9 Jedi Mind Tricks That Will Skyrocket Your Sales Online
How Unicorn Poop, Weddings and Murders Can Turn Your Sales Funnels Into A Well-oiled Money Making Machine
Do you think that knowing what makes people click will help you make them click ?
And do you think that the research on consumer behavior can tell you what makes people click and therefore help you get attention, keep it, arouse desire, and sell more stuff ?
If you were able to understand the principles behind Influence, do you think you could use them to create an online sales funnel that actually converts ?
Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath, along with Influence by Robert Cialdini are two books that go deep into the human mind.
To me, these books are goldmines for any marketer, and I strongly recommend reading them to … everyone !
In this article, I will show you how to link the invalubale knowledge these authors shared to increase your acquisition, conversion rate, and sales online.
1) ATTENTION : What’s in the box ?!
Why it matters so much
There is a point where customer meets brand.
Hello, brand !
Hello, customer !
This moment, the Attention part of the funnel, is all-important : extra-attention should be given to making this “entering the funnel” moment as significant, impactful and sticky as possible in the mind of the user.
In their book Made To Stick, Chip and Dan Heath list the 6 most important principles to use when you wish to … “make it stick”.
Furthermore, the book addresses the issue of advertising, which happens to be your best tool for this first touchpoint, and thus, it corresponds to the “Attention” part of the purchase funnel.
It therefore becomes mandatory to use all of the 6 principles at this stage : they can be used, and they are 100% relevant to that part of the funnel. Yet, we will try to uncover which is the most important at this stage.
Keeping this in mind, let us review all 6 principles, for practice :
Simplicity, Unexpectedness, Concreteness, Connectedness, Emotions, Stories.
Notice a pattern here ? That’s right : S.U.C.C.E.S
Trick Number 1 — Breaking the Pattern.
Implementing all of them is a must, yet, the most important stickiness principle of all at the Attention stage is that of unexpectedness : it allows you to grab your prospect “by the throat”, and then to keep his or her attention, an ability so important that it cannot be stressed enough.
Now, how do you grab your prospect’s attention ?
In their book, Chip and Dan Heath explain that in order to do so, you need to break a pattern.
An excellent example of this is the commercial for the Enclave minivan : a happy family cruises around in the minivan, as an enthusiastic female voice-over praises all the various features of the vehicle.
With no warning whatsoever, you see the whole family get blasted as a car comes crushing full-speed into one side of the minivan, at an intersection.
The screen fades to black, while the words “Didn’t see that coming ?” appear, only to answer themselves : “No one ever does” to leave you dumbfounded while the siren wails alarmingly in the background.
Why is this the most important principle at this stage of the funnel ?
For starters, if you can’t grab someone’s attention at the “attention” stage, you are quite obvisouly done for : your window of opportunity has closed, and will be exploited by another brand who has mastered this art.
Not only that, but it becomes more and more important to know and do it, now that social plays such a big role in advertising, a space where you only have a split-second to grab your prospect’s attention.
On Facebook for example, your are competing with cats, babies and politics for people’s attention…
Not to forget that the attention-span of people has dropped from 12 seconds to 8.25 seconds (and counting) in the last 20 years (National Centre for Biotechnology Information , US National Library of Medicine, The Associated Press).
The Secret Sauce : The Surprising Tale Of Unicorn Poop !
Any business then, has to play with the emotion of surprise to manage a proper grabbing of attention, and to do that, you might want to look into unicorn poop for guidance :
What this ad for Squatty Potty does best is surprise the viewer with so many elements, such as the tone, the colors, the characters, the setting, the jokes…
This example is a gem for any business trying to find ideas on how to break a pattern. It also happens to leverage beautifully all 6 principles of stickiness (as listed earlier), which is something you have to strive towards as well.
After you have used the element of surprise to grab your potential customers’ attention, you will need to arouse their interest to keep the hard-earned attention.
To do this, you need to create a mystery, to highlight gaps in their knowledge, by asking relevant questions they do not know the answer to, for example.
At this point, the unexpectedeness principle, and more specifically the interest phase will need to ripple throughout the rest of your purchase funnel : keep it in mind as you build your funnel, constantly remembering to create mystery and highlighting gaps in your leads’ knowledge.
2) INTEREST : Give, Give, Give …
You have managed to grab your prospects’ attention, know how to keep it, and they are now walking the narrow road of interest.
Inbound Marketing states that the consumer will need to learn more about the brand at this stage, called “Engage” and therefore, you have to create a special relationship with your prospect, while emphasizing how your product can help them.
It is the business’s duty to shoulder and take responsibility for that first, very important stage in the relationship.
Let us dive into the nuts and bolts of creating that special bond with your potential customers …
Trick Number 2 — Reciprocation : Jab, Jab, Jab
The now legendary Gary Vaynerchuck loves to talk about content creation.
Google is all about content, too. And users consume more content today than they ever did before.
But what is the framework, the blueprint to always keep in mind whilst creating content for your prospect ?
Value.
Ergo, reciprocation :
“One of the reasons reciprocation can be used so effectively as a device
for gaining another’s compliance is its power. The rule possesses awesome
strength, often producing a “yes” response to a request that, except
for an existing feeling of indebtedness, would have surely been refused.”
This quote from Robert Cialdini’s Influence states that the power of the reciprocation rule resides in the exponentially increased likelihood to get a yes after having given first. Reciprocation also echoes beautifully one of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey :
“Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”
Most funnels consist of a landing page on which the consumer is offered to take part in an exchange : his or her information (name, email, phone number…) in exchange for value in some form or other, whether it be information, a discount, a webinar, a free consultation...
This value offering, early at the interest level, is called a Lead Magnet. If you are wondering what to give away to your potential customert, ask yourself this question :
What is the best, most valuable thing my business can afford to give away in exchange for a lead ?
You can find out more about reverse-engineering your KPI and finding out the value of your lead by clicking here.
Once you know how much you are willing to invest in a lead, it can give you a hint as to the best lead magnet you can give away.
And yet, the one able to give the most away always wins.
That is why the greatest companies in the world (Coca Cola, Netflix, …) are willing to pay an enormous amount of money to generate and nurture leads !
Which is why your business must seek to understand the consumer before expecting to “be understood” in return (as in “buy my services… Come on… Buy’em !)
And this understanding takes the form of the best gift you could possibly afford to give to your potential customer.
Although stopping there won’t let you enjoy the full power of this rule unless you add a hint of another powerful, secret ingredient : commitment.
Trick Number 3 — Add Commitment and Consistency to the Mix
“Yes” is a word one hears twice before being officially married.
Funny enough, the “Interest” stage also happens to be called “Engage” in Inbound Marketing, as in “engaged” : “having formally agreed to marry”.
This other fascinating rule presented in the book Influence by Cialdini, states that
“Once we have made a choice or taken a stand, we will encounter personal
and interpersonal pressures to behave consistently with that commitment.”
Therefore, it would be wise to find ways and means of getting people to commit as you give them value, not yet asking for anything in return.
Have them commit to your brand, or better yet, to themselves.
Indeed, most of the biggest brands have found ways to implant in the minds of any who encounters their brands, that being a part of their world is a way of commiting to oneself .
Just look at Nike’s “Just Do It”, or Apple’s “Think Different”.
They both inspire the user to believe and commit to himself.
These examples might feel a bit far off, but there is a way YOUR business can create that same dynamic.
Your channels at this stage can consist of Social Media, White Papers, E-books, Emails …
You must find a way of embedding this idea within those channels, that they need to commit to themselves, to the results they are seeking, and to be consistent.
A way to play with the commitment/consistency principle is to ask open questions corresponding to your services or products such as “would you like to be able to do X ?” followed by “Now that you know you can, do you think it would be profitable to you ?” and so on…
You may have noticed I did that at the start of the article.
Agreeing over and over, and taking a stand on a specific idea, product or service(ergo, your business CAN help them, and that WILL, for example) will probably result in the likelihood of your leads to be consistent with that stand (taking the actions beneficial to your business, like paying) dramatically increasing.
These principles, if thoroughly thought-out and carefully implemented in your messaging and in your content, will definitely improve your conversion rate down the line when the time comes to make your offer.
3 ) DESIRE / DECISION : Teaser Trailer To Your Services
Now that Attention has been grabbed, and that your potential customer has taken a profound Interest in your business, the question arises :
What arouses Desire ?
And what makes people choose one brand over the other ?
Robert Cialdini’s book gives insights as to how to nurture a bond with your potential customers and get them to choose you, your products, your services, thus allowing you to take your lead further down the purchase funnel, towards your final objective : conversion.
The Desire/Decision stage of the funnel requires that you arouse their desire and give incentives to your potential customers to like and trust you to take the next step.
When desire is aroused, and your leads like, trust and believe you, the decision process becomes a lot easier .
Ultimately, the objective should be to make it so that your business is the ONLY sensible choice to make.
This is how you do it …
Tricks Number 4 and 5 — Emotions and Concreteness
The French proverb “l’appétit vient en mangeant”, meaning that “action precedes desire” is a good hint as to what needs to be generated on the part of the business for desire to be aroused in its potential customer.
A business has to give a taste of its product or service, like you can sometimes see in a mall, where a vendor will come to you with friendly, delighted eyes, offering a bite, for free, no strings attached, into an increasingly tempting… olive, let’s say.
The keyword here is taste : in order to arouse desire, your lead has to get a glimpse of what it is like to experience your product or service.
Overall, you need to make sure they can imagine and feel, as a gut experience, what it is like to benefit from your product/service.
Movies, especially movies with a budget, have a way of teasing their potential viewers.
Teasers and trailers are the movie, condensed.
They are the actual experience, but much, much shorter, and more intense : they leave you filled with the desire to see the movie.
You experienced it. You liked it. Therefore, you want more.
By using the combined principles of emotion and concreteness, you can turn abstract notions into tangible experiences that will ensure that desire has been aroused in your potential customers.
What does your business need to implement this powerful notion ?
Well, the first thing your business needs is to know which emotion to generate in the prospect or lead, which will greatly vary depending on the business.
Then, this emotion has to be shared and amplified, and as humans, the most important vehicle for emotion are other human beings.
Mother Theresa once said :
If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.
Use human beings to elicit emotions in your potential customers, by sharing testimonials of satisfied customers, or by giving concrete example of people you helped in your white papers and e-books or in your seminars.
Give their names, and talk about the problems they were facing, and how your business was the solution, including their feelings after being freed from said problems, and how it impacted their lives.
To combine this with concreteness, make sure to provide vivid images whenever possible, either real or imaginary.
4) AND… ACTION !
Alright. This final stage of the purchase funnel is going to require that your prospects like and trust you, and that you give them reasons to act.
This last section could be titled : how do you make them beg for it ?
Trick Number 6 — Be Likable
What your business needs at this stage is the ability to work two other principles of Influence : Liking, and Authority.
First, liking : people are quite simply more likely to say yes to those they know and like.
Who, then, do we like ?
Following are the 4 activators of likeability : implement them to your business to instantly increase how much your leads and clients like you !
According to Cialdini, the first activator is similarity.
We like individuals that are like us.
Which means that you might want to try and fit some similarity into your messaging, into your presentation of yourself or your business.
You could introduce yourself as someone who has felt the same pains, had the same dreams as they currently do.
The second activator is conditioning and associations.
We tend to like things and people that are associated with something or someone else we like : when Oprah joined Obama on the campaign trail, his approval ratings in the polls significantly increased.
The third activator is praise and compliments : Cialdini’s book refers to an experiment done on men in North Carolina, showing that praising will greatly factor in men liking the evaluator, even when they knew he had something to gain.
And the fourth and last activator is “We” : you have to make it so that your prospect feels like part of a group, a community, around your business.
You want to create a mental map within your potential customers’ heads in which they can position themselves.
To amplify this effect, it is often a good idea to create a common enemy, and of distancing yourself from this enemy by showing how unlike them you are.
“Booh, bad ! Bad person !”
Trick Number 7 — Build Authority to Gain Trust
The most interesting and deeply confusing study around authority was the Milgram experiments on obedience to authority, conducted by Yale University psychologist, Stanley Milgram.
Participants were led to believe that they were assisting an unrelated experiment, in which they had to administer electric shocks to a “learner.”
These fake electric shocks gradually increased to levels that would have been fatal had they been real (which the clueless participants thought they were !).
You’re thinking that maybe a few percent agreed to kill an innocent when given orders by an authority figure, right ?
You would have said no, right ?
The compliance rate wasn’t of 1%, nor 3%, but an astounding 63%.
Obedience to authority is an adaptive shortcut in humans, who could not master all there is to master otherwise.
And so, it makes sense that we defer authority to rely upon the judgement of someone who most likely spent a lot more time on the matter.
This is why you need to position yourself as an authority in your field, by using titles, affiliations, clothing even…
But what you need most is the ability to convey expertise.
The trick is to do so and to convey trustworthiness.
To do that, you could present a case study, in which you can both show your expertise and talk through every detail of the case, even the times when you encountered unexpected obstacles, and how you went around, over or plainly through them.
Webinars are also a great way to go about doing this.
Trick Number 8 — Consensus or “Social Proof”
There are two more principles that will allow you to seal the deal if you care to use them properly.
The first one is obvious, yet extremely powerful, and it is that of consensusn more commonly known as “social proof”. What Chip and Dan Heath make very clear in their book Made to Stick is that people will act the same as everyone around them.
The book mentions a young woman girl being raped and beaten to death under the vacant eyes of 30 people, all looking out their windows, and not one of them calling the Police or doing anything to save her in time.
The power of Consensus cost the life of this young woman, not because people are inherently mean creatures. Not at all.
She died because people were checking other people to gauge the situation and to come to a conclusion as to what they should do.
Since they all did that, no one did anything.
That is the negative power of consensus and social proof.
But this is where reviews and testimonials come in handy and can have a very positive impact on your business.
So, bask your leads in success stories !
Trick Number 9 — Scarcity
At the end of your funnel, you want to be making your offer(s).
You can’t read the next line.
Do not read it.
When the time comes to make your move, to take out the ring and ask for a serious commitment on the part or your lead, what do you do ?
Well, it is ALWAYS a good practice to put limits around your offer, and to make yourself scarce.
The rarer the opportunity, the more likely we are want it. And to want it bad.
And the more likely your leads are to act upon it.
You want to make an offer that cannot be refused.
You are going to have to find a way of making your offer feel like a once in a lifetime deal.
As a bonus, note that this is the time when you can foolproof your offer with an extremely powerful guarantee that makes your leads saying “no” an impossible alternative.
Conclusion
Your business is now armed to the teeth with extremely powerful psychological levers that you can use today to dramatically improve your lead generation and your sales.
I hope you have gained all the insights you need to take your business to the next level.
Were you to crave a conversation with me to figure out what the best strategy might be for you to significantly increase your leads and sales, feel free to contact me at : contact@joshuamattei.fr
Have a great day !