From time to time, team members will share their views stimulated from a piece by an industry thought leader. Here, our CEO, Lisa Maier, discusses The Neuroscience of Conversion Optimization.
This is a great article that describes three principles from neuroscience that are directly tied to conversion rates. In addition to understanding the science, the author provides actionable methods to incorporate the principles, so you can put these ideas to work right away.
An example is ‘processing fluency’ which basically says we have a tendency to have a more positive view of things we are able to do most easily. The derived action is to take the time to think through and to simplify/clarify what is requested of visitors to your site. It’s especially important to apply this type of principal to the purchase path, and in particular the call to action.
I really liked the ‘congruent actions’ principle, which says that people experience less dissonance if their actions and attitudes are aligned. So the levers of influence are 1) to ask people to adopt an attitude, from which a logical next action follows, which would lead to cognitive dissonance if not taken, or 2) take an action that would lead to the attitude you are seeking to support.
This latter is frequently referred to as ‘micro-conversions.’ So if people take mini-actions, they are building an internal image of someone who likes and supports you, which makes it more likely they will do business with you. The example given in the article is to have people visiting a non-profit site sign a petition first, which has been shown to cause them to be more likely to take a next action to support you, namely to donate to your good cause.
The application on your website might be to encourage visitors to download a piece of content, watch and rate a video, complete a poll, or something similar. Even think about offering multiple forms of interaction and involvement, which can only increase the positive perceptions of engaged visitors.
Try at least one of these ideas out and let us know what you think. Oh, and by the way, would you like to join your fellow business colleagues in taking our poll about the most important characteristics of a great digital agency?
