How to get people to not only buy, but champion your products: CXL digital persuasion/psychology review
As humans, we tend to give ourselves way more credit in relation to animals, we say oh we’re better, we construct tall glass buildings, microwave cold meals, explore outer space, and who can deny the genius behind water closets huh?. Yet, we’re not so different from animals.
I mean, despite the brains and technological advancements and what not, we’re still social animals, we still love to move in packs and belong in groups even if it means conforming. We buy slimming tea and breast enlargement creams because who wants to go through all the work of working out and eating whole grains just to lose a few pounds? And because a friend of ours knows a friend who knows another friend it worked for.
We join cults as long as they champion causes that benefit us, we don’t like it when we ask our neighbour how his day went and instead of a yes, he actually stops to offload on us, we cry when Adele comes on and we go to confess our sins because no matter how terrible a sin we’ve committed, we still want someone to tell us we’re not all that bad and we’re just like everyone else who sins
All of these behaviours are what leading marketers, sales people, businesses and brands, even governments have had to master in order to persuade and influence you and I to buy and believe in their product/cause.
How?
Master the art of persuasion
Being able to sell to total strangers and build trust with your online shop demands that you understand certain human behaviours and the psychology as you build your product and website There are 7 principles of persuasion which when used correctly, can help you influence buying decisions.
From reciprocity; people are much more likely to trust you and buy from you if you offer them something first before asking them to buy from you, from free ebooks, merch, free gifts and more, to commitment/consistency; although people are lazy, they also like the feeling of commitment hence, they’re much likely to follow up as long as you’ve gotten them to take the first step (a registration, a learning experience, a donation), it’s up to you as a marketer or product manager/designer to set up triggers that remind them to complete said actions.
Social proof. I already touched on social proof a bit but I consider it the most important of all 7 principles, Although I already knew the importance of social proof when trying to sell, taking this CXL Digital Persuasion course helped me understand the psychology behind it, — we love to belong in groups and fit in, being the outlier can get pretty lonely. People will trust you enough to buy what you’re selling, no matter how stupid, as long as you can proof to them that other people, peers, friends and mentors also think its cool to own. I call it the (WWMFD- What would my friends do?) principle, would they approve of me buying this or will they think I was a total Idiot who got ripped off? Are there other people buying this? Who are they? How old are they? How smart, wealthy or good looking are they? These are the questions running through the minds of your prospects. But don’t just throw up testimonials on your website, take a look at what kind of social proof your customers want based on your product, is it a high end product? Would your prospects be pressured enough to buy if you told them you’re serving about 600,000 prospects globally or if you told them 400 of the 1% are using your product?
Authority; Are there industry experts or influencers in your founding team or do they think your product is smart? People like to know influencers or industry experts are also using or buying what they’d like to buy so reach out to them and get them to talk about your business/startup.
How lovable are you?; How relatable or similar are you? We tend to pick friendships and life partners off shared interests or attitudes. Think of reality shows, people only support house mates they share the same complex or characters with, once your prospects can see themselves in you, they’ll support and like you.
Use scarcity and urgency to influence sales; FOMO is a real concept and when tied perfectly with social proof, could get your massive results. When using scarcity, focus on just quantity and time, “only ten more seats available, offer closes in two days”
Unity; shared identity; I prefer to refer to is as creating a sense of community of like minded people, find out what your prospects collectively like or hate and build a community that solves that like or hate, in the class, there’s an example of a fitness company targeted at fitness buffs who don’t like the loudness and general huff and puff of fitness buffs so they built a community that served them specifically using shared experiences. That’s a sure fire way to build and grow, maybe I’ll build a community for lowkey affiliate marketers who don’t like to yap about how many million they make weekly, who knows?
When are your prospects ready to buy? The Fogg behaviour model
Behaviour scientist BJ Fogg explains that before prospects make any behavioural decision like buying, all these three elements must occur at the same time; they must be highly motivated to buy, through well written sales copies that tells them what they stand to gain and why you’re the best option for them, addresses their hopes and fears, pain and pleasure, social acceptance and rejection( remember social proof?) Ability, it must be easy for them to take action, which means your site is easy to navigate without ability, there’ll be frustration and you never want your prospects to find your site unusable or hard to navigate, there must be triggers and call to actions placed strategically and visible enough to allow them to buy. Without these three elements happening or being present, there’ll be no buying decision. While you design or build, you need to balance how easy or difficult it’s to take action versus how motivated they are. Don’t ask people to take action if you’ve not invested in getting them motivated with your sales copies.
So if we’re getting mathematical, Behaviour = Motivation x Ability x Trigger, you can’t have it any other way. I think designing with these specific goals of making your site very easy to take action in mind helps you understand a lot of things, people want ease.
They don’t want to be trained to use a site, they want ease. Don’t build a site my 7 year old niece wouldn’t understand. Also, people would never do anything without you asking them to, set up triggers that remind them to go take the action you need to to alternating between hot( immediate action) and cold triggers (action you don’t want them to take immediately.
Put hot triggers in the path of motivated people
constantly split test different shapes, colours and phrases in your trigger to see which converts better.
How to use the brain to your advantage in marketing
Our brain really only cares or needs these three things to survive, Food, fight or flight and pleasure (fornication), of these three things, three parts of our brains are responsible for these actions, a new brain which helps us think and calculate, the middle brain helps us feel and process our emotions, and the old brain decides, so technically, the old brain takes inputs from the information from the new and middle brain and decides on what is convincing or beneficial enough for it, it’s mainly concerned with surviving and it’s triggered by six stimuli. Understanding these six stimuli can help you design and create copies targeted at getting the old brain to decide on you otherwise known as neuromarketing.
The old brain is self centered, it’s always on the lookout on how it’s owner can benefit, meaning, what’s in it for your customers? What specific value props can you use to help trigger the old brain?
Contrast; everyone likes a before and after makeover or weight loss that’s totally believable, everyone goes “omg, look how beautiful she looks now” guess what’s in charge of that? Yup! The old brain, figure out ways to show your prospects just how much their lives can change or how much they can grow. Words like from an idiot to an expert, from zero to a million dollars, I mean give them a classic (started from the bottom now we here).
Use simple words that are easy to understand, remember the old brain is in charge of making decisions, don’t make it think! Make it easy for it to decide.
The old brain loves intrigue and novelty, feed it, while you write your sales letters and web copies, allow things change, how your web copies start and end is important, use intrigue or hooks at the start to get your prospects to interested, make sure it ends in a way that convinces them not taking action would be a mistake. Nobody remembers the middle of a movie, just the beginning and end, write your web copies and design with that in mind.
Use images next to text to help communicate key messages
Use emotions to trigger the old brain to take action, emotion is a strong feeling, if you can address people’s pains, make a case as to why your claim is different and better than your competitors, show proof of your claim by demonstrating what they stand to gain by using your product and deliver to the old brain with a trigger.
