This is the tenth in a 12 part blog series, where I review CXL Institute’s ‘Digital Psychology and Persuasion’ Minidegree. In today’s blog we will discuss 9 triggers and techniques you can apply to persuade users to take a desired action.
Focusing Effect
We have a tendency to only focus on a few things at a time, leaving the rest of the aspects unattended. Those that have a noticeable difference are the only once to grab attention. This unequal focus on aspects is called the focusing effect. Use the following online persuasion tips:
- Put the focus on only a few (a max of three) USP’s.
- Emphasize your most unique USP so intensely that your customers lose focus on less favorable aspects.
- Don’t just focus on your best aspects, but also on those that differ significantly from your competitors.
- Also, emphasize the huge change that happens the moment people buy your product or use your service.
Context Dependent Memory
It’s our tendency to forget things out of context and then remember them when the original contextual cues reappear. Using the same contextual cues (coloring, content, logos) across media facilitate the recall of your brand and products. Changing the cues and context between encoding and retrieval reduces our ability to recall. Use the following online persuasion tips:
- In general: Try to create a consistent context in your online presence across platforms and sites using the same contextual cues (from SEO, SEA, display, sites, to apps and social media, etc.
- When you want a visitor to remember you or your offer at some point, prime them with contextual cues that will be present in the situation where you want them to remember you.
- When you have a recurring visitor, use cues from their previous visit to help them remember that visit.
Self-generation Affect Effect
We tend to like and remember an idea better when it has been generated by our own mind, even if they have spent only a little cognitive effort into it. Use the following online persuasion tips:
- Ask questions in your content.
- Ask for answers in a proactive way (i.e. by means of a feedback tool).
- Why are they considering your offer?
- Why did they buy the product when they did?
- Try not to just provide your USP’s, but ask your customer to think of one or two himself.
- Allow people to tailor your product. Not just to satisfy individual preferences, but also to invest cognitive effort and thereby liking (you might even allow your customers to create and design their own products).
Affect Heuristic
Keeping the rest of the facts the same, our decision making depends on our mood and emotional state. We are more likely to take risky decisions when happy and more conservative decisions when upset or worried. The effects of our mood becomes stronger when deciding on more complex and conceptual decisions. Use the following online persuasion tips:
- Test inducing a tiny bit of sadness or melancholy if you want users to make a conservative choice (like renewing a subscription).
- Make sure that when you induce a negative mood, you clearly provide the comforting and reassuring aspects of your offer.
Facial Distraction
Our brain processes faces very thoroughly. When offline this can be very persuasive as the brain focuses on the face and also draws attention to the verbal message. However, online the face distracts from the rest of the image and the text message. Use the following online persuasion tips:
- Use faces to attract attention outside your own platforms (i.e. in banners, especially recognizable faces!)
- If you currently show a face on your platform (where you have already have the user’s attention), test an iteration without one
- If you do use a face… use Gaze Cueing to redirect attention to your most persuasive content!
Attentional Bias
This is our tendency to pay more attention to emotionally dominant stimuli because it’s hard to ignore it. Use the following online persuasion tips:
- If your brand or product is related in a positive way to an intense emotion, promote this visually and contextually.
- Display your USP’s and CTA close to the most emotionally dominant parts of your page (e.g. an expressive image).
- Place counter-persuasive elements (like ‘terms & conditions’ or ‘privacy’) away from the emotionally dominant parts of your page.
Fear Appeals
It is a persuasive message to scare someone with the intent to motivate them to take action against the threat. But it should be handled delicately, weak fear appeals may not attract any attention and strong fear appeals may make the person ignore the problem altogether. Strike the balance with ‘perceived efficacy’ which is made up of self-efficacy (can i avert the threat myself?) and response-efficacy (will the action recommended avert the threat?). Campaigns will work better if accompanied with a reassuring efficacy boosting message or CTA. For example, “Smoking can cause a slow and painful death: Join 230.000 successful stoppers, and go to www.stop-simply.de right now!” Use the following persuasive tips:
- Use personally relevant threats (not too small nor too big).
- Make sure you directly boost your customers’ efficacy by convincingly offering your solution as easy and effective.
- Provide a clear and strong call-to-action directly after / next to your scaring message.
Reflection Effect
We’re risk-averse when we have something to gain, but risk-seeking when we’ve got something to lose. Use the following persuasive tips:
- When you want customers to make a risk-averse choice (such as staying with you), test by phrasing your USP’s as gains.
- When you want customers to make a risk-seeking choice (such as switching to you), phrase your USP’s as losses.
Gaze Cueing
The Dutch online bank MoneYou tested gaze cueing by displaying a face in their ‘mortgage quick quote’ widget looking in the direction of the quick quote fields instead of looking at the visitor. This resulted in a 9% increase of quote requests. Use the following persuasive tips:
- When using faces on your website, direct their look towards the most important element(s) on your page.
- Consistently place your important elements -like your CTA- on one side (right side is optimal), and have faces on your site looking in that direction.
- Place negative elements (i.e. prices) outside the perceived gaze direction.
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: