7 Persuasion Techniques for Online Marketing

One of the most important things you can do to improve your website’s customer conversion rates is to make sure that every page of your site is personable and persuasive – that it speaks to your customers as though you were speaking to them in a face-to-face meeting, using language, design elements, and marketing tactics that will appeal to their demographic. “But how do I go about accomplishing this?” you may wonder.

Identifying the specific language and design elements most likely to provoke a positive response from your customers takes time and research, which we are ready and waiting to help you with via our sophisticated web analytics tools. But there are also some online marketing techniques that have proven effectiveness no matter who your audience is. Some of these include:

Reciprocation – if your prospective customers feel that you have given them a gift, they may feel obligated (or at least more inclined) to return the favor and give you something as well. Examples of successful online marketing campaigns that use the principle of reciprocation include:

• Offering a free white paper, report, or e-book in exchange for signing up for the company mailing list
• Encouraging customers to write a review or testimonial once they have received your product or service

Commitment – The principle of commitment, as it applies to online marketing, is that people like to feel that their actions are consistent with their beliefs. The key to using this principle to grow your business online is to get your customers and prospective customers to agree with a statement, or publicly support one of your causes or brands, and then suggest an action they can take to affirm that commitment. Examples of a commitment marketing strategy include:

• Getting people to “like” your brand on Facebook. If they have made a public statement of support for your brand, they are more likely to buy from you than those who haven’t made such a statement.
• Getting people to agree with a general statement such as, “Cancer-causing chemicals in cosmetics are bad!” and then suggesting they buy your cosmetics brand that does not contain chemicals that cause cancer.

Social Proof – people tend to observe the behavior of others to try and determine what is considered “normal,” and then copy that behavior to fit in. This principle can also work in reverse, in that you can persuade someone who wants to stand out from a crowd to buy your product or service simply because it is different than what everybody else chooses. Examples of this principle in action include:

• Showing that hundreds of people have “liked” your page on Facebook.
• Showing that one of your products has achieved dozens of five-star reivews.
• A good example of social proof in reverse is Apple Computer’s “Sorry, no beige” ads that appeared in the late 1990s and early 2000s when they released the first generation of multicolored, transparent iMac computers.

Authority – people are more likely to trust your company and/or buy from you if you are an expert in your industry, or if you have been endorsed by an expert. Examples of effectively using authority as a persuasive element include:

• Placing trust seals such as trust-e certification or better business bureau membership on your website
• Publicizing a review or testimony of an expert and/or celebrity prominently on your website.

Scarcity – if your supply of an item for sale is running low, demand for the last few remaining in inventory has been known to go up. There have even been psychology studies conducted where people were given two identical chocolates, one from a jar containing only two, and one from a jar of ten, and claimed that the chocolate from the jar containing only two tasted better. Examples of how to use the scarcity tactic in online marketing include:

• Using phrases like “only 4 left in stock” on product pages, category pages, and banner ads.
• Using phrases like “don’t miss out” or “last chance to buy” on your website or via social media to promote your products.

Framing – framing involves giving your customers and prospects a standard by which to compare your products’ or services’ price and/or benefits. Examples of framing include:

• Comparison charts of service plans (ex: silver, gold, and platinum level plans.)
• Displaying a high-priced item alongside a selection of lower-priced items to make the lower-priced items seem like even more of a bargain.

Salience – the principle of salience states that shoppers only focus on what is relevant to them at that exact moment. This means that most online ads or content on your site that looks like an ad will get ignored unless it’s for the product or service they are seeking. Examples of a salience marketing strategy include:

• Placing related items or up-sells at the right point of the checkout process when the customer may actually be interested in them.
• Using big, bold, colorful shop now buttons or other calls to action to draw attention to the next step you would like them to take after viewing a product.

Now that you know some common persuasion techniques for online marketing, you may be tempted to dive right in and try to implement them on your own. But before you do, please consider that though you now know what to do, you don’t necessarily have all the information about how or when to do it. These techniques can just as easily fall flat as they can grow your profits, especially if you’re new and/or inexperienced in online marketing. Niche Marketing PR can help you determine which of these techniques would best serve your business, and the optimal time and method of using them to attract new customers.

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