5 Things Marketers Need to Know About How People Behave Online

How understanding user behavior increases content marketing conversion rates

People like shortcuts. Quick “hacks” that can help them achieve big results without much effort. Cookie cutter templates that they can follow step by step to win.

7-minute abs. Passive income. Growth hacks. Virality.

When it comes to content marketing, there are some well established practices that have been proven to deliver results in almost any industry.

However it’s critical to understand the principles behind the strategies so that they can be applied the right way.

The principles behind the best content marketing strategies are rooted in psychology and behavioral patterns. Understanding these behaviors helps inform the highest performing strategies and tactics.

1. User Behavior: People are easily distracted

No matter how amazing your product is, it’s almost never so easy to get people to see it.

They are bombarded by content, advertisements, products and services all day long. They will not magically come to you and buy.

That’s part of the reason why it’s so important to create content that’s truly valuable to your customers. By promoting content that’s valuable, instead of just a product, you can increase the number of people who visit your site. What would you rather click on, an article title “X Ways to make your life 10x better”, or an advertisement that implies “Spend money on my product”?

But creating earth shattering content is not enough. People will not magically buy your product after reading your free content. In fact, there’s a very high probability that they will consume your free content without ever purchasing your product.

People typically spend only 10 seconds on a website before leaving if they don’t immediately connect. And about 97% of those visitors will leave and never come back.

Marketing Strategy: Build your email list

It’s hard work to get people to your website. Don’t let it go to waste.

Acquiring visitors without collecting email addresses is like filling a leaky bucket with water. It ensures you will have stay on the hamster wheel of creating content and promoting it without getting sustained returns.

Fortunately, people are highly engaged with their email inboxes. 92% of adults use email, with at least 61% using it on a daily basis.

Email marketing reduces the number of clicks and decisions your customers have to make en route to buying your product. It enables you to retain the traffic you acquire and gives you the opportunity to direct them to the desired conversion.

Offer something of something that’s valuable to your target market to increase signup rates.

2. User Behavior: People don’t like to make decisions

Making decisions is hard and stressful.

Just because a prospect has read an article you’ve written, or even signed up for your email list, does not mean they are going to seek out, evaluate and buy your product.

Many people like to be (or need to be) lead.

Marketing Strategy: Establish a conversion funnel

Producing and promoting content without clear objectives and metrics for success is like picking stocks with darts. Assume the worst when it comes to your customers proactivity buying your product.

Having clear steps to converting a stranger into a paying customer, with personalized and relevant content and CTAs along the way, gives you the ability to focus their attention towards your end goal (conversion).

To capitalize, create amazing content, promote it so that your target market will see it, retain the traffic using email capture and lead them through the funnel to conversion by making one clear ask at a time. McKinsey found that email is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter.

In my book, “Your First Bestseller”, I offer a self-publishing checklist ebook that readers can receive via email. Then they get a series of automated emails from me that provide value, build rapport, and lead them to an upsell.

Rather than hoping the readers will seek out my upsell, I lead them directly to it. It makes it a lot easier for people to buy.

3. User Behavior: People buy from people they trust

While the Internet has made it easier to reach millions of customers, the gap between consuming free content and sharing credit card information with a stranger online is still prettay massive.

Beyond safety and security concerns, there are so many online marketers for people to buy from, their decisions often come down to trust, more so than just value.

Marketing Strategy: Nurture your leads

I’ve wasted a lot of money driving cold traffic to a sales pages for high priced items that didn’t convert. Trying to make someone pay for a high ticket item before building trust is like asking someone to get married on the first date.

Instead, start with a small ask, like an email address, and then provide value and build trust over time.

As part of a conversion funnel, lead nurture can help close the gap between someone who has read your content and signed up for your email list to someone who buys from you.

Forrester found that email marketing is the most effective tactic for lead nurturing. Email marketing drives more conversions than any other marketing channel, including search and social.

Email autoresponders can be especially effective for nurturing and converting prospects in a scalable way. After providing your prospects with an amazing article and acquiring their email address (a small ask) in exchange for even more amazing content, marketers can send a series of automated emails that provide value and build trust before asking them to buy or to get on a sales call.

4. User Behavior: People make decisions through more than just reason

A valuable product and valuable content can get you pretty far. However there are so many products and services in the world — value is just not enough anymore.

The way people make decisions is not purely through rational discourse (the way many data driven marketers probably do). Rather, their decisions often come from an emotional level.

It takes a certain level of persuasion to influence a desired action, especially when it requires their credit card information.

Marketing Strategy: Copywriting, design and storytelling

In content marketing, appealing to customers’ emotions manifests itself as copywriting, design and storytelling.

Tell a story to appeal to emotions. Highlight value propositions that resonate with your target market’s unique experiences. Build credibility by having a well designed website. Use client testimonials or logos to show social proof.

5. User Behavior: People’s behaviors and preferences are often unpredictable

While I’ve outlined a few common behaviors in this article, the harsh reality is that future behaviors are very hard to predict.

What works in one market does not necessarily work in another. Fortunately, there’s a solution for that too.

Marketing Strategy: Customer development and A/B testing

There are some amazing analytics and research tools out there that can help marketers learn more about their customers.

I’ve found the qualitative research is often just as valuable as the quantitative. I use autoresponders to engage in one-on-one email conversations with my customers so that I can learn about their pain points.

Quantitative testing is also extremely valuable. Which article performed better? Where is your highest converting traffic coming from? Is your landing page not converting? Google Analytics is your friend here.

Key Takeaways

While you may know that you have the best product or service in the world and that your customers love it, that’s almost never enough.

Understanding how your customers behave online informs how you can turn complete strangers into consumers of your content and ultimately into lifelong customers.

Don’t let the whims of your customers’ attention spans let your offer go unseen. Make it easy for them to buy!