5 psychological techniques to convert online visitors (faster than ever)
It doesn’t matter what kind of product or service you offer; getting people to pay for it is a matter of understanding the psychology behind why we purchase anything at all. Increase your knowledge of customers wants and needs, leverage that to help grow your bottom line, and everyone is happier as a result. Here are five timeless tactics for making that happen:
1. Solve pain points
When you address a pain point, you create pleasure in the process. And pain-avoidance and pleasure-seeking are the two of the strongest motivators when it comes to human behavior.
What is pain, in the eyes of your audience? If you sell health supplements, perhaps it’s physical pain that you’re helping customers avoid. If you sell software-as-a-service (SaaS), then maybe you’re offering to take away the “pain” away of less efficient or more expensive alternatives.
In either case, your goal is to have the audience view what you’re selling as a source of pleasure, where pain used to exist. It’s the oldest trick in the book when it comes to marketing, the easiest to describe — but often the toughest to pull off successfully. However, it’s also the most important.
2. Include novelty
Novelty refers to uniqueness, and it’s something humans naturally crave. In fact, the part of the brain that governs reward processes has been observed to respond better to novelty than to familiarity. When we perceive something to be new or different, our brain is prompted to associate it with a high potential for reward.
This is powerful information in the context of marketing, and goes a long way toward explaining why companies continuously release “new and improved” products despite no particularly flaws in the previous iteration (think automobiles, smartphones, and computers). Don’t have the resources to develop a whole new product? An upgrade or rebranding can accomplish the same goal.
3. Offer community
It may seem like a cliche, but it’s nonetheless true that in the midst of our world of global hyper-connectedness, we’re experiencing a loneliness epidemic. Social media is a convenient scapegoat for the issue, but other tectonic social shifts are undoubtedly playing a part as well. Regardless of why, we’re collectively more in need of community and companionship than ever.
There are a number of ways to build a sense of community into your product or service, and it doesn’t really matter what approach you take, so long as it works. Effective community-building usually involves high “shareability,” intimate knowledge of your audience, and outstanding customer service. Give those things to your customers, and they’ll give you their loyalty in return.
4. Leverage social proof
If you read about marketing, you’ve likely seen this tip hammered over and over. There’s a reason — it works. Nearly 70 percent of consumers are willing to trust a word-of-mouth recommendation, making it the most effective form of marketing by far. Compare that to the 48 percent who trust social media advertisements, and you can see the power of social proof.
The way to make social proof work is simple, if not always easy: find people similar to your target audience (satisfied customers are always the best) and persuade them to speak on behalf of you and your product or service.
5. Create an enemy
To the loyal purchasers of Apple products, PC users are the enemy. See this ad for proof. Selling is largely about storytelling, and every good story has a fearsome antagonist. You’ll want one for your business, too. Anything can be an enemy — a demographic, a product, a lifestyle, or even an idea.
Leveraging this “enemy” is essentially a culmination of all the tips above. You identify a pain point and create an opportunity to make it a source of pleasure (beating the enemy), all thanks to a new product or service (novelty). In the meantime, you offer the idea of community (everyone who isn’t the enemy), and the best way to get that message across is by using social proof.
There are many other psychology-based tactics you can use to draw in leads and convert those to sales, but these are the strongest foundation from which to start. If you’re not sure how to use them within the context of your own business, start paying close attention to how other companies in your industry advertise, and see if you can spot these strategies at work. This will help you see the variety of ways they can be used, and give you ideas for how to improve your own marketing.
