This is part three of my twelve-part series covering my learnings in CXL Institute’s Digital Psychology and Persuasion program, an excellent program covering how to apply psychology and neuroscience to the marketing and design of effective advertising and marketing materials. In this blog, I will cover my latest learnings in this program. Here is a link to the course.
I will start with Peep’s “Principles of Persuasive Design” video. In this video, Peep covers 5 principles of persuasive web design.
First, he says your designs should be clear and specific. He talks about three parts of the brain and how our brain processes images several times faster than text. His second video was visual appeal. In a study he mentions, he talks about most people judge websites mostly by their design. He often says visual appeal is more important than usability. He mentions a Google study from Google that found that most people prefer websites that are low in visual complexity and high in familiarity. We like websites with familiar layouts. Visual hierarchy is the third principle. You should make things that are more important bigger. You should give white space consideration. Sometimes, it’s good to have white space. His fourth principle is that you should maintain attention at all times. Attention is about placement. 80% of website attention is on the above the fold. Left side of the screen also gets attention. Great photography is also image. He says images should be “larger than life”. Contrast is also important. A wall of text is the best way to kill attention. No paragraph should be longer than 4 lines, he says. You should also use sub-headlines for longer blocks of text. Make your more text more fun to read too. Our brain is always trying to find patterns. You should also consider the number of choices. Infinite choice can be bad. What you should think about is the following: “whatever sticks out gets picked.” Product badges can help products get picked. Big product images also work really well, going back to the importance of visuals. People make emotional choices and then rationalize it, the presenter sprays.
His 5th principle is one action per screen. One interesting study he mentioned even found that removing above the fold CTA buttons actually increased conversions. I found this very interesting. After his principles, he answers some questions. He talks about value propositions and their presentation. The way he typically tests value propositions is in the format: headline, sub headline, and then three bullets. He says this is a very scanner friendly format. He then talks about long form pages and the above the fold principle. He says that some products are impossible to sell quickly. If your product is hard to understand or complex, focusing on information presentation above the fold can be very helpful.
I will now discuss the psychology of pricing series by instructor Erik. He mentions studies by Dan Ariely, a fake auction. This study provided a great example of the effect of anchoring on pricing. Pricing is very irrational, he says. His outline for this course is as follows: first, the context of your pricing; second, changing your price’s perception; third, changing the process of paying.
The first principle is context. One of the main things affecting price is context. He mentions examples of living in NYC vs. living in Chicago or living in San Francisco. There are implicit comparisons. Implicit comparisons are things you are thinking internally about a product. Walmart shoppers are price sensitive. Whole Foods shoppers are often value sensitive. They want great returns for their money. This makes me want to make sure I try to cater to people that are buying based on value. Erik even says you should think about who you’re marketing to. It’s quite hard to be in the commodity business. One of the people in the room says you should be proud of your fees. Being proud of your fees can help improve perception. There are 5 main drivers of perceived benefits. These are primary drivers, a product’s features; level 2 drivers, benefits of the feature; level 3 drivers, emotions or goals the benefit satisfies; and basic drivers, the biological drives behind emotions or goals. There are for main biological drives according to the instructor. The four biological drives mentioned by the instructor are pain, pleasure, time, and money. You should think about how each of those aforementioned drivers apply to your business, product, and service. He mentions how luxury goods can often charge a higher fee because of the great experience. You can charge for experience because great experience is a great benefit! Also, making it easier for people to do stuff and eliminating other stuffs can help you charge more for your product or service. In the next video, the instructor discusses changing your price’s perception. He mentions how JC Penney once got rid of their coupons, and their net loss was millions of dollars. He discusses framing and how it affects price perception. Framing things can even affect how we view reality. Optical illusions are a great example of this. He mentions how The Economist used decoys and applied context to increase the amount of people who bought higher priced options. He also mentions how Steve Jobs once used anchoring with the iPad. He first mentions a $999 price, then he mentions that the price will actually be $499. This was a great example of anchoring. He also mentions the importance of urgency and social proof. You should not BS, however. Some of this stuff is very basic Cialdini. Erik then has an exercise. In the exercise, you are asked to map out the current process of payment and how it can be improved. I thought this course series was okay. I think I will find more useful content on pricing from some books on Amazon.
I will now discuss some of the content in Roger Dooley’s Building Trust course. About 10 factors were identified. One thing he talks about is BJ Fogg’s web credibility factors. One factor is appropriate design. Another important factor is easy verification. A third factor was showing you are real. Factor 4 was proving expertise. This could include showing things like certifications and degrees. Showing real (trustworthy) humans is also important. You should also be easy to contact. Having multiple ways to be contacted is important. This can be things like multiple contact forms, a chat box, accepting contacts via social media, and more. Being easy to use is also important. Site’s being use often makes sites more credible. This is one reason why WebMD is often very popular.
