Week 11 - Principles of Persuasive Design and Other Lessons Review
Landing Pages that really work
Last week I said that I would continue to go over Talia Wolf’s presentation within the course as this segment was so full of information. We know that last week that she was reviewing websites and focusing on dating websites and used roughly five websites to explore this. Wolf also looked at social proof in the form of testimonials on a website. She ends the presentation by letting the audience know that as marketeers its our job to sell dreams.
The Psychology of Pricing
I want to refer back to an earlier part of the course because aspects of this course reflect back to the earlier part of the course. Tests have show than how pricing takes place can be irrational.
As said before the importance of selling comes down to the benefits rather than the features of a product. There are also drivers relating to the reasons for buying from the features to the emotional reasons for buying.
The psychology of pricing also loos at the “decoy effect” where there are two prices but the higher price includes so much good stuff that people end up going for the higher price.
It’s also important to optimize the payment process such as in the case of Uber who made it really easy to pay via an app so that its much safer. Cash on the other hand is seen as the most difficult way to pay.
Social Proof
This part of the CXL Psychology of Persuasion was presented by Joel Kletke who describes the area of Social Proof as including information that supports a product or service. Kletke discusses where social proof can be included and stated that there should always be a reason for using social proof. One of the powerful ways of doing this is through relieving friction and reasons for not buying a product or service. It should help a potential customer with their pain points.
Conducting Customer Interviews
If we can find a customer who reflects our ideal market interested in giving as an interview and has the time to do this. It’s important not to give yes or no questions. The start looks at what they area about then what is happening in their company especially the pain point. Part of this reminds me of therapy because it’s very much about what the client wants.
Keeping Social Proof Fresh
I loved how this section showed how we can keep things moving and that Joe Kletke mentions that video is one of the tools that is the toughest and least likely to occur. I think as a yoga teacher this could be great and also for the wellbeing companies where you can see the difference in how the person looks and feels as a result of using a service. It’s a powerful medium.
Principles of Persuasive Design
This module of the CXL Psychology of Persuasion course was shared through a presentation by the founder of cxl.com, Peep Laja and the first thing he said resonated with me because he spoke about the pronunciation of his name. Peep confirmed that what people see is more powerful than what they hear so Peep’s name is pronounced Pep Li-yah and my surname is de Ara-oo-jo.
He confirmed what was discussed in the previous module that to be able to persuade someone we have to know what is going on in their brain. When it comes to web design it has to be about what makes it easier for a client to find what they want.
Testing and Emotion Content Strategy
The emotional reasons for buying a particular product or service are similar to benefits as opposed to features. It is about the feelings, emotions and experience we get from using the product or service.
One of the worrying stats that Wolf shows was that we check our mobile phones 270 times a day though I think that this is age specific and not sure how this would work because that is roughly 27 times an hour, though if we are texting someone the stats work out.
Wolf has built up a reputation for A/B testing over the past five years and she uses dating companies as the example. Much of the content is similar to what is used in her presentation. I would love to do the same with fellow copywriters though I’m aware that I need to do a lot of work on my own website first. Talia Wolf mentioned colour, text and the trigger words that come up on each site.
An Emotional SWOT test will look at the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats so in the case of Eharmony, we can see that the site is supposed to be a trustworthy site but it’s too similar to other sites.
Heuristic Analysis Frameworks for Conversion Optimization Audits
This section is rather intense and I’m glad that the information has been repeated up to a point because it’s something that I hadn’t really come across before. The section is also presented by Andre Morys who speaks at various conferences on behalf of CXL and other companies.
He looks at the simplest ways of delivering results and refers to the Voice of the Customer though Morys points out that this is not necessarily the best way of finding out what people think and people don’t always say what they think. Another method is through data including A/B testing. On the flip side of Voice of Customer research, A/B testing is more quantitative and does not show why people make the decisions that they make.
Morys then went on to discuss the validity of other methods whether they are surveys, interview, analytical testing. There are also conscious and subconscious methods of testing though the latter is trickier.
Morys describes heuristic studies are experiments based on similar and past experiments. The difficulty with this is the motivation level as we don’t necessarily have to buy in any one particular place. Morys also uses the example of Apple and Amazon because of their high conversion rate.
Next week I will have made it to the last week of this course and will be looking at the last part of the course which is about Psychological backfiring and Product Messaging. I’ll also be attempting to revise for the final exam, which comes at the end of the course.
I would still highly recommend this course because it is interesting and I can see how it will come in handy with my copywriting work though I would certainly recommend setting 5–6 hours a week to study and complete the blogs if you are going down the scholarship route.
