Month: January 2021

This is the second in a 12 part blog series, where I review CXL Institute’s ‘Digital Psychology and Persuasion’ Minidegree. Each week I share my learnings and opinions on the courses taken and take you along my journey. Today we will explore two new courses I took this week: i) Decision Making and Emotions, and ii) Learning and Memory. We will build an understanding on customer behavior and what drives them to make a decision.

---

Decisions, Decisions, Everywhere

As an adult we make decisions everyday. Some decisions seem important, whereas others might seem trivial. So how many such decisions do we make every day? A study from Cornell found that we make about 227 decisions every day, just about food! When extrapolated, this would mean that we make about 1 million decisions per month! That’s a whole lot of decision-making for one individual, and these decisions are essentially what guides an individual’s actions.

The ability to understand these decision making processes becomes a potent tool to strategize towards favorable customer behavior. This helps us to think and answer questions like:

• What decisions do we want a customer to make?
• How can we reduce the amount of energy required to make a decision?
• When is the customer most likely to make a favorable decision?

Our Brain is a Dual Processing Unit

Bart Schutz, at CXL Live 2016, gave a talk on ‘Persuasive Journey Mapping’. He is a consumer psychologist and one of the few international leading voices on online persuasion and consumer behavior. He discussed the concept of BIG.

Behavioral Intelligence Gap

This is the gap between the behavioral experiments we conduct on customers and our understanding of their behavior. Catch this fascinating and informative session by Bart below:

To interpret user behavior and how we can persuade it to our advantage, we must get a better understanding of the functioning of the brain. Our brain can be thought of as a dual processing unit, comprising of the following two systems:

System 1	System 2
Subconscious, emotional brain	Conscious, rational brain

System 1

This is the fully automated and emotional part of the brain and is always working. It is characterized by its associative and relative nature. Therefore, implicit/indirect associations can also invoke a desired response.

System 2

This is the voluntary part of the brain which gives us awareness, the power of imagination and logical reasoning by projecting itself in the future. However, system 2 is not always involved as it prefers to remain absent but when it is present, it needs complete focus and can deal with only a limited amount of information.

What actually drives our decisions?

We like to believe that we are guided by rationale while making a decision. But that can’t be farther from the truth. What’s causing this illusion is the fact that we post-decision rationalize. We come with rationales and reasons after we have already taken the decision. The System 2 is constantly trying to come up with the best logics to explain our decision. They are not the logics that caused the decision but are just a way to comfort ourselves that we are a rational being.

Therefore, when testing for conversions, both these systems must be kept in mind. System 1 is always at work; whereas, system 2 shows up every now and then. So our tasks are:

• To find out when System 2 is at work
• And, when and which system of the two is persuaded with what arguments

Master the Moment of Decision

At the moment of every decision the following factors must align:

It must grab your Attention, it must draw an Emotional Response from you and it needs to be loaded in your Memory.

Attention

How we actually see the world in front of us is a lot different than the visuals we are currently processing. Our brain only focuses on a certain subject in front of us, and the rest of the frame is blurry and not in color. The brain fills up the rest of the periphery from memory.

Similarly when a user visits a website, they only see a fraction of what is on the screen. It is our job to strategically draw attention where it is required and use visual cues to guide the website visitor.

Emotions and Feelings

Emotions are unconscious, a low level response and feelings are conscious. As the low level emotional response begins to rise and as you begin to become conscious of it, it becomes a feeling.

As has been discussed earlier, the decision making power largely lies with System 1, the emotional part of the brain. Drawing an emotional response is the key to influencing a favorable decision from the customer.

Memory

And finally, it must evoke a positive memory. Past experiences can impact future decision making.

Studies have shown that when something positive results from a decision, people are more likely to decide in a similar way, given a similar situation.

Psychology of Learning

Let’s explore some unique learning processes:

1. Classical Conditioning: This is a process in which an association is formed between a previously neutral stimulus and a stimulus that naturally evokes a response.
2. Operant Conditioning: This process attempts to modify behavior through the use of positive and negative reinforcement. For example, by rewarding or punishing a kid for some behavior, or by rewarding customer with loyalty programs.
3. Observational Learning: Learning occurs through observing and imitating others. Requires: attention (degree to which the observer notices the behavior), retention (forms memory of the behavior), reproduction (ability to imitate the behavior), motivation (perceived rewards must outweigh perceived costs).

Psychology of Memory

Three major processes involved in memory:

1. Encoding: This is how  information is changed into a usable form.
2. Storage: Once the information has been encoded it is stored in memory for later use.
3. Retrieval: Stored memory is brought into consciousness when it is to be used.

How to apply this to online marketing?

When users visit a site, the information on the web page must be dispensed in such a form that it is easy to process and acquire. The effectiveness of these marketing strategies can later be understood by testing how well the users were able to retrieve that information from their memory.

---

With all the access to this new knowledge on behavioral psychology of customers, there is a new gap that is emerging. The gap between your knowledge about customers’ behavior and the customers’ knowledge, where they still believe they are in control. Therefore, the ethical thing would be to openly share this ever evolving knowledge of user behavior with everyone.

Next week, I will further discuss my learnings and opinions from the next few courses I take in the Minidegree. To stay updated with my weekly blogs and explore the ‘Digital Psychology and Persuasion’ Minidegree with me, subscribe to my blog.

Until then, explore the various programs offered by CXL, by clicking on the link below:

This is the first in a 12 part blog series, where I will be reviewing CXL Institute’s ‘Digital Psychology and Persuasion’ Minidegree. Each week I will share my learnings and opinions on the courses taken and take you along my journey.

If you are into marketing, as a professional or just starting out, chances are you already have consumed brilliant, in-depth blogs by CXL on Growth and Optimization or heard about CXL’s founder Peep Laja. I believe this information is more than enough to lock in the credibility of CXL Institute and the value it has to offer; but if not, follow me along for the next 11 weeks, as I share my experience with them.

What is CXL Institute?

It’s an advanced level marketing training institute, which offers deep skills in growth, customer acquisition, analytics, and conversion optimization. A wide array of courses and programs taught by industry experts and top practitioners, makes CXL Institute an amazing platform to advance as a marketer.

Currently, they provide 7 in-depth training programs, well curated as ‘Minidegrees’ – they are:

1. Conversion Optimization
2. Customer Acquisition
3. Digital Analytics
4. Digital Psychology and Persuasion
5. Growth Marketing
6. Technical Marketing
7. Technical Content Marketing

With the eighth Minidegree on ‘Transactional Analysis’ launching soon in February 2021.

Google, Cisco, Ikea, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Symantec – are some of the companies that train their teams at CXL.

Why I chose ‘Digital Psychology and Persuasion’ Minidegree?

Marketing and Psychology are inextricably linked, former can’t work without the understanding of the latter. As I began to dive into the field of Digital Marketing, I realized that no amount of technical knowledge on marketing tools could produce great results without an understanding of customer behavior and habits.

In comes the Minidegree by CXL, where they offer proven psychological frameworks to improve websites, understand behavior, and influence purchase patterns.

The specialization spans across the following areas:

• Neuromarketing
• Persuasion
• Applied Behavioral Psychology

and offers 22 courses in total and a certification upon passing the final exam.

I am very grateful to the CXL Team for providing me a scholarship to this program, as I haven’t seen anything so comprehensive and well curated. It is an amazing opportunity to learn from top practitioners and advance as a marketer.

What is my first impression of the Minidegree?

The CXL Institute markets themselves as an intense and deep learning experience. One of their ad taglines being:

First of all, how witty is that!

And secondly, it’s not just some witty fluff. The program does go beyond rudiments and I was pleasantly surprised with how much I had learned just in the introductory course. To mention one lesson – A Big List Of Persuasion Techniques; well, BIG IT WAS, alright!

This Minidegree has to offer 56 hours 06 minutes of valuable content. Since, the courses are pure gold and I am truly expanding my mind, I am thoroughly enjoying going through them.

So going by the deep and intensive learning experience I’ve had so far, and with the wide array of training they offer, I can see how this platform could become a firehose to drink from. But hey, too much value and content to learn from? Well, that’s one problem I don’t mind having!

---

Let’s explore what I learned in Week 1!

This week I went through the following two courses:

1. People and Psychology:

This course covers the psychological principles that drive human behavior, how the human brain works and makes decisions. The lessons are rich with examples and intriguing research work to further explain the principles discussed. Let’s briefly go through few of the topics covered within this course:

Cialdini’s 7 Principles:

Cialdini in his book ‘Influence’ gave seven principles from the perspective of how not to get taken advantage of, here we learn how we can use them to boost conversion. Principles like social proof and scarcity always work.

Fogg Behavior Model:

Three elements must come together at the same time for a behavior to occur: motivation, ability, and trigger. When a behavior doesn’t occur, at least one of the three elements is missing.

Since design impacts behavior, we can intentionally design for certain behaviors. Ultimately, our  aim is to make a trigger at a point of high motivation and to simply the action to be taken, so as to ease ability.

Lessons from Neuromarketing:

We learn about the ‘Old Brain’ or the reptilian brain, which is the most ancient and primitive part of our brain and is wired purely for survival. Every decision a human makes lies with this part of the brain. We learn what stimuli trigger this part of our brain and how to use them to our advantage and sell more.

Emotional and Rational Decision Making:

As stated above the decision lies with the Old Brain which represents the emotional part of our brain and the rational part plays a very small role in it. At the end of the day, people buy because they want to. No amount of logic and reason can pursue them into making a decision to buy your product, unless they want, which is why it becomes all the more important to evoke an emotional response towards your product from the customer.

2. Attention Basics:

In this course we learn the processes of garnering customer’s attention and how to maintain it. Oftentimes it isn’t the lack of interest from the user but the fault lies in our failure to grab their attention. This course has interesting case studies to further explore the theories discussed. Let’s briefly go through few of the topics covered within this course:

First Impressions:

First impressions are formed very quickly and changing them is a hard task even when provided with facts. In the ecommerce world, first impressions are formed when someone visits our website. Four factors should be kept in mind to influence the visitor’s first impression favorably: visual design, value propositions, compelling imagery and graphics and a personal touch that exudes trustworthiness.

Cognitive Load:

Cognitive load is the amount of mental energy that is required to process something. Our aim is to always break down information into small steps so that it is easier for the customer to understand and take action on. Complex and ineffective forms of dispensing information can make a customer distracted and dissuade them from taking desirable action.

Understanding Online Reading Behavior:

People usually follow the following patterns when reading online:

1. F-pattern: Initially people start by scanning along the first horizontal line. If the initial words interest them, they continue to read or else abandon it completely and move down vertically to another horizontal line covering the lesser area, and so on.
2. Layer cake pattern: If the reader has committed to reading, then they move on to layer cake pattern, where they scan along horizontal lines quickly in sections that strike their interest.
3. Spotted Pattern: When they continue to show interest, they will move on to spotted patterns looking for main ideas.

Therefore, to optimize the reading experience we must make our text more scannable.

---

You can explore the specialization by clicking on the button below:

Next week I will further discuss my learnings and opinions from the next few courses I take in the Minidegree. To stay updated with my weekly blogs and explore the ‘Digital Psychology and Persuasion’ Minidegree with me, subscribe below: