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6 Principles of persuasion to optimize your landing page and grow your business

If you use the proven tricks, but still aren’t successful, you probably overlook the most important factor: the humans. Because no matter how well you design your website, if it does not appeal to people, they will not click or buy anything. To convince your target audience, you have to deal with the psychology of your future clients. Only when you understand what exactly motivates them to buy, you can also effectively increase your conversion rate. And there is nothing more complex yet powerful as a human psychology. Who knew that it is also possible to use as a marketing tool?

In the past, psychologists have come up with 6 distinct principles of persuasion, which when being used within any given range, could provoke certain actions from people. These 6 principles of persuasion have become the utmost priority in conversion optimization to increase your leads and sales. Now we will present you with each separate method and examples how you can use them to increase your sales.

1.Reciprocity

In general terms, reciprocity is the practice of exchanging things with others for mutual benefit.
For example, people feel obliged to invite their friends over for a birthday party if they had been guests to birthday parties of the said friends.

The same mindset can be applied to online marketing where we can reward our customer with value and incline him to give us something in return – a sale, conversion, engagement or any other goal that your business is aspiring towards. You might be familiar with this technique, as nowadays it is very common for online businesses to offer free materials to their customers in return for a lead. The more value you provide your users, the higher are the chances the other party with engage with you.

2.Scarcity

According to Google, scarcity by its meaning is the state of being scarce or in short supply. In other words – shortage. It is human nature to put higher value over anything in life that is short in supply. This principle can be applied to anything ranging from gourmet food products like truffles, diamond and the whole idea of Black Fridays. All of the above generates a state of mind in people that makes them make a purchasing decision based on their emotional state.

If you want to increase your conversion rate, you should know the impact of fear of loss on the behavior of your site visitors. People have a congenital aversion to loss that exceeds even the joy of gain. Losing 10 € is more annoying than winning 10 €.
Many online business giants are using this technique to incite their clients to use their products and services. For example, both Amazon and Booking.com are notorious – “Only 4 items left, order soon”, “Buy in the next 1 hour and get free shipping”, “Only 6 rooms left, book one now” – you can find these call to action slogans all over those business websites in order to incite their customers to make emotional purchases.

It is a great idea to implement scarcity elements onto your website, but be cautious. Overuse of such techniques might lead to the lessening of your customer loyalty, as there are many online businesses that stage this method purposely. Simply always keep in mind the value that your user expects to receive.

3.Authority

Authority can play a big role in conversion optimization. Imagine overhearing two people talking about health. One of them is a medical professional and the other is not. By default, we are trained to believe that the doctor is more knowledgeable on the subject and we trust in him instead of the other person. This can also be applied to an online business where the goal is to convince your customer to buy your product or service.

Just take a look at Amazon. When searching for a product on Amazon you will find Amazon’s top choice among all the other search results. That statement from Amazon reassures you that the company is guaranteeing the quality of the time and therefore you are inclined to choose this item instead of all the others. Same can be applied to search queries on Google. We automatically assume that any website at the top of the result page is obsolete in comparison to anything below. However, that might not be the case at all.

4.Consistency

The word explains everything. A company must be represented with value towards the user, but also it must be consistent regarding all of the promises and commitments it does towards their potential customers. We humans usually like the status quo when it works and our expectations are the same towards the partners we collaborate with.

Have you ever bought a sweater that you were not that convinced of, but found many good reasons afterwards that justify the purchase? Then you are like many people. Because we all have a tendency to perceive our decisions in retrospect as better than they actually were. We focus more on the positive points of a decision than on the negative ones. Without this quality, we would be constantly aware of all the suboptimal decisions we have made so far – not a nice idea.

If you want to increase your conversion rate, make sure you keep your future customers happy. Support every decision your site visitors make by assigning it a positive attribute. This also applies to trifles such as sign up for a newsletter. Thus, the visitors already feel well and happy with their decision during the purchase process.

5.Affection

Affection is often difficult to implement. Many companies are quite neutral towards their customers for the purpose of increased target reach. Affection most commonly will help you to brand out, but when implemented properly it will bring you many rewards.

Psychologically speaking, we tend to like people that we share common beliefs with. Hence, a person should like you before they decide to buy something or use your service. It is important focusing on branding with a message that will be similar to the interest of your customer base. That is essential for your business to grow. Try complimenting your customers, sharing similar goals and respect towards each other. That way they will be provided with value and your business with growth.

6.Social Proof.

Have you ever seen someone staring up at the sky and pointing their finger towards something? The chances are, everyone who sees that person will also look up to see what the person is looking at. Social proof is an extremely powerful tool to use and convince your customers to make their decision faster.

How exactly do you present your product? Put simply, the brain has two mechanisms involved in decision-making. The first decision-making system processes lightning-fast unconscious impressions in an emotional way. This happens automatically without being able to prevent it. Images can be captured in fractions of a second, so it is especially addressed by visual impressions. This system makes the most of all decisions. The second decision-making system works consciously. It analyzes the presented information slowly and rationally. On the website, the required information must be clearly listed.

Nowadays many of online businesses do so by adding quotes from their customers or using third-party service like TrustPilot or other review platforms. They do help and make customers feel more secure.

How can you improve it? If you are working in e-commerce, you are most likely showcasing your five most bought popular products. We suggest that you develop a feature that will show how many times the item has been brought in a day, in the last hour or month. Lesara.com has implemented it and today it is one of the most popular online shopping destinations in Germany.

Conclusion: Conversion is psychology

You can not increase conversion rates if you are not concerned with people’s psychology. Only if you know how and why you make decisions, you can tune your website to it. You do not have to study psychology to be successful. Use A / B tests to experiment and optimize your website.