Each business owner is looking for effective ways to increase sales. Marketing expenses are growing year by year, only the budget has been allocated. According to an IAB research, online advertising spending in the first quarter of 2019 was greater than TV advertising budgets for the first time. The internet dominance is definitely growing, as is the amount of time people spend on it. The fight for their attention is becoming more and more complex, and when planning communication, marketers reach for areas that they did not have to cover a dozen or so years ago.
This is a question that both stationary and online business owners consider. In the year 2020, a large part of the population has moved their lives online. The e-commerce market has gained significantly at the expense of stationary points, but on the other hand, competition on the Internet has increased – this applies to almost every industry. Marketers keep coming up with new ideas to increase sales in the online store. Knowing your target group is very important and getting to know consumer behavior and their purchasing paths is essential. Therefore, when the most important goal is to improve conversion, marketers often turn to psychology to more effectively reach their customers with marketing communication. And that’s a good thing, because recipients are more and more aware of marketing mechanisms, and it is marketing that leads to sales. Personalization, promotions under time pressure, awakening emotions, referring to the client’s needs are just the tip of the iceberg, which are made up of advertising mechanisms, which are to influence the client’s decision-making process. Today, consumers come into contact with marketing messages frequently, but only for a short time – so it is important to know how to attract their attention and build the entire brand strategy in this trend.
Robert Cialdini, one of the greatest psychologists in the world, for 15 years has been running research about people’s decision processes. As a result, he developed 6 rules of exerting influence which can actually be applied to each area of life. These principles work in most cases because they are based on the typically human psychic mechanisms that guide each of our lives. Probably, there is no marketer who would not know the psychological rule of social proof of rightness, the rule of liking or authority. They both have one thing in common – imitating someone else’s behavior. Using influencers or celebrities fits perfectly into this concept, as well as showing pharmacists in drug commercials. Nowadays, authority is expected by recipients, so if you decide to use these rules in your marketing activities, you will need to approach it statically.
The rule of reciprocity is used equally often, although not everyone notices it immediately. Free samples, advertising gadgets, greeting cards to customers, etc. Of course, not always the customer will “swallow the hook”, but the chance increases when our goal is customer loyalty. Psychology in sales also uses the rule of unavailability, which consumers are tempted almost every day and can be seen with the naked eye. Something limited that is hard to come by is much more attractive and feels more valuable. This is to stimulate customers to make quick decisions, because such an opportunity may not be available anymore. An example of such actions may be messages such as “X people are just watching this product”, “The first X customers will receive a special gift for the order,” etc. The last of Cialdini’s principles is the principle of commitment and consistency, which works well in the case of willingness to continue activities, e.g. through cross -selling in remarketing.
Visual factors and their reception also have an impact on increasing conversion in the online store. Appropriate text arrangement, quality of audiovisual materials and usability affect how the client perceives the website and how his brain reacts to individual elements. Eye tracking research clearly shows that Internet users read F-shaped online content. Looking at the monitor, it shows the places where the title, lead, and parts of individual paragraphs are usually placed. Unfortunately, we all suffer from an eternal lack of time, including our audience, although as marketers we would like our texts to be read, not just “scanned”. This task can be made easier for our audience to make the text as accessible as possible. First of all, the fonts should be simplified – sans-serif fonts work much better on the Internet. The size of the text, contrast and appropriate optimization, as well as bullets allow for easier viewing of the text.
The above tips are only visual ways to improve the content. However, the key should be the right narrative that really engages the recipient’s brain. In order to effectively stimulate the emotions of the client, it is worth using storytelling, which will allow your communication to stand out from the competition. It has been known for a long time that purchasing decisions are very often triggered by emotions that have always accompanied us. It’s just that, over time, marketers have started using inducing methods that will persuade you to buy. For example, dopamine is a neurotransmitter responsible for the sense of reward, it affects the motivation to buy. Subsequent information stimulates our dopamine system and we strive to meet a specific need. the customer’s purchasing decision is made.
The discoveries of modern psychology allow you to generate new ways to increase sales in the store. The decision-making process of customers has been unchanged for many years and independent of the channel used by the recipient. It always starts with the recognition of the need, then the search for information takes place, the assessment of choice options takes place, then the purchase decision is made, and finally the impact assessment is made. It is important to properly plan your marketing strategy taking into account each of the elements of the decision-making process. Increasing sales efficiency is possible thanks to the combination of knowledge of our customers, their motivation, psychological rules influencing the decision-making center, as well as accurate and interesting marketing creations. There is nothing unethical about the use of psychological mechanisms in marketing communication – after all, the brain is part of a human being, and everything human is not unknown to us.
Get started
with the comprehensive
SEO audit
Invest in a detailed SEO audit and understand your online performance. We analyze your website to get a clear view of what you can improve.