The behavioural psychology of Guided Conversion

About

This document has been developed by preezie in partnership with behavioural psychology specialist Kris White, and team of academic psychology researchers.

The psychological principles, examples and recommendations in this document are based on:

preezie customer projects and data points.

Global eCommerce case studies.

Academic literature.

Consumer market research.

Introducing

Kris White

Kris White is a behavioural psychology specialist who draws on a deep understanding of cognitive psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary psychology and sociology to identify behavioural insights and drive behaviour change.

Kris has over 20 years experience consulting to global corporations, startups, scaleups, and government heads of state, having worked in London, Singapore, New York, Dubai, Sydney and Perth.

He is frequently called upon as thought leader, speaker and writer, including speaking roles at Behavioural Economics

meetups in Sydney and New York, and the national Market Research industry conference in Australia.

Kris is full member of the Research Society Australia and holds a double degree in Psychology and Philosophy and numerous short course certifications.

Behavioural Psychology

“Ultimately we are all in the business of behaviour change. Behavioural psychology cuts to the chase giving us the tools to change behaviour. The rest is noise”

Behavioural psychology brings together a wide range evidence based psychology principles which are known to influence decision making and behaviour.

This cutting edge field (closely related to behavioural economics) uses an understanding of mental cognitive biases and emotional drivers to understand and shape behaviour.

The growing volume of applications demonstrating the commercial and social value of behavioural psychology is undeniable - making many of the traditional marketing approaches obsolete.

Kris White

Build a narrative

01 02 03 04

The 4 stages of building your preezie workflow

Use the right language

Manage price

Structure and design

01Develop an identity

Make it an experience

Embed your brand story

Research demonstrates the power of storytelling and narratives to influence behaviour. A strong story is more emotionally engaging, memorable, and trustworthy. When creating preezie workflows, think about the story and narrative you are trying to create for your audience. Ensure this theme is consistent the entire way through. Customers who successfully implement preezie workflows with narratives see higher engagement, completion and conversion rates.

See the next page for examples:

The Psychology

Integrate your brand story into the preezie journey

Build a narrative

Identity Make it an experience Brand story

With over 90 styles, preezi is helping us find your perfect Leggings

Include your brand story or culture - Bevilles offer a little of their brand history as users wait for their result. Lorna Jane provides a simple message with a loading “shoe” GIF.

Bevilles opened in 1934... that’s 86 years experience and preezie going into finding your perfect Necklace...

A name or identity for the workflow - Black Pepper’s Bella or Miss Amara’s Cleo are great examples of this.

For omnichannel brands why not create an overall experience. Luxury Escapes built a Holiday Lab to diagnose and prescribe treatments for your holiday woes. You can see how they used preezie live in a physical pop up concept here. After a customer completes the journey, preezie delivers their personalised result diagnosis straight to each user’s email!

It is important that customers can identify with the preezie journey. Using personas and segments when building the preezie journey will ensure we are speaking the customers language, addressing true customer mindsets and needs.

Think about who your personas are and how they think, act and speak. Understand their age, gender, likes, location and more and use that as a guiding beacon for your narrative.

The journey, creatives and copy for 55 year old Sarah who is looking to buy a $200 bottle of red wine is typically different to 23 year old Shelby who is buying some roller skates.

The Psychology

Align the journey to personas and segments

01Example

Build a narrative

See the next page for examples:

Jake, 20 - 30 Bella, 35 - 45

At home or renting Owns a home Has a mortgage

$60,000 - $100,000 $100,000 - $150,000

Shops on mobile Shops on laptop

Shops while commuting to and from work

Shops in the eveningItems under $100, sales Best fit, well suited products

Prefers 24hr chat systems Prefers talking to a sales assistant

Graduated Has a student loan Graduated

SingleMarried

Demographics Demographics

Behavioural Identifiers Behavioural Identifiers

The use of strategic language will prime the customer for conversion.

Conceptual priming - Exposure to one idea or stimulus influences how subsequent ideas are interpreted.

This means that what your customers see at the start of the preezie journey will affect how they react later, even if the two elements are unrelated.

Considerations & ExamplesThe Psychology

Use priming language

02Searching 1,000 watches to find

your perfect one

Language

Language should create excitement, engagement or surprise.

Copy when waiting for recommendation results. Example: “Personalising your holiday package…”.

When your results are displayed, look to create a “sensory projection”, for example: “Which of these guitars can you see yourself playing at your next jam session?”.

Avoid using terms such as “no preference” or “don’t mind” as options as they detach the user from their own identity.

People place a greater value on things they believe they have some ownership of and don’t want to part with them.

Create an Endowment

effect

Considerations & ExamplesThe Psychology

02Language

Convertible Car Seat

Convertible Booster

Harnessed Booster

Use language that suggests personal ownership, for example; “you” and “yours” not “it” (the product).

Example: “What is the age of your child” rather than “What is the child’s age”.

Use assumptive close, example: ‘Where will your camping adventures mostly be?’.

Expertise - based on specific topic and product knowledge.

Individual - based on the experience or unique characteristics of an individual, founder, brand ambassador, avatar assistant. E.g Bella from Black Pepper.

Social - based on social proof of many other happy customers. “Over 10,000 customers choose Bevilles every month”.

Think about how you articulate your rationale for the preezie recommendation:

Authority bias - People place more trust in the opinions of individuals who are perceived to have authority.

Influence and authority is perceived in two main types of characteristics:

Status: high socio-economic, competence, dominance and physical attractiveness. Connectedness: warmth, vulnerability, trustworthiness and charisma.

Authority bias and social proof

Considerations & ExamplesThe Psychology

02Language

Bevilles opened in 1934... that’s 86 years experience and preezie going

into finding your perfect Necklace...

Are there unrealistic low options at the bottom of the ’price’ scale? e.g. beginning with ‘0’.

Is the upper end of the price scale too high for people to choose? Can we create a second high option for those who don’t want the highest (extreme) price point?

Avoid using the extreme values. Example; if most of your products are under $1,000. Don’t show an option for $10,000+, make it more reasonable, example $2,000+.

Don’t forget to put price towards the end of the workflow (but not last or second last).

Choice architecture - People’s choices are dependent on the way the options are presented e.g. the number and range of choices.

Anchoring - Some numbers act as a reference point for comparing options - numbers seen first or seen most often set the considerations and expectations.

Aversion to extremes - Preference to avoid the most extreme high and low points of a scale or options.

Choice architecture

The Psychology Considerations & Examples

03Price

I’ll take this

I’ll take this

Expensive...

Expensive...

$100

$3 $3

$100$300

$7 $6 $7

$300 $500

Decoy

Decoy

The perception of ‘price’ can be determined by the way it is framed through language.

Framing ‘price’The Psychology Considerations & Examples

03Price

Consider how you talk about “price”. Depending on your brand and category you might consider “price”, “budget”, “investment”.

Consider conveying the “cost” with conceptual language e.g. “No skimping”, “skip takeaways for a week”, “Only the best”.

04Serial-position effect - People form stronger memories of the first and last items in a series and have the least strong recall of middle items in a set.

When creating the questions and answers for your preezie workflow ensure that the elements that hold the most value are seen first and last.

Question OrderThe Psychology Considerations & Examples

Structure and design

You are only a few clicks away from finding your best suited car seat

Use the most engaging questions at the beginning and the end of your workflow. e.g. those reflecting their immediate mindset, shopper mission.

Don’t begin or end with questions about price.

04Salience - Refers to how noticeable something is as a function of it standing out in its environment. The more distinct something is in its environment the more attention and significance will be paid to it.

Choice paralysis - Presentation of too many choices can lead to paralysis and reliance on default preferences.

Customers that have workflows that contrast heavily from their surroundings and don’t show too many options at once get double to triple the usage and a much better conversion rate.

Layout and design

The Psychology

Contrast

Clarity

Perception

Imagery

Choice

Structure and design

See the next page for examples:

Background

Perception ChoiceContrast

ClarityLook at a potential background image for the preezie workflow.

Avoid appearing as advertising pop-ups.Distinguishing the preezie journey from the rest of the website e.g. where the website uses icons, preezie uses images.

Ensure opportunities to select multiple options in a question are clear.

Number of answer options within a choice set should be enough to represent diverse options but not overwhelm the shopper (e.g. 2-8).

Call to actions

Landing page

Homepage

Collection pages

Exit intents

A high conversion rate is only going to help your revenue if it affects a reasonable percentage of your traffic.

When looking at placement keep in mind customers typically convert at 300 - 400% higher when they use preezie.

Ensure it is placed in your highest traffic areas and that its not hard to see and use.

04Placement

Considerations

Structure and design

See the next page for examples:

At the top of homepage above the fold.

Exit intents Call to actions

Landing page

Homepage

Collection pages

Call to actions are side banners that follow the user around.

Exit Intents are popups that trigger when a user is about to leave, consider using these.

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At the top of collections pages above the fold.

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Narrative Psychology (wikipedia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative_psychology#

The Story of Narratives, Behavioural Insights Team, 2019 https://www.bi.team/blogs/the-story-of-narratives/

Why Why Your Brain Loves Good Storytelling, Paul J. Zak, Harvard Business Review, 2014 https://hbr.org/2014/10/why-your-brain-loves-good-storytelling

Your Brain On Stories, Susan Weinschenk Ph.D, Psychology today, 2014https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brain-wise/201411/

your-brain-stories

Persona (wikipedia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persona_(user_experience)

Priming, behavioral science network https://www.behavioraleconomics.com/resources/mini-

encyclopedia-of-be/priming-conceptual/

ReferencesEndowment effect, behavioral science network https://www.behavioraleconomics.com/resources/mini-

encyclopedia-of-be/endowment-effect/

Authority bias (wikipedia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authority_bias

Messengers: Who We Listen To, Who We Don’t, And Why, Stephen Martin, Joseph Marks, 2019 https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/111/1116510/

messengers/9781847942357.html

Social norms, behavioral science network https://www.behavioraleconomics.com/resources/mini-

encyclopedia-of-be/social-norm/

Choice architecture, behavioral science network https://www.behavioraleconomics.com/resources/mini-

encyclopedia-of-be/choice-architecture/

Anchoring, behavioral science network https://www.behavioraleconomics.com/resources/mini-

encyclopedia-of-be/anchoring-heuristic/

Extremeness Aversion and Attribute-Balance Effects in Choice, Alexander Chernev, Journal of Consumer Research, Volume 31, Issue 2, September 2004, Pages 249–263 https://academic.oup.com/jcr/article-

abstract/31/2/249/1824942

How Language ‘Framing’ Influences Decision-Making, association for psychological science, 2016 https://www.psychologicalscience.org/publications/observer/

obsonline/how-language-influences-decision-making.html

Serial position effect (wikipedia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial-position_effect

Salience (wikipedia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salience_(neuroscience)

Overchoice (wikipedia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overchoice