How to Boost Conversions Using Psychological Tactics

Why Do Psychological Tactics Work?

Psychological tactics boost conversions because studies have shown that 90% of consumers’ buying decisions are influenced by emotions. In almost any case, a website will try to sell a product or a service. However, even though the product or service is great, your visitors might still not buy them.

Why? Because you didn’t manage to create an emotional connection with them. If you want to convert your target audience to consumers you need to understand how your visitors think and what they need from your product.

If you want to get a visitor to the point of conversion, you need more than good content. The best salesmen are the ones who know about the human psychological behaviour. They make their audience feel that they belong to the community. Plus, your target audience should get the feeling that they are getting a great deal if they buy your products. Psychology is actually the recipe for success and you should use it in every aspect of your marketing strategy.

Best Psychological Tactics to Boost Conversions

Using psychological tactics to boost your conversion rate doesn’t mean you need to trick people. By using these techniques, you just “ring the bell” in your consumers’ mind showing them that the opportunities you offer won’t last forever. Therefore, you convince them to invest in a product they would otherwise postpone for a later period and trust you as a professional provider who is here to solve their problems.

1. The “Fear of Missing Out” Technique

The principle behind the “Fear of Missing Out” technique is very simple. It shows your potential customers all the fun and benefits they are missing out if they are not buying your products. Let’s take the example of weight loss supplements. The manufacturers use this technique to show their potential clients how good their body could look after using their products.

You can use this technique to boost your conversion rate and increase sales by including promotional images and testimonials from customers who have changed their lives thanks to your product. You can also time your offers to expire so that your visitors will feel a sense of urgency to avoid missing out on a limited offer which might never come back again. Finally, you can also use loss aversion to create powerful phrases like “Don’t miss out on this limited offer” or “Benefit from an exclusive opportunity” showing once again how unique your product is and how good it would be for your clients to buy it.

2. Storytelling helps you build trust

We all know that trust is built over time. But, when you want to boost your conversions, you need to convince a buyer you have never met before to trust you from the first moment he visits your website. How do you do that? According to professors in Stanford University, our brains are wired to understand and remember the stories they hear.

So, storytelling is an effective psychological technique that you can use. Testimonials are the perfect example of storytelling. Your satisfied customers tell about your products and highlight the benefits they obtained after using them. In many cases, the “warmer” testimonials are the ones that convince people to order a product or service. Thus, instead of just listing the number of people who bought your products, it is better to showcase the testimonials that focus on emotions and explaining why your customers prefer your brand and how your products helped them achieve their goals.

3. Make people curious

Humans are curious by nature. So, this is an essential psychological trait that you need to explore. Whenever we read about something that intrigues us from the first phrases we want to know more. People are also interested to find how things work or they want to read the full story before they decide to buy a product.

Thus, exploiting the curiosity gap to boost conversions is an efficient psychological tactic. For example, clickbait headlines are just perfect to make your customers curious. However, even if the curiosity gap is a good technique, people don’t like to be cheated. Therefore, if you made them open your landing page with a good headline, you should answer their questions in the product’s description. A good copywriter will be able to convince website visitors to buy a specific product. So, you can efficiently use the curiosity gap as a great psychological technique as long as you pay attention to the content you will provide once your audience clicks on the headline.

4. Use the law of reciprocity

The “Give and Take” method is very popular in the marketing world. Reciprocity is considered one of the most important universal principles of influence. When you offer your visitors something for free, they will often feel compelled to offer you something back in return. For example, you can offer a free eBook, personalized updates on a specific problem or a software demonstration.

This will create a connection with your visitors and show them how much you care about their problems. By offering something for free, it will become easier for you to ask for something back. For instance, you can ask them to subscribe to a newsletter, share an article, or click on one of your other pages. What is more, you can also make your visitors come back by following up with them on the freebies they just received. This psychological technique will help you stay in contact with your website visitors and help you in boosting your conversions.

5. Authority

Another psychological technique to show your customers that you are trustworthy is to use the authority principle. People are constantly bombarded with marketing messages, talking about incredible solutions that changed their lives. However, many messages are just words and don’t have any substance behind them.

While customer reviews can help potential buyers decide whether they trust a brand or not, a recommendation from a respected organization can change the rules of the game. Apart from offering you a competitive advantage, it will improve your image in the eyes of your clients. For example, you can use indicators of authority on your website by showing awards or certifications you have obtained. This can help project an independent perspective on your products by showing your customers that you focus on quality and are a trustworthy brand.

Psychological tactics are useful to help understand why people are visiting your website and what motivates them to buy your product. It is important to always remember that each person is unique and might resonate with a certain type of messages. Therefore, determining your buyer persona is very important before you start implementing a certain psychology technique. In general, psychology never fails to bring results, which means that you can use these techniques to boost conversion.

6. Implement scarcity

People are usually influenced by what others do. Therefore, when we see that a product’s availability is limited, we will automatically perceive its value to be greater than similar products on the market that are not restricted. So, it is not hard to imagine what the potential clients will do in such a situation. They will hurry to buy that product. However, this tactic can have a reverse effect if it is not used carefully. A study showed that a product loses its value if it is first presented in a limited quantity and then becomes abundant. Your clients will immediately discover if you want to trick them.

So, if you decide to implement this strategy, you need to stick to it. Furthermore, you can either maintain scarcity or gradually increase the abundance of your products. Therefore, your clients won’t be surprised by your change of strategy. What is more, you can use a countdown clock on your website, urging your clients to benefit from the special offer and get the product in a given period of time.

7. Build anticipation

Did you notice how many people are excited about an Apple product release even before the product is actually launched? Why do you think they are so anxious to buy it? Because this giant invests a lot in building anticipation and making its customers curious about their new launches. Moreover, they even have whole websites dedicated to the products they are going to release in the future.

It is very important to get people excited about your future products. You can use publicity to create positive emotions around your products. Therefore, when it becomes available on the market, your customers will immediately want to buy it. You can announce it months ahead and gradually increase suspense as the launching moment is closer. You can also collaborate with various influencers before the “big launch” and thus make people talk about your products.

8. Create a common enemy

Every target audience has an enemy which they consider responsible for not getting the results they expected. You can use this opportunity to create a common enemy and ally with your clients against it. For example Apple created the “Hello, I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC” series of campaigns to suggest that people who purchase Macs have very different values to those that buy PCs.

The idea is that they will be more open to invest and buy your products to defeat the common enemy. You can show them that your products are good enough to re-establish order in their world. Therefore, it won’t become difficult to sell your products and strengthen your position on the market.

Conclusion:

Psychological tactics are great to understand why people are visiting your website and what motivates them to buy your product. It is important to always remember that each person is unique and might resonate with a certain type of messages. Therefore, determining your buyer persona is very important before you start implementing a certain psychology technique. In general, psychology never fails to bring results which means that you can use these techniques to boost conversion.