How To Increase Conversions

Online businesses and e-commerce have ultimately created their place in our daily lives, and it’s not changing anytime soon.

Since most people spend a lot of their time online accessing numerous products and services, businesses need to reevaluate what makes consumers tick: something brands like Target, Walmart, Amazon, Netflix, Disney, Spotify, Apple, Meta, and Google all uncoincidentally rank high in.

This is where personalization in online business and e-commerce enters the picture. And personalization requires understanding changing consumer psychology, including its subconscious complexities. They may boost clicks and conversions. Or they may just save your business.

Personalization and consumer psychology

Personalization is more than just using a customer's name in an email.

As Dan Gingiss, author, keynote speaker, and former digital marketer and CX leader at Humana, McDonald’s, and Discover pointed out in a recent article:

For example, recognizing a customer’s birthday, anniversary, wedding, new child, new pet or other important life and career milestones is a simple, inexpensive and personalized way to show interest and caring. It improves the customer experience and engenders loyalty at almost no cost.

Successful personalization puts the brand aside and focuses on provoking a positive emotion from the customer at some point near the purchasing decision of the journey.

…instead of sales messaging such as “Try our zero percent introductory rate,” successful institutions focused on journey-based communications such as “Here’s how to make your holiday stress free.” One is trying to compete on price (a nearly impossible game to play) while the other is demonstrating a true understanding of the customer’s state of mind.

The human-likeness effect

Understanding the customer’s state of mind isn’t always obvious. In fact, it’s often subconscious.

A research paper from the Journal of Advertising shows us that a print advertisement that features faces or face-like images (versus one that does include those elements): better captures consumer attention and increases brand recognition and advertisement preference.

And it starts with the Human-Likeness Effect.

Let’s take a look at Abhishek Shah’s Rolex case study, in the Psychology of Marketing. As Shah points out:

When you look at Rolex's ads and displays, you'll notice 1 consistency.

According to Shah:

…it allows Rolex to showcase all the different aspects of the watch, especially its name and branding. Nothing gets covered by the hands of the clock.

Now, the jaw-dropping stuff - setting the dial at 10:10 makes the watch look a bit like a smiley face. And when people see a human-like smiley face, it positively enhances their emotional response and evaluation of seen watch.

I know, I know, that sounds a bit far-fetched.

The smiley face phenomenon with Rolex

But 10:10 has been proven to be the optimal time setting for enhanced positive emotions and increased intent to buy.

The study, conducted by the National Library of Medicine provides:

for the first time empirical evidence for the notion that using watches with a time setting resembling a smiling face (like 10:10) can positively affect the emotional response of the observers and their evaluation of a seen watch, even though they are not aware of the fact that the shown time setting is inducing this effect.

And the concept extends far beyond a simple smiley face.

Adding relevant faces to your ad or website can increase conversion rates by up to 95%.

For example, Shah recommends:

· Adding an icon of the author on your blogs

· Adding an image of humans interacting with your product on your landing page

· Trying to think of a couple more simple wins like that - it would go a long way!

Personalization can mean many things when it comes to e-commerce and marketing. As it relates to consumer psychology, we know that the more human-like an entity, the more positive the emotional reaction, the higher the purchasing intent.