It’s one thing to produce products, services, optins, newsletters, content and more, but it’s another to optimize all of this to ensure that you don’t leave money on the table. In the book You Are Not So Smart,David McRaney’s highlights the ways in which we’re deluded into thinking we are rationale individuals and yet we all fall prey to the whims of psychology. Marketing Psychology affects us all and smart marketers and website owners employ the following tactics to increase sales and conversions.
1. Reciprocity Principle
Reciprocity in social psychology simply means that when someone does something positive for you, you feel more cooperative and more likely to do something positive in return. This social obligation is rampant in all aspects of our lives.
Norbert Schwarz found that even a small thing such as a finding a dime can put you in a better mood and help you feel more satisfied. Even low value items can have a positive impact on your feelings.
Two points to note:
- To create goodwill the ‘gift’ does not have to be valuable or big.
- If you ‘give’ as a surprise, reciprocity works much betters.
For marketers, reciprocity can produce lots of benefits such as gaining new customers, customer retention and increasing customer loyalty.
Here is an example from Hubspot that generates good will. Free eBooks are fairly common so this novel approach is quite refreshing.
You receive free business stock images but in return Hubspot collects some key information about you and your contact details they can use for marketing.
How can you use this? If you have an e-commerce business for example, first time customers can be provided with a 10% coupon off their next order. Zappos is a company that upgraded all orders to next day delivery for free. It’s a great way to reinforce a positive consumer experience and increase loyalty.
Key Takeaway: Give away something first and you will increase the likelihood of return loyalty. If you can make it a surprise your customers will appreciate it even more. The gift you provide does not need to be valuable.
2. Don’t Forget the Golden Rule
Attractiveness has its benefits and as Harvard University and others of have discovered, it can also help increase your likeability and your trustworthiness. Attractive website design that follows the conventional rules of beauty can also benefit in the same way.
You may be familiar with the term the Golden Ration which is a concept regarding proportions and is used in areas such as architecture, art and design. The Golden Ration is depicted as a spiral which is derived from the Fibonacci sequence. Sea shells, galaxies and hurricanes all spiral following the golden ratio!
So what does this have to do with website design? If you follow the Golden Ratio you can be sure to create a website that is visually appealing. Check out this visual guide by Pencil Scoop on understanding and using the golden ratio in web design.
Key Takeaway: In the pursuit of making a unique website do not abandon the basic principles of web design.
3. Color Psychology
Color matters, period. Satyendra Singh’s review of color psychology found that people make up their minds about a product within 90 seconds and 62%-90% of that decision is based on color alone. The implications of this means that color can have a huge impact on conversions and sales.
First let’s take a quick look at color with regards to branding. This test was devised by artist and product designer Marc Hemeon and here are a few examples. Can you guess the brands purely from the color of the buttons? (Answers in the comments!)
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