Have you ever wondered why a certain digital marketing campaign goes viral? Or how some brands just always seem to get what their customers are thinking without even trying? The market is super competitive, but there are always those websites that seem to stick out more than others with what it is they’re doing.
The truth is that these companies have mastered the art of getting into the brains of their website visitors. They know what types of content are the most shared by their select audience and how certain imagery can cause an emotional reaction. Simply put, they don’t just put out blog posts and videos and see what sticks. They plan for this sort of response and really take the time to ensure they’re creating content that hits the mark.
That said, it is possible to do the same thing with your website. In fact, most of the tactics discussed below go back to basic advertising principles that have been in play in the media for decades. Keep reading to learn how to get into the brains of your site visitors for better conversion rate optimization (CRO).
The Psychology Behind Consumer Behavior
Before we can dive right into how to use this for your own website, we need to look at the overall psychology behind digital marketing. After all, buyers are still human beings primed to act a certain way based on the way their minds work.
Understanding consumer behavior is an incredibly powerful tool that marketers can use to their advantage. This is something advertisers have studied for decades, and the same concepts translate to online media.
For example, the scarcity tactic. People tend to choose more of their favorite item when they feel that they cannot access it later. That’s why giant eCommerce websites like Amazon include inventory counts on product pages, or digital marketers add countdowns to a website to signify when a promotion is going away.
Color psychology is another consumer behavior method to help improve a website’s CRO. While this can be a pretty broad topic, the hues you choose can make a massive impact on the way website visitors perceive your offer. Typically, bold colors like red evoke excitement and action, while blue tones typically elicit trust and loyalty. Knowing the difference and using color as a psychological tool can really impact your campaign results.
How to Address Emotional and Social Needs
But getting into the brains of your site visitors isn’t all about what color you make a button or showing them that they need to act quickly before an opportunity expires. A lot of it comes down to addressing emotional and social needs.
This is done through a process called cognitive fluency, which is how a person’s brain understands what’s in front of them and how they feel about something. This means that when your target audience lands on your website, the process of getting around and understanding the information you’re presenting needs to be simple and fluid.
If your page doesn’t make it easy for them to find what they’re looking for, this results in a low level of cognitive fluency. In turn, their overall perception of your brand is diminished, and there’s less of a chance they’ll come back.
Furthermore, it is important to anticipate your website visitor’s needs. If you know for a fact that they’re coming to your website to learn more about how to solve a specific problem or purchase an item that fulfills a need, it is important to make sure you’re making an effort to do just that.
The Common Sense Factor
Of course, there’s a bit of a common sense factor that marketers need to address, too. Not everything is about analyzing the psychological level needs and wants of your target market. A lot of it comes down to what people are going through and how they would typically respond.
As a human being yourself, you should be able to see where someone might want what you’re offering. While this needs to be more objective than emotional on your part, there are usually basic things that you do as a consumer that your ideal customer is likely to do, too.
Before launching a new campaign, put your website visitor hat on and brainstorm. If you weren’t an expert in your industry, would you have the same thoughts about the information your company is presenting? Would you have additional questions, or does the content show you everything you need to know?
Once you have a good idea of common sense angles to cover, ensure that your website makes it easy to find these answers. An example would be using a FAQ page, adding a callout section, or whatever else makes sense for your particular website.
The Powers of Personas in Marketing Campaigns
So, what if the people on your marketing team are far different than your ideal customer or website visitor? That’s when the power of personas comes into play.
Imagine you’re a screenwriter about to write the next blockbuster movie. You sit down and decide on a character, even going as far as giving them a name. You know their likes, dislikes, and how they act when put into a specific situation. This is a persona.
All marketers need to have a clear idea of who they are selling to. That’s why creating personas about the people you’re trying to attract is so powerful. After all, if you already know who you’re trying to convert, you can make decisions that best suit that customer.
If you’re looking to really get in the mind of your site visitors and improve your conversion rate, start by creating a few personas. Write them down and ensure your entire team knows who they are working to attract. Each time you decide on a new piece of content or a change to the website, determine if that action meets the needs of the personas you’re trying targeting.
Questions to Ask When Creating Content
Each time you create a piece of content for your website or social media pages, it is essential to dive deeper. Many major companies have found that the simple question of asking why someone chooses their brand over a competitor isn’t good enough anymore. Instead, it is important to uncover paying customer motivations to help ensure your content addresses them directly.
Examples of a few questions you can ask customers through surveys or other feedback methods to help guide you when creating content include:
- When do you use our product?
- What aspects of our product do you wish were different?
- How does our product fulfill your needs?
Once you have a solid understanding of these subconscious responses, you can adjust your text or video copy to directly address them. In the end, this gives the customer who sees the content for the first time an increased feeling of trust that your brand has taken the time to address issues and concerns they didn’t even know they had.
Using Data to Improve Your Tactics
Let’s say for a minute that you’re already doing most of these things. You’ve optimized your site to include the right psychological colors, and you know full well who your personas are. Your team is hitting all the right marks when it comes to creating content centered around customer motivations, but you still aren’t hitting the CRO you’re looking for.
Then it is time to start using data to try to improve your statistics. There are numerous tools out there that can track how long someone stays on your website, what they look at while they’re on-site, and even where they hover and click with the mouse. Called heat mapping, this type of technology provides direct insight to areas of your website that might be a problem and those that are working well. Using this data, you can make adjustments on the issues or scale up the successes.
Why Building Relationships is Critical to Marketing Success
While we’ve covered quite a few different psychological and emotional concepts to help you get into the mind of your customer, there’s still a crucial aspect that needs to be considered. Changing buttons and writing excellent content can only get you so far in improving your CRO. You have to remember that the relationship between your brand and your target market is supercritical.
What does this mean? No matter how much content you’re creating or how well you study the basics of consumer behavior, it all comes down to how you’re treating the people who buy from you. The process needs to be simple, clear, and fulfill their needs accordingly. Once you’ve accomplished this, you’ve earned their trust and loyalty.
Furthermore, happy clients are usually more apt to share their experiences with others through testimonials or on-site reviews. This leads to increased social proof, which is another way to attract new customers.
Conclusion: Thinking Like Your Website Visitors for Better Conversions
When it all comes down to it, consumer behavior and understanding your ideal customers’ thought processes are critical to your success online. Failure to take any of these concepts into account when planning content can really hurt your sales and ruin your brand’s reputation. Instead, it is always better to look at the motivations of your clients. This means understanding who they are as human beings, making decisions that reflect your ability to solve problems in their lives, or taking into account their overall reasoning for choosing your company. Once you’ve mastered this, you should see a significant CRO jump.