Most digital marketers aren’t all that touchy-feely when it comes to improving online sales. Most of our time and effort is spent looking at data and running A/B tests. But emotion — the “touchy-feely” — is a very important part of conversion optimization and online sales.
For sake of clarity, this article deals primarily with landing pages, those pages on the site that have a call-to-action for a specific conversion action.
Emotions are an unavoidable factor in online sales.
Humans are emotional. That’s all there is to it.
It logically follows that the decisions that humans make online involve emotions
Even someone who claims to be impervious to emotion has to deal with the impact of emotions on his or her thinking.
Analytical thinkers are able to weigh the advantages and disadvantages in a given decision. In so doing, they distance themselves from the emotional component of the decisions. However, they cannot completely eliminate any emotional involvement.
The factors that influence decisions are never just a cold list of pros and cons. Decisions are also influenced by our memory of past event experiences and the feelings that we had during those events. Emotion, then, sneaks in every so subtly. It influences the entire cognitive milieu of the decision-making process.
The bottom line is this: We make emotional decisions. That’s neither good nor bad. It just is.
How do you deal with the emotions of the online shopper?
Since emotions are a part of the online shopping experience, we need to know how to deal with them.
The object of the emotion is more important than the nature of the emotion.
The emotion that the user feels is less important as why they’re feeling that way.
Most people overlook this fact. Most marketers tend to think, “Negative emotions have a negative impact on conversions.”
That’s simply not true. The main factor is why they are experiencing emotion?
Any emotion can drive conversions. A user might convert because they’re happy, sad, jealous, or downright furious. But the really important thing is why they are feeling that way.
- If a user is angry, because the website is ugly, then he may not convert. The object of his anger is the website. This ruins conversions.
- But if a user is angry, because the website is informing him about the atrocities of animal cruelty, then he probably will convert, and find out more information regarding how he can contribute to a good cause.
In both cases, the user is angry. The object of his anger is what matters, not the fact that he is angry.
Try to create emotion, regardless of what that emotion is.
Emotion is your ally, because emotion drives conversions.
Your goal, then, is to create emotions about the right things. There are two right ways to stir up emotion.
- Create positive feelings with your site design, copy, and overall UX. Don’t anger the user with a non-functioning site, comic sans, broken links, stock photos, or hard-to-read text. The user’s experience on the site should create positive emotion — happiness, relaxation, warmth, security, etc.
- Create strong feelings regarding the conversion action. The emotions that a user experiences toward your conversion action can be either positive or negative, as long as they are strong. You can prompt anger about an injustice, stir up jealousy, tickle curiosity, cause excitement, etc. Target these emotions on a specific point — the conversion action. If the user feels strongly about that action, those emotions will carry them to complete the action and convert.
These are the emotional responses that ruin conversions.
Several emotional responses and their attendant causes will disrupt conversions. Here they are:
- Anger about added charges. Whenever you throw in an extra charge, users will be angry. Extra shipping charges are particularly annoying.
- Worry about what will happen to them or their computer when they click the CTA. The call to action button is the climax in the conversion funnel. The user should know what’s going to happen next. Obviously, you want to keep some level of curiosity in there, but at the same time assure them that nothing bad will happen. Some users are irrationally worried about infecting their computers with viruses when they click buttons online.
- Frustration because they do not have a promotional code. Sometimes, a user feels frustration because they see a promotional code entry form, but they don’t have a promotional code. This often derails the conversion as the user becomes frustrated and/or leaves to find a promotional code elsewhere online.
- Fear of privacy when there are too many fields in an online form. If you’re asking for too much information from a customer, they will feel fearful or defensive. Don’t ask for more information than you need when your conversion is a mailing list signup or something similar.
These emotional responses enhance conversions.
On the flip side, there are emotions and causes that can improve conversions.
- An appropriate level of curiosity regarding what will happen after she user clicks the CTA. Curiosity is a powerful emotion. Use this to your advantage when requesting a conversion action.
- Pleasant surprise when they receive an unexpected discount or coupon. Unexpected free shipping, discounted shipping, or two-day shipping works equally well to make the user feel pleasant.
- Fear of missing out on a timely deal. Urgency works well in improving conversions. When you add time or quantity limitations, users are more likely to convert.
- Tenderness or affection when they see pictures of babies or animals. As explained by James Coan, in his book Handbook of Emotion Elicitation and Assessment,most humans experience an emotional response when they see such pictures. These strong emotional feelings help to draw out more conversions.
Conclusion
Once you understand that emotion is a factor in online sales, then you can start to use that emotion to drive up your conversions. Creating an emotional connection is the start, and making sure those emotions are directed on the right objects is crucial to improving those conversions.
How do you use emotion to improve your online sales?
