-step form). Once people fill out the first part of the form and see there’s more to fill on the second page, they’re much more likely to do it since they already got started with it.
Social proof is the third one where we add testimonials and reviews of our customer. Humans tend to follow what others are doing in a crowd without thinking much, this is due to the psychological impact of safety in numbers.
Example of Execution
Bottom line: show impressive numbers! Tell me what other people are doing! Show off testimonials and social media followers!
You can harness this power of social proof to drastically increase the conversion rates of your website because there are several ways to incorporate it, but one of the most powerful is through so-called “wisdom-of-the-crowds” social proof.
Two key components of social proof:
- Nobody wants to be the only idiot buying your stuff.
- People don’t want to make the wrong choice at the risk of being judged by their spouses, bosses, colleagues, or friends.
Using social media widgets to show off the number of followers you have on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ is a great idea. But it can be the opposite too — showing a very low number of likes and followers (worse yet — 0) is negative social proof (meaning nobody likes this stuff, and you shouldn’t be the only idiot either). I’m sure you’ve seen when an eCommerce site has “Like” buttons on its product pages and has no likes. Conversion killer.
When they explain about authority it stands for using influencers are top celebs who set societal standards.
Example of Execution
The use of this principle can be seen in the case of ShoeDazzle, which is a startup internet retailer that specializes in women’s shoes and accessories. Founded in 2009, the company was co-founded by personality Kim Kardashian, who also serves as one of ShoeDazzle’s chief fashion stylists.
If you can, choose an authority figure to help you make your case. Here are a few examples:
- Use prominent athletes if you want to sell fitness products.
- Use well-known doctors and medical researchers on health-related websites.
- Use famous chefs if you want to sell food.
Another way of using this persuasion is by using popular certifications, company names / logos of companies you have partnered with.
The last part is Unity. It stands for being similar to your audience. What do you have in common with your customer? The Unity Principle is the shared identity that the influencer shares with the influence. Have you ever been to a party or conference and met someone that went to the same University as you did? Or maybe you two previously worked at the same company. Did you felt an instant connection, didn’t you?
According to Cialdini, the Unity principle moves beyond surface-level similarities (which can still be influential, but under the Liking principle). Instead, he says, “It’s about shared identities.”
Use specific and unique jargons or words used by the target audience who buy your products. Use slangs and acronyms commonly used by people. Using terms like OOTD will make your users gel better and trust your brand more.
Define the “Out-Group”: Often, companies try to position themselves against whatever the status quo is (or seems to be) in their industry.
Invoke Family Ties: For many people, family is their strongest tie.
There are various other persuasion techniques mentioned in the course as I have discussed and only scratched the surface. Feel free to check it out on CXL it is a fun course and recommended to add value to your resume.
Have a great day and stay safe!