Design your marketing landing page like this to make users buy in

The core of marketing is to guide and influence target consumers, generate the decisions we expect them to make, and complete the target actions we set. If we can deeply understand the decision-making mechanism of the brain, we can use some classic decision-making theories to guide us to design more "attractive" marketing pages and maximize the conversion rate of the pages.

There are different opinions. Keith Stanovich mentioned in "Beyond IQ" that there are no two different physiological areas in the brain responsible for System 1 and System 2 respectively. They are just two different processing mechanisms of our brain. It is more appropriate to call them Process 1 and Process 2. It doesn’t matter what they are called. In short, our brain has these two information processing processes. Let’s call them System 1 (fast thinking) and System 2 (slow thinking).

We all know that the core goal of a marketing landing page is to guide users to complete key actions, such as purchasing, leaving information, and leaving interactive messages. Before users make this key action, there will be a series of decision-making processes. Every time a decision is made, some users will be lost. When designing the presentation and guidance process of marketing pages, we must grasp a core principle: when guiding users to make decisions, we must fully mobilize the user's system 1, allowing them to think quickly and make decisions quickly, so as to improve the final conversion rate.

If everyone understands the principles here, it will be very clear when looking back at the larger marketing strategies and designs.

In some aspects, the speed of human brain evolution is slower than the speed of environmental change. Since System 1 consumes less energy and System 2 consumes more energy, people will instinctively tend to use System 1 to make decisions in order to save energy. Our brains love to use inspired thinking to directly call upon System 1 in order to reduce our cognitive burden and lower energy expenditure.

The essence of heuristic thinking is to find ways to make new problems encountered conform to some known rules stored in the brain. Once these new problems find matching rules, we can quickly use the existing rules to process and make decisions. Once people cannot find matching rules in their brains, they will mobilize System 2 to perform more strenuous thinking.

So, whether we think fast or slow is influenced by the way information is presented. If we follow some basic principles and present information according to a more reasonable framework, it will allow users to mobilize the fast thinking mode very smoothly and make it easier for users to make the decisions we expect.

To understand the impact of information presentation framework, we must first understand a concept called framing effect. This effect refers to the fact that people's different descriptions of an objectively identical problem lead to different decision-making judgments.

Let’s give an example to help everyone understand the impact of information presentation framework on advertising conversion.

A K12 education institution launched an online low-priced course and tested two versions of the landing page, A and B. In version A, you can directly purchase the course without leaving a phone number, but the price is 59.9 yuan. If you are willing to leave a phone number, the price becomes 9.9 yuan; in version B, you must leave a phone number if you want to purchase the course, but the price is very low, only 9.9 yuan.

The ultimate purpose of the low-priced course landing page is of course to leave information and phone number, not to really sell courses. From this perspective, the cost of purchasing versions A and B is actually the same. You can purchase the course for 9.9 yuan by leaving a phone number. But the results are very interesting. The telephone retention rate of version A is 27% higher than that of version B. The reason is that the information presentation framework of the two versions is different.

A is a tactic of playing hard to get. You don't have to leave your phone number, but if you do, you can enjoy the discount. This creates completely different psychological feelings for consumers: consumers of version A will feel like they have gotten a bargain, while consumers of version B will feel like they have been forced to do so. Some users who have the desire to buy may well feel disgusted.

The above example reveals that the influence of information presentation framework in marketing is so huge that people make completely different choices for expressions that are essentially the same but appear different on the surface.

So, how can we design a reasonable information presentation framework that allows users to use quick thinking and quickly follow the steps we set to complete their target actions? In other words, what design methodologies are there for quick-thinking guidance logic that can make it easier for most users to enter the quick-thinking track and easily achieve the actions we want them to complete?

This is actually a very complex design presentation process. There is no model that can be directly applied. The characteristics of each product/service and the positioning of the brand itself will affect the overall thinking framework. What's more, we also have to consider a series of very detailed issues such as the characteristics of the channel and changes in people's mentality. Fortunately, there are some basic principles we can follow when designing a framework to guide fast thinking.

2. Design the marketing page like this, users are more likely to buy it

Principle 1: Lead users to have strong emotions

Strong emotions can have a huge impact on user decisions. In "Beyond IQ", a survey study is mentioned:

The subjects were required to answer the following two questions:

1. How much would you be willing to donate to save 200,000 birds drowning in oil ponds?

2. How much money would you be willing to donate to save 2,000 birds drowning in oil ponds?

People were willing to pay only slightly more in the first scenario than in the second, with the mean amount they were willing to pay being $80. Researchers believe that the image of thousands of birds drowning in the oil pond has distracted people from paying attention to the number of birds. People had a strong emotional reaction to this horrific image, which affected their ability to process quantitative information. At this point, the difference between 200,000 birds and 2,000 birds is not so obvious.

Studies have shown that strong emotions can affect people's ability to process most information, that is, strong emotions can obscure the slow thinking system. This is exactly the point we can use. When designing the conversion logic of the landing page, we can make users feel some strong emotions through methods that resonate with users or other reasonable methods, making it easier for users to convert.

Let me give you a specific example.

A home improvement platform found that the conversion rate of the advertising landing page was relatively low. After changing the title again and again, the conversion rate could not be improved. In order to obtain more user leads, the marketing team developed a new optimization plan and conducted a 2-week test through A/B testing.

The optimized version (If you are afraid of scams in decoration, you can save 40% by doing this) has a nearly 30% higher page registration conversion rate than the original version (From rough to fine decoration, 3 easy steps to save you money)!

The optimized version adds a friendly female image, which creates a strong sense of immersion. The title emphasizes "preventing tricks" and "saving 40%", which are the most worrying pain points before decoration. People are afraid that the decoration will be too expensive, so a specific and shocking number is given here, which makes people impressed and arouses strong curiosity. At this time, users are more likely to be emotional and want to leave their information and get decoration quotes - the marketing conversion action can be completed more quickly.

In general, if we design marketing conversion pages in a way that allows users to resonate or feel involved in the scene, thereby generating strong emotions, users will tend to think quickly and make the conversion actions we expect more quickly.

Principle 2: Default Options Guide

We should always remember that the brain has the principle of minimum energy consumption, which can be said to be the core of inspiring us to make quick thinking decisions. "Default options" is a very useful guiding principle.

When people make quick decisions, they are easily influenced by the default options given by the environment. In his book Decision Making and Rationality, Stanovich mentions a cross-national study on organ donation rates. Research results: 85.9% of people in Sweden agree to donate their organs after death, while the organ donation rate in the United States is only 28%, and only 17.2% in the United Kingdom agree. The study found that this difference in donation rates actually stems from the detailed differences in organ donation policies in different countries.

In countries with high organ donation rates, such as Sweden, the default option for organ donation is "agree". That is, in these countries, when people are faced with this issue, the default option is to agree to donate; if they do not want to donate, they need to complete some additional operations before they can check the "disagree" option. However, in countries with low donation rates, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, the default option for this question is "disagree". If you want to donate your organs after death, you must make an additional application statement.

In marketing landing pages, we often see the use of "default options" for guidance. For example, if you are logged in, many media will help you automatically fill in the phone number item in the form on the landing page you clicked on; when leaving the purchase page or form page, the page will remind users in various ways, highlighting the "Think Again" button and graying out the "Give Up Cruelly" button; in the additional pop-up reminder interface, the default highlighted prompt options are generally to ask users not to leave or continue to complete the current transaction process.

Of course, as more and more marketing pages have incorporated similar default guidance designs, users have gradually become immune to this type of guidance. However, according to statistics, adding some simple and key default guidance will still increase the user conversion rate. We can also extend the default guidance principle. There are many things that can be done to help users in advance, so we should try our best to help them complete them first.

For example, an online home improvement brand has set up a lead collection form on the landing page of the information flow, which will pop up if the user stays on it for more than 5 seconds.

By default, this form will automatically fill in the information the user has just filled in, reducing the user's workload; it will also automatically identify the user's geographic location and automatically fill in the city option. This detail on the options increased the page’s form submission rate by 3 percentage points.

Principle 3: Get more out of your efforts

This strategy is based on a classic sales technique: before persuading users to buy a product, ask them to answer some closed, positive and affirmative small questions. In this way, when you ask key questions that require users to make purchasing decisions, they will tend to give positive answers.

When we design a marketing campaign, it is very similar to the process of selling a product, except that we use online marketing pages to attract customers, present information and complete interactions, persuading users step by step to make key conversion behaviors. Although we cannot sell to users face to face, this is precisely one of the advantages of online marketing - people will be less disgusted and wary of people. If we grasp the essential logic of these classic sales techniques and impress users through marketing pages and interactive logic, users will be converted without realizing it.

Let me give you an example that I just came across these two days. It is a classic case of guiding APP downloads through a landing page mini-game.

A payment platform was cooperating with an e-commerce app to carry out a Double 11 promotion. When I clicked on an advertisement for a Double 11 red envelope, a small game interface popped up instantly. It looks like a pet-raising game, with a fluffy kitten looking cute at me across the screen. I couldn't help but look at it for 2 more seconds, and before I could react, I automatically received a lot of cat-raising coins, and then a pop-up message asked "Do you want to upgrade the kitten?" I clicked "Yes", and the kitten automatically ate and drank water, and grew a little bigger - this actually gave me positive feedback.

The system then kept popping up similar questions, "Do you want to dress up as a kitten?" "Do you want to receive the gift box?" I clicked "Yes" to each one. I watched the kitten grow up in an instant and be dressed up. When I wanted to click "Yes", it told me that I didn't have enough gold coins. I could download 1,000 gold coins by downloading the APP. I clicked "Yes" without thinking, and then I reinstalled an e-commerce APP that I had uninstalled for half a year.

This example involves the joint use of content marketing and material incentives. It may not be applicable to every type of product, but the logic behind it is the same: advertising marketing pages will only become more personalized and creative. We used to say that getting straight to the point is the most efficient, but with the explosion of information and consumers becoming increasingly immune to marketing ads, this straightforward marketing page is no longer a panacea.

Judging from future trends, marketing pages need to first find points that can easily allow users to form a consensus, continuously engage in participation and interaction, invest costs, and then guide conversions, the effect may be better.

Generally speaking, it is much more difficult to guide users to make a key decision right away, such as filling out a form or making a purchase, than to guide them to make several small decisions first. Guiding users to make several small decisions may seem to go against our existing landing page design habits, but if used in appropriate scenarios, the overall conversion rate will be higher.

In particular, if combined with the principle of loss aversion, it will be easier for users to complete the conversion action. In short, we must not ignore this important principle for improving conversions: break down the user's decision-making chain and make steady progress.

Principle 4: Give before you take - the principle of loss aversion

Loss aversion is the phenomenon that when people face the same amount of losses and gains, the pain caused by the losses is greater than the joy brought by the gains.

For example, when giving users preferential incentives, if you use the method of sending red envelopes, you first give the red envelopes to users so that users can see the red envelopes in their accounts, but when using them, they need to purchase a certain amount or add other restrictions, which creates a loss aversion scenario. Red envelopes are discounts that you have already received, and you will feel a sense of loss if you cannot spend them.

This principle is applied to landing page scenarios. Its essence is that marketers artificially transform a profit scenario into a potential loss scenario. In this case, loss-averse users are more likely to activate System 1’s fast thinking and make decisions more irrational, which is what marketers hope to achieve. The application of this principle is very common nowadays. I have listed a scenario where this principle has been fully used recently, so I will not go into details here.

The above is a landing page for online education. Not only does it create a retention pop-up window that gives a sense of loss when trying to retain users, but it also launches a second retention campaign when the retention pop-up window doesn't work, trying to guide users to the landing page of another product through preferential gifts, and fully guide the conversion of traffic.

Principle 5: Create a cognitive gravity field

"There is a cognitive miser living in the human brain, so when analyzing and solving problems, it uses a simple method (fast thinking) instead of a more complicated method (slow thinking)."

It is precisely because the cognitive mechanism of the human brain has such characteristics that when people analyze a problem, they will first ask: Have I encountered similar problems before, and how did I deal with them? Have people around you encountered similar problems? How did they deal with it? Is there any information I can refer to on how to deal with this problem?

The above ideas are all good and can help us solve many problems correctly and efficiently, but "borrowing" has a prerequisite for use, and we need to use slow thinking to make judgments: Are these experiences still correct in this situation? Are they still applicable? However, many times, people do not make this judgment and simply "take it as it is". Therefore, each of these experiences from everywhere is like a ball with gravity, which will exert gravity on other balls around it and affect each other.

What does this have to do with marketing? When we do marketing, we are actually trying to create such gravitational "cognitive balls" in the users' minds. The best case scenario is that if users are not good at using "slow thinking" to fight back, they will definitely be attracted by these cognitive gravitational fields and do what we expect them to do.

Halo effect

The "halo effect" we often talk about is the influence of the cognitive gravitational field. People's cognition and judgment of others often start from the local situation and then expand to form an overall impression. For example, if a person is considered good, he will be surrounded by a positive and affirmative aura and everything about him will be considered good.

For example, the most common traffic stars we see endorse brands and promote products, which is actually utilizing the halo effect. They have created a perception among the public that they are particularly good, particularly professional, and particularly trustworthy, so whatever they sell is always sold out because the public believes that the products they choose are the best.

This halo effect is actually also used in the marketing conversion process. The most common one is that in various marketing pages, the images of brand endorsement celebrities will be exposed as much as possible to make people who like them feel good about them and increase their trust.

Some marketing pages will especially highlight the user reviews section and will choose those admirable "old users" to make recommendations. For example, testimonials for entrance courses will come from the top scorers in a certain province or city, high-scoring "academic masters", etc. These are all creating a subtle influence on consumers.

The famous teacher series that is now popular in K12 also makes good use of the halo effect. On a landing page, the famous teacher’s profile picture takes up half of the screen. Many students and parents have been "brainwashed" by this marketing model.

Anchoring Effect

Another technique often used in marketing is called the anchoring effect, which is also an attempt to create a cognitive gravitational field. First, let’s look at an example of “using the anchoring effect in offline sales.”

We have all had the experience of haggling.

"Boss, how much is this?" "500 yuan."

"It's too expensive, can it be cheaper?" "Normally, we don't bargain for this. You get what you pay for. How much do you want?"

"300?" you asked guiltily. "I can't take it. It's lower than the cost. I'm losing money!"

"It's just 300, I won't sell it." You feel like you've found the bottom price and want to hold out.

"Okay, okay. You're really good at bargaining! Come back if you like it."

The boss will have a helpless and disadvantaged expression on his face. You think you've bought something at a great value for money, but in reality, you're competing with the store owner in the cognitive gravity field he creates. His 500 is an anchor point he designed for you. If you really know the goods and are a good bargainer, you can quickly counterattack and perform counter-anchoring.

"How much is this?" "500"

"It's so expensive! This thing is only a few dozen yuan, are you selling it for 50?"

Most people really can't bring themselves to bargain for such a low price. But if you are bold enough to cut down, you create a counter-anchor point of 50 yuan. The competition between you and the store owner is between 500 and 50. Even if the subsequent bargaining process is not smooth, the store owner will be influenced by the cognitive gravity of 50 yuan and know your bottom price, so the chances of getting a lower price will be greater.

When it comes to online marketing, the marketing page is actually a scenario where it is difficult for consumers to fight back. Marketers have absolute initiative in setting anchor points; but consumers are not at the mercy of others and can leave. Therefore, the anchor points need to ensure the "negotiation" advantage while making consumers happy to accept them, which requires great skills. Moreover, most of the time, the setting of anchor points needs to be constantly tested.

Here is a specific example. The picture below is a marketing page for low-priced courses in a certain education industry. The price anchor point of this page was designed to be exaggerated at the beginning. The original price was 1,999 yuan and the current price was 19 yuan. The conversion rate of this page is not high.

The marketers wondered what went wrong. The course was already so cheap, and it was a complete experience with 20 lessons. After thinking about it, I realized that the design of the anchor point was too unrealistic, which made consumers question it - the original price couldn't be 1,999 yuan, isn't this original price too exaggerated?

So the marketing staff conducted an AB test, without changing any other parts, and made changes to the price - changing the original price of 1999 to 599 and the current price to 19.9 yuan. The optimized version had a purchase conversion rate 7 percentage points higher than the original version.

Marketers therefore speculated that it was this change in pricing that made consumers more receptive to “discounts.” Just like bargaining, if you ask for an exorbitant price at the beginning, consumers will not appreciate it even if you offer it for free later and will think you are dishonest. However, once the marketing strategy is adjusted reasonably, the same course is priced a little higher and sells well. This is a successful practice of the "anchoring effect".

Of course, in addition to the halo effect and anchoring effect, there are many other ways to create a cognitive gravity field that is beneficial to marketing, such as citing methodology, industry cases, etc. In short, the key to creating a cognitive gravitational field is: it is best to put forward a clear point of view on the marketing page first, but be careful not to cause user disgust. This powerful point of view can drive users to the next step of conversion.

The design principles of marketing pages are listed here for the time being. There are many more methods. From the perspective of the brain’s decision-making mechanism, we have only mentioned the tip of the iceberg. Consumers' decisions are influenced by many internal and external factors and are a very complex process. In actual marketing work, there are more factors to consider, including a sense of the market, insights into consumption cycles and changes in target populations, etc. These observations require us to accumulate and update them continuously every day.

However, when designing the conversion process, because the purpose is to allow users to complete key actions, each step tries to minimize the consumer's computing power consumption, that is, to allow users to call on "quick thinking" to make decisions in the manner guided by the page with as little energy as possible.

Finally, it helps you make good use of the characteristics of the brain's decision-making mechanism to discover more subtle marketing strategies.

Author: Lingqi Marketing Notes

Source: Lingxi Marketing Notes (getlx007)