10 Psychological Triggers That Influence Conversion Rates and Boost Sales

Your products and services are top-notch. You know that your customers need them. You’ve even gone as far as identifying the unique ways that your business helps solve the problems your prospects are having. You’ve also identified the problems that keep customers up at night and positioned your products or services to address their concerns, literally making their purchase a no-brainer. But they’re not buying the way you thought they would. What gives?

Chances are, you’ve missed the mark somewhere along the line. Either that or you need to increase the psychological triggers you’re using to get their brains to work against them—and work for you. The following psychological triggers will help engage your customers, build their loyalty to you, and create stronger long-term relationships for your business.

You can have the best offer in the world, but if your customers don’t take action on it, you’re not really going to make any money, are you? So you should offer your customers a “free trial,” right? Not so fast. Since most companies these days are offering a free 30-day trial, you’ve actually lost the fight before you jumped into the ring if you take this approach.

Instead, try framing it with a different angle. Instead of a “free trial,” consider telling customers that they’ll have no payments for the first 30 days. You can also go one step further and let them know that their option to join is completely risk free. By telling them that they can cancel their account at any time, and that they have access to your entire suite of features, they’re going to be more apt to pull the trigger and sign up for an account.

Try all three variations in a split test format to determine which works better. Chances are, you’ll see that the “free trial” is the weakest of the bunch.

There are three types of buyers you’ll have coming to your landing and sales pages: penny-pinchers, thrifty buyers, and average spenders. Penny pinchers, generally, make up around 25 percent of your total buyers. They typically find themselves sitting on the fence over whether or not they should buy, and you need to structure your messaging differently to them than you would to thrifty spenders and average folks. You can’t just hit them with the offer, and tell them how much it’s going to cost. You need to slow down and think of ways you can frame the offer (and pricing) to appeal to their thrifty nature.

Take, for instance, an offer that costs $1,200 per year. If you tell the penny-pinchers that they have to pay $1,200, they’re going to run for the hills. If, however, you reframe your offer as $100 per month, and build the value for them, you’ll have a much easier time making the sale.

Take a look at AOL’s outdated business model of charging users for every hour they used the service. This made penny-pinchers stop and track the time they spent using the service, which actually hindered AOL’s sales. When AOL switched to a monthly model, revenues skyrocketed.

Netflix is another popular business model that turned the never-ending fees and charges standard on its head. By offering unlimited access to movies at a single low rate, it appealed to the penny-pinchers who were tired of renting movies one at a time.

Urgency and scarcity are two powerful psychological triggers you can use to drive more conversions. If you use them wrong, however, you’ll end up pushing more prospects away than you actually convert into sales. This means while you need to make urgency a part of your sales message, you also need to enforce it so your visitors understand that it’s serious, and that they need to take action on it.

The best way to do this is by collecting email addresses and following up with prospects as the expiration date draws near. By following up, you’ll be able to increase your conversion rate up to 25 percent or more. Then, when the offer has expired, take it off of the table and follow up again with your prospects to let them know it’s no longer available. This will condition people in the future to take you up on your message of urgency or scarcity, instead of thinking it’s just a sales ploy.

If there are any known shortcomings about your product, it’s best to address them upfront before irritated customers are emailing you after the fact. Think about the BP oil spill, for instance. BP had to spend millions of dollars on public relations to clean up the mess that the company’s spill caused, and it still hasn’t completely recovered from its tarnished brand image. Of course, all of this could have been avoided if BP had issued an apology as soon as the spill occurred, addressing the ways the company would make it right. Instead, BP waited until it was too late to offer up an apology, which cost it dearly, in the long run.

You can nip problems in the bud by addressing them directly in your sales message. If you do that, you’ll never have to issue an apology because you’re owning it up front. Get creative in your copywriting, and you can even turn shortcomings into benefits your customers will love.

If customers will be waiting for your products or services to arrive, you will need to address any shipping anxiety if you want them to make a purchase. Think about people buying gifts online at Christmastime. They will be concerned about your company facing delays, or about their package getting lost. And if they’re package doesn’t arrive when you say it will, you’ll be left with an unhappy customer—and that’s guaranteed to cost you more money.

You can overcome this by offering a guarantee. Amazon does this by specifically stating when products are going to arrive. A lot of pizza places do it too by offering guarantees that food will arrive in 30 minutes or less.

Nothing draws customers to your side more than finding common ground through an enemy that you both share grief over. You don’t necessarily want to take an abusive route and start bashing your competitors, but you can be clever in your copywriting and pit yourself against another company in a fun way. You’ll subconsciously draw your prospects closer to you because they’ll feel like you “get” them.

Think about one of Apple’s longest running marketing campaigns. The “Us vs. Them” or “Mac vs. PC” commercials we all know and love. Running this campaign helped Apple build a solid foundation of fans who continue to rave over their products. Coke and Pepsi is another great example. For years, they both ran blind taste test marketing campaigns which showed customers preferring one brand over the other.

If people routinely make false assumptions about your company, your products, or your services, call them out on it—in a tactful way. When a person’s internal dialogue is questioned, they’ll take notice, whether they want to or not. And the only way you can overcome their objections is to address them head-on using well-researched information, examples, and case studies.

Any research or case studies you use, however, can’t actually come from you, though. If they do, you’ll end up just blowing your own horn and beating on your own chest. You need to have the examples created by a third party, someone who isn’t necessarily attached to your company. When the information comes from an outside source (and can be verified), you will improve your reputation and shoot down those false assumptions without your customers realizing what you’re doing.

Stop and think about how you felt the last time a company you made a purchase from went above and beyond, and added surprises to the deal that you didn’t see coming. You felt pretty good, right? Chances are, it made you feel a lot more loyal to the brand, and also has kept the brand image fresh in your brain. You feel good thinking about that company; if you can recreate those same emotions with your prospects, they are never going to leave you.

The level of your customer service has a lot to do with surprising your customers. If when people contact your company, they speak with someone who understands them, is empathetic to their concerns, and actually takes the time to help solve the problems they’re having, you will solidify your relationship with them, creating new cheerleaders for your brand.

Does your company regularly support a charity, or is there an environmental factor driving why you’re in business? If you answered yes, tap into it. You’ll draw like-minded customers, and they will become loyal to you because you have the same goals in mind.

However, to do this, you have to actually take a stand against (or for) something, and then stand behind it every chance you get. Take a look at what Toms Shoes does with its marketing. Every time you buy a pair of shoes from Toms, the company donates a pair of shoes to someone in need. This marketing campaign helped the brand take off during its first few years in business, and continues to draw in new customers who also want to stand behind Toms’ mission.

When your customers feel good about their interactions with your company, you’re leaving a lasting impression on them that will help turn them into some of your biggest brand ambassadors. Your conversion rates are going to skyrocket when you have people talking up your brand.

You can help these brand ambassadors feel better about your brand by giving them specific labels. For instance, when customers have free trials to your services, label them “Free Trial Users.” Once they’ve upgraded their accounts, create new, clever labels for them to call themselves and that they’ll be proud of, helping them to develop subliminal ownership in your company. Take this strategy one step further and actually send them a physical product that has their label on it, helping them to feel an even deeper connection with your company.

At the end of the day, the best way to increase your conversions is to be a business with a face. If you spend time developing relationships with your customers, they will reward you in a variety of different ways—namely, more sale and more referrals.

While the psychological factors we’ve presented are great, you also need to make sure the services and products you provide are top-notch, and that your customer service is able to properly address any problems that come in. When you solve the equation “Relationships + Quality + Customer Service,” it’s almost impossible for your business to fail.

Post by: Andrew James

Andrew James has been involved with Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) and Amazon’s Affiliate Program for over a decade. His company Brand Builders understands the psychological factors that influence conversion rates, and helps companies, especially companies on Amazon, increase conversion rates through highly targeted messaging and professional designs. Andrew is a devoted husband, and father to a 7-year-old son.

Company: Brand Builders
Website: www.brandbuilders.io
Connect with me on Facebook and Twitter.

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