The digital world has changed marketing significantly. Alongside this change, digital marketing has begun to require the use of more complicated methods to ensure success. Long gone are the days where banner ads and pop-ups pulled in high amounts of lead generation and conversions on landing pages.
The average consumer is much smarter at navigating marketing tactics these days than they were in the recent past, and we should give them credit for this. However, there is one thing that hasn’t — and won’t — change in the years to come: human psychology.
Several different spheres of psychology can be applied to marketing as a whole, but landing page conversion requires marketers to focus on more specific parts of their website. By looking at these five different aspects of psychology to build out landing pages, you are sure to raise your conversion rate.
High conversion rates begins with good optimization of your landing pages, plain and simple. If your web pages are not aesthetically pleasing and easy to navigate, a customer may become irritated and simply leave before exploring your brand further.
Freud—the father of the pleasure principle— refers to the instinctive nature humans have to seek pleasure and avoid pain (or unease) in order to satisfy their biological and psychological needs. This principle directly influences what Freud called the id, or the driving force for human instincts.
Applying the pleasure principle to landing pages can be invaluable when seeking high conversion rates. Focus on highlighting colors that both represent your brand and bring joy to your consumers. The psychology of color is vital to a marketing campaign and can play a role in the pleasure a consumer finds in your website.
Consumers think of themselves first, so to create a high-converting landing page, focus on them. By simply using the word “you,” the focus is shifted to the consumer and their feelings instead of your products or services you are selling. Referring to your consumers’ well-being by connecting how your products or services will make them feel is a great tactic.
The psychology of pain is the opposite of Freud’s principle of pleasure, as it is what a consumer avidly wants to avoid. No matter what form pain manifests in — physical or mental — we are hardwired to avoid it, and so are your consumers. This can be a tricky tactic to integrate into a landing page, but it can be done.
Since consumers purchase based primarily on their emotional response, ask yourself: What do your potential customers want to avoid the most? Focus on the pain points of your consumer and offer them a solution.
A good landing page pinpoints where a potential customer is hurting, offering your products or services as a solution By poking at a pain point for your customers, a landing page can help them become aware of their issue and then see a solution with your product or service.
The psychology of the marketing behind the paradox of choice is based on a book written by psychologist Barry Schwartz in which he explains why giving consumers more choices can actually paralyze their ability to make a decision.
This theory says that if a consumer is presented with too many options, they are less likely to actually make a decision. It’s easy to want to give consumers coming to your site the option to see everything and anything that you offer that may increase the chances of them purchasing — but this will most likely harm your sales efforts.
There is no magic number of options to present because it depends on your company’s personal goals and the types of choices you are offering. But try testing this psychological theory by offering a few of your top sellers on the home page, allowing consumers to explore your entire collection from the menu. This gives them a few choices to consider while giving you credibility.
Opportunity cost is an economic concept concerned with potential losses and gains when making a decision. Consumers weigh their options before making a purchase, and the digital world has made this easier than ever.
Time has been found to play a valuable role in almost every decision-making process. An experiment conducted by Duke University asked participants to make a choice between different gambling options that provided them with real money wins to determine how time pressure impacts decision-making.
Participants were given information that helped them estimate how much money they might earn for each option, and then they were timed. The participants were told that less time left on the clock after making a decision would mean winning less overall money. The study confirmed that when participants are pitted against time, they change their decision-making process.
The more that a consumer spends thinking about and executing a spending strategy, the more profits you seek to lose. As a business, it’s important to incorporate this idea into your landing pages. Determine your most important products or message, and optimize your landing pages to reflect that, front and center.
As individuals, consumers are heavily influenced to fit in with those around them, with collective opinions and habits influencing their own personal actions. A survey conducted found that 88 percent of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Consumers have increased their reliance on social influence and opinions of a product’s validity before making a purchasing decision.
These days social influence is affecting the ways that even doctors work to improve their online reputation. For many years doctors relied on word of mouth to keep patients attracted to their practice, but with the increased use of technology, consumers are looking to review platforms and social influence when making health decisions as well.
Apply this psychological principle to your landing page by adding in customer testimonials. Short quotes from satisfied consumers is a good way to boost the credibility of your brand. Including quantifiable proof of the popularity of your content or products is valuable.
You can choose to show how many subscribers you have to a blog or how many times a piece of content was shared to help boost your authority and show your social influence. Design plays a huge role in the conversion rates of your content and products. Tailoring your landing page to play on a consumer’s interests and needs is the best way to keep them engaged.
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Like everything in marketing, when and where to use these different types of psychological tactics will depend on your target market. By applying each of them seperately, or a few at a time, you can A/B test your landing pages and determine what works best for your target audience.
Photo by Sergei Akulich on Unsplash
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