February 2021 - Neelofur Shahab

February 28, 2021February 23, 2021

Design Tactics for Behavior UI | CXL Minidegree Review

This is the sixth in a 12 part blog series, where I review CXL Institute’s ‘Digital Psychology and Persuasion’ Minidegree. This week I took two new courses: i) Influence and Interactive Design, and ii) Digital Psychology & Behavioral Design Training.

There are different cycles of communication between a source and audience. It can be a one-way cycle, where the source sends a message to the audience. In a two way cycle, the source and audience are engaging in a communication back and forth. When it comes to digital relationships, it is called mediated relationship. The audience doesn’t interact directly with us, but the communication takes place over a mediated form like websites, social media, email, texts, etc.So our apps, websites, products in many ways become a mediated persona, and that’s what a brand is. A brand is a humanized abstraction to which the audience ascribes a personality to. This is why branding is important, that is how the audience understands who they are dealing with.

Popular ways to define a brand’s personality is through i) editorial guidelines (fun, casual way of communicating “yay! You’re back”, and ii) visual components.

People Conceptualize Things

People think about the world based on concepts, these are called – schemas, mental models or representations. We form concepts based on our experiences, it’s not just what we saw but also what we felt, smelled, tasted, and all other sensory experiences. These emotions get tied up with our mental model.

So when it comes to help someone understand the world what it means is to play on their pre-existing concepts. When we introduce something new, it can become a bit hard because we have nothing to latch onto. We know that logical reasoning is the least persuasive. So when it comes to persuading someone’s intellect, we must influence how they conceptualize the world and help them build a mental model that makes sense to them. We can achieve that through the framing, which is the art of how you represent something. We present our digital product in a way that allows people to conceptualize it and help them understand it faster. The ultimate aim is that no user should leave the product page without an understanding on what is being offered.

Motivation

Neurobiologists have expanded on Maslow’s Hierearchy of Needs as a concept of hierarchy of motivation. We can use this motivational framework to understand the incentives, so those opportunities that drive behavior, and loss-aversion, so those insecure emotions that also drive behavior.

Any time we promise people that we’ll give them something that is one of these motivators, that’s what we call the incentive. Anything in their stress quadrant that we use for loss-aversion, it’s a motivator. If you just threaten people without an opportunity for them to act isn’t loss-aversion, it’s fear mongering. Fear mongering does not motivate people, in fact, it might lead to learned helplessness. Loss-aversion is about fear message, but fear messages don’t work on their own, it needs to be followed with an incentive.

Loss-aversion vs Motivator

Emotional impact of loss is felt greater than the same value of gain. This means humans are more loss-averse. Motivators that drive us tend to be more short-lived, whereas stress response tends to linger and our safety depends a bit more on it.

Motivational model from the point of view of one neurotransmitter and one hormone.

Dopamine: It is a neurotransmitter. It plays a role in our motivational circuitry, in activating curiosity, interests where a person will move towards a reward, engagement. It also plays a role in getting someone curious, motivated or moving them forward in taking action. Then if the expected rewards aren’t found, it teaches them disappointment and reinforces them to not be interested in the future. This is why we must always under promise and over deliver. When we talk about incentives, we are talking about triggering a dopamine response and getting someone to pay attention.

Cortisol: It is one of the many stress responses. We can use pressure techniques and different things to trigger a little bit of loss-aversion, that stress response also motivates people at the same time. The trick is to keep them at the right level, because too much stress without consequence, wouldn’t motivate people.

Pressure Tactics

Try to reduce accidental stress inducers, such as errors, because we don’t want to build them up. Pressure can motivate people, but after a point they might not take any action if they feel tremendous stress.

Never use false pressures because people hate lies based on false pressure rather than the lie based on false incentives.

Use pressure tactics like: time limits, quantity limits, scarcity techniques, competitors.

Social Influence

It is what happens when it’s not just about the relationship between the source and the audience but it’s more about the third party in the audience. To turn on social influence we just need to make people aware of the presence of others. They have to watch what others are doing or feel that others are watching them. The source can never have full credibility. We will have to rely on social influence to help people figure out whether they should get something or not.

Deciding

This is where you help your users make up their minds.

One main design tool for decision making is pricing tables. They aren’t transparent lists of pros and cons, but a persuasive design pattern. It is as much a self contained design pattern architected to get someone to make a very specific choice. A decoy is a product that is not designed to sell. But if you sell them well and good, because they are a total rip off present to make other offers look far more attractive.

Reinforcer

It is anything that increases the odds that our audience will take action again. It can include rewards or even punishments given to the audience. Every time to reward someone after an action we are reinforcing the odds that they will do it again. Showing appreciation or gratitude is another great way to add positive reinforcement. Victory graphics. It strengthens motivation in the long term and also creates a good and positive user experience.

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:

Explore CXL

February 21, 2021February 19, 2021

How to Build Habits and Loyalty in Your Customers | CXL Minidegree Review

This is the fifth in a 12 part blog series, where I review CXL Institute’s ‘Digital Psychology and Persuasion’ Minidegree. This week I took two new courses: i) Building Trust, and ii) Building Habits and Loyalty. In today’s blog we will discuss how to engage and retain customers.

Once we get people to become our first time customers, our goal is to make them stay and build a long lasting relationship with them. Customers will keep coming back to you if they like your product, but the real way to retain them is by creating habits. A habit is a behavior done with little or no conscious thought. Let’s discuss some ways we can shape the customers’ preferences and form habits.

Get Them Hooked!

Nir Eyal proposes the “Hook Model” in his book ‘Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products’. The hook is an experience designed to connect the user’s problem to your solution, with enough frequency to form a habit. The hook works in a loop and involves the following phases:

1. Trigger

A trigger nudges the customer to take an action, It can be of two types:

i) External Trigger:

It can be in the form of a notification, email or ad. It should tell the customer what to do and also provide the ability to do it. The goal is to, over a period of time, internalize this behavior so that external triggers are no longer required.

ii) Internal Trigger:

It arises from an emotion in the customer. External trigger is no longer required but comes through an association in the user’s memory, the user already knows what to do. Once a user starts using your products from internal triggers, you know you have become a habitual product.

2. Action

A successful trigger results in an action, where the user actually does something. For an action to take place after the trigger, the customer should have two things: motivation and ability to do it.

3. Reward

Once the user takes the desired action, they will get a reward. Rewards are not given instantaneously and are variable to keep the novelty and anticipation alive. The anticipation of the reward is more powerful than the reward itself, which is further heightened by stimulating variability. The behavior that results into a reward should be the simplest possible task so that it can be done frequently.

4. Investment

Investment into a product is when users store some value while using it and hope for some return in the future. This is the final phase in the hook, and it should be able to load the next trigger keeping the process going in a loop. This increases the likelihood of the next return and helps in shaping user habits.

All Customers Like Receiving Rewards

62 percent of customers don’t feel like the brands they’re loyal to do enough in return. What better way to make your customers feel valued than to reward them. Since, rewards redemption increases reward-seeking behavior, this simultaneously acts as a way to encourage them to return consistently. Professor of Psychology Jack Mearns explains, “The likelihood of a person exhibiting a particular behavior is a function of the probability that that behavior will lead to a given outcome and the desirability of that outcome”.

You should structure your reward programs in such a manner that they bring value to both: you and your customers. There are two types of reward systems:

1. Fixed Reward

Also known as reinforcements, these rewards are awarded when the customer reaches a fixed threshold. The basic idea is when you reward a certain behavior, you encourage them to exhibit more of it. For example, a cafe can reward their frequent customers by making every tenth cup of coffee free. Predictable fixed rewards as these, where they know when to expect it, encourages customers to put in the effort to reach the reward. Customers who successfully attain a reward exhibit increased effort and drive in subsequent attempts to reach the goal. “The rewards need to come often enough so that there is reinforcement. At the same time, it can’t be too close. Then it wouldn’t be meaningful”, says Xavier Dreze, Professor of Marketing at Wharton and UCLA.

Starbucks offers a fixed reward to its customer after they earn a specific number of stars.

2. Variable Reward

Variable rewards are the random and surprising delights awarded to customers in forms of a offer, discount or freebie. Although random, these rewards should be desirable and result into customer engagement and retention. Surprise reward makes the customer feel special and creates a positive association with the brand. They are more likely to return to experience that positive emotion again.

Variable or surprise reward by McDonald's — McDonald’s offers a surprise reward after a good Raptors game.

Win Your Customer’s Loyalty

The kind of loyalty we want to generate is the one that comes from true emotions and experience. Getting people into rewards programs does not convert them into loyal customers. Just 13 percent of customers are complete loyalists who never shop around.

Rewards ≠ Loyalty

Rewards programs are best to be used as an incentive to encourage people to come into your environment and give them a great customer experience. Then, overtime the combination of rewards and good customer experience will win you their loyalty.

Rewards + Great CX = Loyalty

Goal Gradient Effect

Pioneered by Clark Hull, it states that the tendency to approach a goal increases with proximity to the goal. A study by Columbia University researchers studied the effects of the goal gradient effect in relation to real reward programs and found that members purchased more frequently the closer they were to earning a reward; and a stronger tendency to accelerate toward the goal predicts greater retention and faster reengagement in the program.

What this means for us is that the closer the customers feel to reach the reward, the more likely they are to increase to their efforts to achieve it. Similarly, the farther they feel the reward is, the lower is the desirability and motivation to achieve it.

Endowed Progress Effect

Which reward proposition looks more promising?

Dreze and Nunes further documented a phenomenon which they call the endowed progress effect. They found that it wasn’t just the proximity to the goal that induced additional effort, but the perception of progress toward the goal. In other words, as long as customers perceive that they are making progress towards a goal or reward, they will increase their efforts as a result.

Favorable ways to employ this effect would be to show customers their progress and give them a “head-start” at it. The psychology behind this is that nobody likes starting at zero, and can be very demotivating. So a “head-start”, even if illusionary, gives a notion of progress and encourages customers to make efforts to reach the reward.

Once you acquire a customer, the next step is to find ways to retain them. Building habit forming products, a good reward program and great customer experience is what makes customers loyal. Ensure the reward proposition is desirable and achievable.

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

Explore CXL

February 14, 2021February 14, 2021

What is Social Proof and How to Use it | CXL Minidegree Review

This is the fourth in a 12 part blog series, where I review CXL Institute’s ‘Digital Psychology and Persuasion’ Minidegree. This week I took two new courses: i) Nonconscious Motivation, and ii) Cognitive Biases. In today’s blog we will discuss how to use social proof as a nonconscious motivator and how it creates a bandwagon effect.

Your Customers Don’t Trust You!

Historically, marketers and advertisers aren’t trusted by people and more often than not, are considered liars. This might bring up uncertainty and fears in your customers regarding your product or services.

When humans encounter fear or uncertainty they instinctively look at others for guidance and safety. Consumers trust other consumers’ word 12 times more than the brand description. This is why we must employ social proof effectively: to remove any doubts and fears a customer might have and to influence purchase behavior in them.

Social Proof is More than Just Reviews

Robert Cialdini in his book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, gave seven principles of nonconscious motivators. One of them is social proof, that is, “we view a behavior as more correct in a given situation to the degree that we see others performing it”. Psychologists call this conformity, herd behavior, or the bandwagon effect. Simply put, people tend to do what other people are doing.

Be it customers’ doubts, fears, uncertainties or any other source of friction, social proof is frequently used to alleviate any pain points and guide customers towards the best product choice. It is evidence of or from others, like us.

6 Types of Social Proof

1. Case Studies:

It is referred as a longform social proof, a data-driven, in-depth analysis of the product or service you provided a current customer with. Use this to highlight success stories of your customers.

2. Testimonials:

Testimonials are one of the most persuasive form of social proof. These are simple, short-form recommendations from happy customers. Make sure to complement a testimonial with a good quality customer picture, as it increases “truthiness”. Testimonials are more likely to be believed when it has a corresponding picture.

CXL Institute uses testimonials from students on the Digital Psychology Minidegree.

3. Reviews:

BrightLocal found that 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Use this social proof to display positive feedback from actual users. One interesting tidbit of information from BrightLocal’s survey is that people don’t just trust the first review they see. On average, consumers check 2-3 different review sites before making a decision about a business.

Customer reviews and ratings on Amazon has helped it grow as the largest online retailer.

4. Social Media:

Praise from current customers and/or brand advocates in the form of tweets, Facebook posts, Instagram comments, shares, follow counts, engagement counts, etc. Endorsements from influencers on social media is also picking up pace at a rapid rate. Influencer marketing has been considered the fastest-growing consumer-acquisition channel.

Social shares is one of the popular ways to use social media for social proof.

5. Trust Icons:

This can include: badges, seals, certifications, awards won, mentions in media outlets, etc. It is a popular approach to establishing credibility, which is usually as simple as displaying meaningful icons and logos. Placing the logos of business customers on a company website can increase conversions by as much as 400%, according to Voices.com.

Sprout Social uses logos of popular organizations to establish credibility.

6. Data/Numbers:

This is a quantified metric of customers served, number of subscribers, etc. Showing how many customers, subscribers or users you have shows people think what you’re offering is valuable. People feel comfortable joining a crowd and have a desire to belong to a group.

HubSpot shares its impressive achievements in a *quantified* form.

3 Steps to Harness Social Proof Efficiently

Angie Schottmuller, Forbes Top 10 Online Marketer 2015, in her CXL Live 2016 session talked about social proof power plays. Catch this fascinating and informative session by Angie below:

She discussed the following 3 steps to efficiently harness the power of social media:

STEP #1

Identify your audiences fears, anxieties, questions and doubts.

Angie says, “The social proof psychology principle says that when people are uncertain, they’ll most likely look to others for behavioral guidance. In order to harness this concept for persuasion, marketers must first identify the uncertainties of their customers and then buffer accordingly with appropriate social proof.”

STEP #2

Brainstorm and inventory 6S formats to buffer audience’s fear/questions.

Oftentimes, people believe they don’t have any social proof to display or use. But social proof has a wider scope than just reviews and testimonials. Consider doing an inventory using the following 6S format to explore various options you might already have.

6S Formats of Social Proof:

Sum it. Score it. Say it. Sign it. Show it. Shine it.

Sum it: Quantified metric of numbers of active users, subscribers, etc.
Score it: Qualitive metric of reviews in the form of ratings, for example, 4 out of 5 stars; or rankings, for example, top 10 selling products.
Say it: Reviews, expert Q&A, forums, podcast bits, etc.
Sign it: Source of ratings and reviews, mark with ‘who said it’, names of consumers, etc.
Show it: Visual display of logos of business customers.
Shine it: Approval seals, certifications, awards, badges, etc.

STEP #3

Know the quality of your social proof.

When it comes to making a conversion impact, quality trumps quantity. We only want to display social proof if its persuasive enough to encourage conversions. If poorly implemented it can backfire and negatively impact conversion rates. Therefore, it becomes imperative to put the quality of our social proof to test before implementing them. Angie suggests the CRAVENS model to assess its quality and how to score it.

7 Factors of Social Proof Persuasion Quality:

Credible: Believable, authentic, trustworthy;
Relevant: Meaningful, applicable, timestamped;
Attractive: Whether creates an emotional trigger;
Visual: Pictured, graphed, viewable;
Enumerated: Quantified, scored, ranked;
Nearby: Proximity to the fears/uncertainties;
Specific: Descriptive, detailed, precise.

Score each of the factors above, depending on how well they meet the criteria mentioned, using the following standard:

SCORING: 3 = Exceptional, 2 = Good, 1 = OK, 0 = Missing, -5 = Bad

Sum the scores of all seven factors, and access the persuasion quality depending on where it lies on the scorecard:

Negative = -35 to 0

Weak = 1 to 5

Neutral = =6 to 10

Helpful = 11 to 15

Persuasive = 16 to 21

This scorecard is a good indicator of how effective the social proof will be in reducing the fears and anxieties of the customers, to help with the conversions.

Social proof is a cost-effective nonconscious motivator every business should take advantage of. Use the approval and popularity of your product/service among your existing users to acquire new customers. Assess different social proof formats and identify which works best in your favor. As venture capitalist and blogger Aileen Lee says, “Think of it as building the foundation for massively scalable word-of-mouth.”

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

Explore CXL

February 7, 2021February 7, 2021

How to Apply Neuromarketing to Increase Conversions | CXL Minidegree Review

This is the third in a 12 part blog series, where I review CXL Institute’s ‘Digital Psychology and Persuasion’ Minidegree. Today we will explore two new courses I took this week: i) Intro to Neuromarketing, and ii) Applied Neuromarketing. We will build an understanding on principles of Neuromarketing and how to use them to appeal to a user’s entire brain and consequently increase conversions.

CXL Institute comes through again with amazing top-notch instructors. The ‘Intro to Neuromarketing’ course is taught by Roger Dooley, author of popular books ‘Brainfluence’ and ‘The Persuasion Slide’. The ‘Applied Neuromarketing’ course is taught by Andre Moreys who’s a co-founder of a global optimization group.

Let’s explore some ideas of Neuromarketing that you can use to improve your conversions.

Roger Dooley’s Framework for Increasing Conversions

Dooley created a framework to resolve decision making for optimization by creating a ‘Persuasion Slide’ analogous to a children’s slide. It incorporates persuasion psychology and has four elements. Each element has both: a non-conscious and conscious component to it.

Gravity

It represents the customer’s initial motivation, needs, wants and goals. Just as a child can’t slide down without gravity, a conversion can’t be made without motivation. This is what the customer comes with, not something we create in them. Try asking yourselves, why the customer has come to you? We should focus on how we can help them and align with our customers’ needs and wants, i.e. work with gravity! Our aim is to enhance the natural intrigue in our product.

Nudge

It is the initial step of encouraging the customer towards conversion. The two key elements of a nudge are: it has to be seen and it must start the process. For example, with pop-ups, CTAs, etc. Always remain focused on the customer’s needs as a nudge without motivation will be ineffective.

Angle

The angle of the slides is what brings the movement in the child. Similarly, it is the external conscious and non-conscious motivation we provide to further encourage the conversion. Conscious motivators can be discounts and gifts, and nonconscious motivators can be the trigger of emotions and biases.

Friction

The friction in a slide works against the movement towards conversion. It can be a real or perceived difficulty in the conversion sequence. Minimizing friction always costs less than increasing motivation.

Are You Still Optimizing for Conversion?

Though eventually we want to see our conversions improve, it isn’t what we should direct our focus at when optimizing. Consider this common conversion sequence:

Traffic to a website —> Perception —> Limbic System —> Behavior —> Conversion

It is the change in customer behavior that results into a conversion change. So, it is the behavior that we must focus on and optimize to result into favorable conversions.

When optimizing for customer behavior, it is imperative that the changes made should be perceived by the customer. When people perceive differently, they will think differently and consequently, behave differently.

Which part of the customer’s brain are you appealing to?

As I discussed in my previous blog, our brain can be seen as two systems. System 1, the automated emotional part of the brain and System 2, the conscious, logical part of the brain. 100% of the decisions are made by the non-conscious, old brain – but some decisions will be ‘post-rationalized’ more than others using the conscious, new brain. So as marketers we need to ask ourselves what part of the brain are we marketing to. Since, behavioral decisions almost always are made by the emotional brain, we need to improve our communication with it.

The question you need to ask yourself is:

What is the most important thing my customer needs to know?

Your answer must include both logical and emotional motivators.

Customers Can’t Control Their Attention, But You Can!

Attention of the customer isn’t something that they can control but something that you can control. By controlling the attention, you control what people perceive and what they think about you. You can only change the behavior of customers if you are able to control the attention and make sure the right message is perceived.

Draw attention by using the following graphical principles: contrast, space, people/faces, movement, breaking rules, directional cues, user’s name or image.

Optimize for Customers’ Emotional Relevance

Beyond the visual aspects, you also need to identify what resonates with and motivates your target customers on an emotional level. We have to aim for relevance in content, value propositions, implicit codes and provide emotional resonance. So how do you explore and understand different emotional systems to appeal to them?

The Limbic Map

André shared a model popularized by German neuroscientist Dr. Georg Häusel:

All human motives, desires, and values can be represented and related to one another within this map.
(Image Source)

Developed by German research group, Gruppe Nymphenburg, the limbic map provides a framework for identifying the values and emotions that resonate most strongly with your target audience.

Create Limbic Personas

The Limbic model allows you to categorize a target customer segment by psychographic profile, rather than just demographics or geographic. Use the following steps to create an emotionally focused Limbic persona:

Identify basic characteristics of your target customer and turn them to core values.
Allocate the core values on the Limbic map.
Eliminate conflicting values and focus on most coherent values.
Assign corresponding Limbic type.

Understanding your target customer by Limbic type means that you can design marketing experiences that resonate with them at an emotional level. Incorporate these motivators to match their emotional preferences.

Why you shouldn’t rely on customer inputs for their emotional drivers

Although receiving feedback from customers is always a good idea, but it might not be the most authentic description of their mental processes. Customers like to believe they are rational beings and justify their decisions with logic. However, almost all of the decisions are made unconsciously by the emotional brain. They aren’t even aware of these implicit processes happening inside their brain. Consider the following excerpt:

Identifying and measuring emotional motivators is complicated, because customers themselves may not even be aware of them. These sentiments are typically different from what customers say are the reasons they make brand choices and from the terms they use to describe their emotional responses to particular brands.
Scott Magids, Alan Zorfas, and Daniel Leemon, “The New Science of Customer Emotions“, Harvard Business Review

Oftentimes, the cause of poor conversions is due to the difference between what you want to say to your customer and what they are actually perceiving. Bridge this gap, by optimizing target-group specific communication using Limbic personas. And begin to explore the “why” of customer behavior and create emotionally resonant marketing experiences.

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

Explore CXL