Consumer Psychology: 4 Ways To Increase Your Conversion Rate
The foundation of every successful business should be quality and service. Even more so for the big players in the market. But, while this is important, what happens when your competitors follow the same tenets?
How do you gain the edge over the competition?
Simple, you find your edge by adopting the principles of consumer psychology. There is possibly no better definition of this topic than how it was described by consumer psychology expert Michael Fishman, “Consumer psychology is all about getting into that unconscious territory where people are being directed to make purchases for reasons they are not clear about.”
Psychologists have identified the cognitive processes that help explain consumers’ choices and how they respond to different marketing stimuli.
Big brands have been using consumer psychology to help increase their sales for years. But, the secret is out and everyone should be leveraging these principles to help seal the deal. Big and small businesses alike.
So let’s get started. Learn how these simple strategies based on consumer psychology can increase your conversions and sales…
1 Discounts & Convenience Are All The Rage
Discounts work on the principle of urgency, as they are only available for a certain period of time.
According to the Pleasure Principle and the Regulatory Focus Theory, people seek pleasure to avoid pain. The anticipation of missing out on a discount is a definite pain point people want to avoid.
Do you have an e-commerce store?
In 2013, a global survey by RetailMeNot, found that of its 10,009 participants, 51% agreed they were influenced by deals, discounts or sales when shopping online. Using price anchoring, coupons and discounts, retailers can encourage customers to:
Add specific items to their cart (including excess inventory, higher-margin products or out-of-season goods)
Discover new, related products to complement product launches, and
Spend above a specified minimum order total
However, consumers are getting smarter and competition is getting fierce. So, how do you stand out? Add an extra layer - convenience.
Consider Amazon. Specifically the Amazon Kindle store.
What makes them successful is the convenience they offer by their “Buy Now With 1-Click”, “Read for Free”, Kindle, Hardcover and Audiobook options. You are offered top notch deals, choices and prices that are one of the most competitive in the market.
Make sure you are adapting a sales strategy that includes both convenience and discounts.
2 Improve Your Website’s User Experience
For Google, consumers and customer support staff alike - just do it.
Enhance your user satisfaction by improving how users interact with your website, applications and devices. Make your complex processes easier to navigate.
Psychology plays a big part in the way a user experiences your website. By understanding how designs are perceived, we can make changes that are more effective for the user.
There are a number of UX processes and principles that should be considered in your content and design:
Make your design digestible. Incorporate psychology principles in your design for optimal conversion. Your user shouldn’t spend a lot of time and energy figuring out what they’re looking at.
Provide clarity in your messaging and pricing. No purchases will be made if the consumer can’t figure out what they’re paying for. Break down the costs as best you can.
Be honest and trustworthy. Before asking your user to complete an action, make sure they know why certain information is needed. Added to that, reiterate your safe and secure checkouts.
Lastly, optimise for mobile. In 2017, we saw the number of USA mobile users overtake that of desktop. Following this, Google announced the rollout of their mobile-first indexing algorithm. Make sure you’re ready.
3 Offer First Class Customer Support
Technical glitches happen and, even when they don’t, customers still have questions. Whatever the reason, make sure you have a team of customer support consultants ready to help your users.
In the time of the online review, you can't afford to not put your customer first. For some comic relief, here are 25 examples of the worst possible customer experiences.
According to Gartner, 80% of online customers want to connect with customer support before making a decision about their purchase. This indicates that customers online want the same type of service they would usually receive in a brick and mortar store (go figure).
Ensure excellent customer support is an intrinsic part of your marketing strategy. Also, consider the following:
Be accessible. Make sure your customer service centre is easy to locate in both the physical and digital environment.
Look for common ground with your customers. Psychologists call is “implicit egotism”, which means people like others who are similar to them.
Ask for feedback. This is not only good for your internal strategies, but it makes consumers feel like they matter.
Keep this statistic in mind. 42% of consumers are likely to purchase more after experiencing a good customer service.
4 Get Inside Their Heads, Use Neuromarketing
For everything else, there’s Neuromarketing.
When it comes to conversion insights, you are still running on qualified data that cannot be attributed to a single action. Biometric technologies can effectively help you make conclusions about your consumers’ purchase behaviour.
Neuromarketers help businesses by auditing their websites and landing pages from a psychological perspective. By doing so they are able to identify the exact elements needing to be adapted to boost conversions quickly.
Traditionally, businesses would have to AB test their web pages and see which of them were producing ‘wins’. This process usually takes time. Needless to say, using the services of a reputable Neuromarketing firm eradicates the guesswork and months of experimentation.
While data tells you what has been done, psychology has the ability to tell us what will be done.
Is your business adopting consumer psychology in its marketing efforts? If not, now may be a good time to start.
