Think about your website design. Do your customers like it? Why do they use it? What emotions does your website logo evoke?
Perceptions are unique and critical. They are virtually snap judgements. It takes only 50 microseconds for us to get an impression about a web page and sometimes only 17 ms according to Google’s research. The user interface of your website determines the perception of your brand, because 94% of the overall perception is design driven. More than just being well built, a website should be a form of visual art. It should naturally combine the science of aesthetics and your business principles.
[si_guide_block id="5686" title="Improving results from your website guide" description="Read how web design can affect a wide range of your website's KPIs with our guide to improving website results. Learn how to audit your site, make changes to key pages, and uses Google Analytics to measure your success."]
What…
Are you tapping into Customer Psychology for your marketing?
Kahneman popularised System 1 and System 2 decision-making in his book, "thinking fast and slow" - but how can marketers use this Scientific theory in their marketing?
Last year I was faced with a fairly every day dilemma, my partner and I were going through the process of buying an IKEA kitchen at home, I'd dropped and smashed my iPhone screen, rendering it unusable (I replaced it with a much cheaper android phone)and I wanted to go on holiday to Italy (Turin). The dilemma was: Did I need an iPhone? Could I hold off on the holiday to Italy? The kitchen was the biggest decision, it was over £4000 in cost - it took time to research what we wanted and plan the whole thing with IKEA. Arranging delivery, getting the whole thing installed. It's a major project and being without a kitchen…
If there’s one thing CROs could use more of, it’s psychology.
I’m all for testing crazy ideas. It’s how some of the most counterintuitive and surprising discoveries are made.
But we still need to build our landing pages on a solid foundation, and since it’s human behavior that our landing pages are attempting to influence, psychology is central to that foundation.
There’s no shortage of articles about psychology marketing out there, but I wanted to share three powerful ideas that I don’t think get enough attention in these discussions.
Let’s take a look.
1. Single Option Aversion
You’ve probably heard of “the paradox of choice”, the theory that if you are presented with too many options, you are less likely to make a decision. Well, it turns out that most experiments attempting to replicate that effect don’t actually find it. The effect may be real, but it seems to only occur in idiosyncratic circumstances that…
Apply behavioral psychology to your web design to boost your conversion rate
Getting people to choose something over another has more to do with psychology than anything else. When the principles of psychology have been understood, they may be integrated in UX and website design. If they are integrated well, they end up becoming a determinant of whether the website is a success on the market.
[si_guide_block id="5686" title="Download Premium Resource – Improving Results from your website: 7 steps guide" description="Use a structured review to increase leads, sales and satisfaction from your site."/]
The principles of psychology employed in general marketing are the same ones employed in UX and web design. The following are some of the psychological principles that work in marketing. Use of research in social psychology is important. It explains the reasons why consumers sometimes do the opposite of what is expected of them.
Users Prefer Substance Over Beauty
It’s…
Chart of the Day: Drivers and barriers for online purchase
When I first got involved in digital marketing in the mid-1990s, online shopping via e-commerce was in its infancy. It's hard to believe now, but many consumers were reluctant to buy online, so it was important for retailers to understand the drivers and barriers to online purchase. Then tactics, messaging and incentives could be developed to encourage online purchase.
Today, purchasing online is accepted by many, but if you look across categories of purchase, there are some sectors where there is still reluctance to buy online, so online retailers still need to work on their tactics to encourage online conversion and multichannel tactics to encourage offline purchase in-store.
[si_blog_banner_cta]
A new report from KPMG has some of the most detailed research evaluating the consumer psychology of purchase, broken down by different countries, so I'm showcasing some of the main findings here. I hope it…
Psychology research that will help you subtly convince your leads
Ever wanted to get into the minds of your customers and figure out how they think? Ever wanted to know the best methods to convince someone to do something?
As the study of the human mind and behavior, psychology has answers to what you're looking for. Psychology is applicable to a wide range of fields, from daily life to counseling to human resources. But what you're probably more concerned about is the intersection of psychology and marketing
1. Relate to your customer
Goldstein, Cialdini, and Griskevicius (2008) conducted a study on Using Social Norms to Motivate Environmental Conservation in Hotels. In particular, they tried to determine what kind of message would get hotel guests to reuse their towels. They used three variations, paraphrased below:
Standard message: 'help save the environment'
75% of hotel guests in this hotel reuse their towels
75% of hotel guests…
Chart of the Day: Millennials (18-34 year olds) utilize a greater range of channels before purchasing products online than Gen-X and Baby Boomers
As consumers, we are more savvy with our purchases that ever before. By the time we have finally decided to buy a particular product we will have spent a good chunk of time researching our options to try and find the best deal we can for the product that suits our needs.
In research conducted by Salesforce surveying 4,000 consumers across the UK, USA and Canada, it was found that while the respondents spent most of their time researching on the internet before purchasing online they also spent a significant amount of time using multiple channels including email, in person, on mobile apps and more.
Interestingly, there are significant differences between the behavior of millennials, Gen-X and Baby Bloomers. Millennials seems to not favor a particular channel after using websites with…
Psychology has a bigger effect on purchase decisions than you think
A while ago I was doing my monthly "Let's see what TED's been up to recently" session, and I came across an older one: Dan Ariely's Ted talk on irrational purchase behavior.
It's well-worth a watch (after, of course, you finish this article).
In it, he breaks down the delusion that our buying decisions are rationally made. He discusses the true influences and psychological factors which affect our subconscious - the real determinants for why we buy that pack of gum, why that T-shirt stands out, or why we decide we need a jacket we don't.
Ever gone into a store for a single thing and walked out with a full cart?
Psychology has a bigger influence on your prospective customers than you might think. Understanding how you can use psychology to influence buying decisions will make you a better marketer and…
Web users are becoming paralysed by the psychology of indecision as a result of being faced with too many options to choose from
I believe digital marketers are offering too many choices to their website visitors. Visit almost any web page these days and you will be faced with a myriad of choices. You can choose to read something, or sign up for follow-ups, or perhaps watch a video. Alternatively, you could choose something else to click on, look at an advert or go to the menu and choose something else. What are you expected to do? There are just too many things to think about.
The situation is worse in e-commerce stores. You are faced with row upon row of products to choose from, probably from a selection of a dozen or more different categories.
Website owners and digital marketers appear to…
A summary of 7 principles of persuasion
There is increasing interest in applying the principles of Psychology to Digital Marketing. According to Kath Pay of Cloud.IQ, the benefits of incorporating consumer psychology into your marketing are two- fold:
"First, applying the principles of the Psychology of Persuasion can assist your customer in their journey to achieve their objective i.e. buying a product or service from you, and secondly, you, as the marketer, benefits from facilitating more successful conversions".
Kath has a new free download 'Leveraging Psychology in Digital Marketing' explaining how the relationship between buyer psychology and behaviour can help marketers optimise the online customer journey. It covers the principles and examples from landing pages and email marketing on how you can improve conversion efficiency as part of inbound marketing.
This infographic is a taster of the book's themes to help you get under the skin of your customers through psychological techniques including those focussed on…
