Psychology and Neuromarketing in CRO-Review

Consumer psychology plays a significant role in Marketing. It helps understand your customer’s needs and the motivation it takes for them to buy your product. When you try to convert a Prospect into your Customer, you build an emotional connection between them and your product. Market research on your customer’s psychology can help you understand how people work so you can convert them.

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I’m here to share my learnings on Psychology and Neuromarketing from the CXL Institute’s Conversion Optimization Mini-degree.

To understand the role of Psychology in CRO, we need to learn,

1. Dr. Robert Cialdini’s Principles of Persuasion
2. The Fogg Behavior Model

Cialdini’s Principles of Persuasion:

Below are the 7 scientific principles of Persuasion that can influence our decision making.

Reciprocity — We don’t like to be indebted to others. You give a little something to get a little something in return.

You offer a free trial for their email and slowly nurture them with more value until you finally ask for a sale. Take Nutrition apps, for example, they offer a 14-days free personalized diet plan for your signup and let you use the features for free before showing the Premium plans.

Commitment — Being in line with Self-image. Once we are committed to doing something, we are more likely to go through and deliver it.

For example, Fitbit asks you to state your weekly goals. And once you do it, it tracks your progress and nudges you every day on your notifications bar. It’s an emotional commitment that you have made to yourself and you feel guilty when you don’t deliver it. You strive hard to keep up with the promise you made in the past.

The same applies when you go to a review site and decide to start writing. Once you have finished and about to hit the submit button, a popup appears asking you to subscribe to their newsletter. In this scenario, you have decided to write a review in the beginning and you are more likely to go through the subscription process to submit your review.

Social proof — We are more likely to trust the choices others make. Social proof is any third party unbiased proof that’s outside of the claim your company would make.

In our day to day life, we often do what other people are doing. We order food from restaurants that have more ratings. We buy things from Amazon that are “Buyer’s Pick” and has more customer reviews. Marketers tend to use this principle as an Interest point to extend credibility. Showing Logos, Reviews, Case studies, and Testimonials can increase customers' motivation to buy as it tells them in an indirect way that, “You are not the only one making this decision”.

Tips for including great Social Proof on your website:

1. Ensure your case study or testimonial reflects the ideal market you are targeting.
2. Customer review statements that support a specific claim or a pain point solution can be used as headlines on your landing page. It establishes empathy.
3. Showing Statistics with proof can be very effective unless it’s not credible or true.
4. Nobody wants to show a negative review of their product. But displaying the natural ones can help build authenticity.

Scarcity — Something in short supply, we want more! (eg. Only 1 item left at this price! Only 2 tickets left!)

This is actually proven as a very effective method of persuasion. The scarcity principle can be applied in both quantity and time. For example, mobile phone sellers nowadays sell their products in a limited quantity on a specific time period. This creates scarcity and makes the customers want to wait for the next flash sale. But remember, creating fake scarcity like telling ‘Only 50 PDFs left’ can actually backfire.

Authority — We tend to obey trustworthy figures of authority.

It is a very old but effective method of persuasion by showing relevant authority figures to sell your product. Using Athletes to sell Sports products and Movie stars to sell cosmetics are some well-known examples.

Liking — If we like someone, we are more likely to be influenced by them.

Needless to say, we are now in the world of Instagram Influencers. We admire someone’s content on Instagram, we like and follow their posts every day. Now, if that person promotes a brand or a product, we are more likely to consider buying them. An example of using this principle on a website is including employees' bio on your About us page. Through this, you establish a personal connection and similarity with your customers.

Unity — It’s all about appealing the ‘We’.

You will certainly have goals in life. This principle indicates that sharing your values among a group and trying to work them together can actually improve the chances of achieving them. Example: Crossfit (Come join our cult!)

The Fogg Behavior Model

This model explains 3 psychological elements in a mathematical equation form to increase the Conversion Rate.

Behavior/Action = Motivation * Ability * Trigger (MAT)

Motivation is the primary driving element on your website that boosts the existing desire or motivation of a visitor in buying your product.

Ability is making sure the action you want your visitor to take is easily available or affordable for them.

Trigger is tapping the existing motivation at the right time using ways like promotional emails.

Role of Neuromarketing in CRO

A field of marketing that uses medical techniques to study the brain’s response to certain marketing stimuli. For example, using EEG and Biometrics, one can find out which part of the brain is lighting up while viewing an Ad.

Each layer of our brain has its own function. The new brain Thinks, the middle brain Feels, and the old brain is responsible for Decision making. Hence you need to sell your product to the old brain which can only be triggered by a few factors.

-The old brain cares only about its survival. Hence show how it can benefit from your offer instead of explaining only about the features.

-Show Contrast — Before and After using your product.

-Tangible — Showing grasping words like ‘More Money’.

-Apply Novelty — Novel means unknown. Not knowing something yet sustains the attention.

-Visual and Emotion — Use visual images and emotions to communicate.

There goes my learning for this week. The topics discussed in the course are extensive and highlights the importance of Psychology in CRO.

Next week I will be continuing my writing on the topics Google Analytics and Landing Page Optimization.

Thanks for reading and do let me know your thoughts on the comments! :)