Increase Conversion Through Persuasion

We are always really trying to persuade and sell everyday—at work, to your boss, and to your coworker; you’re trying to sell an idea or concept. At the end of the day, when you get home, you’re trying to sell to your spouse. It never ends. We even sell ideas to ourselves. Why should our websites be any different? One of the best ways that we can increase the conversion of our websites is through persuasion.

This is a part of a series of podcasts hosted by Bobby Hewitt – conversion rate expert and CEO of Creative Thirst, where Bobby shared tips on how to turn more clicks into customers. We at Convert learned insights on Aristotle’s persuasive system, how it can help with a website’s conversion rate, and how his principles can relate to modern marketing.

[Tweet “To successfully persuade a viewer to click, create a sense of urgency”]

The Concept Of Persuasion System

As defined, persuasion is an umbrella term of influence and can attempt to influence a person’s beliefs, attitudes, intentions, motivations, or behaviors. In business, persuasion is a process aimed at changing a person’s (or a group’s) attitude or behavior toward some event, idea, object, or other person(s), by using written or spoken words to convey information, feelings, or reasoning, or a combination thereof.

In terms of marketing and selling, the concept of persuasion is a strategy on how marketers or businesses can become more effective at persuading their customers or prospects to buy or acquire their services. This system has been around for many years and till now, we are always really trying to persuade people. We can see that persuasive system has an important role not just in marketing but also in our everyday life. According to an article by Neil Patel,

The real skill in digital marketing is persuasion. It doesn’t matter how much retargeting you do or how many lightbox popups you make, if you don’t persuade customers, then you won’t make sales.

Four Point Persuasive System

Persuasion was first heard from Aristotle’s logical formal study which is the result of how methodical thinkers make decision which was justified using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which is a questionnaire designed to measure and study psychological preferences on how people make their decisions. Combining these two principles will give us the perfect definition of Persuasion.

Aristotle’s analysis on persuasion has greatly influenced the western philosophy and now marketers are taking advantage of it as a way to improve conversion rate. His system has been reprocessed several times over, but nothing has really been as powerful as Aristotle’s original four point model. Let’s take a deeper look into Aristotle’s persuasive system and how we can apply it to modern marketing:

1. Exordium, which is attention. Your headlines still need to cut right to the heart of what you’re offering, not in a sensational way but in more of a genuine way with an emphasis on why a prospect should do business with you above all other alternatives including doing nothing at all.
2. No Ratio, the problem. Once you have the attention of your prospects, you have to keep their interest; it must be about the customers and their needs.
3. Confirmation, the solution. Each element of your design needs to come from the perspective of what’s in it from your prospect’s point of view. Approach the design from the perspective of the problem that your prospect is trying to solve.
4. Para Ratio, the benefit. After the solution comes the benefit of your product. It’s always been about them, about your customers. This is where you start your product features and dig deep to uncover the true benefits that your prospect will get from your product.

Having these four point persuasive system in mind can provide great benefits to each and every web page if your goal is to increase your conversion rate. But it is not only about learning about persuasion, it is also about knowing how to use it and when to use it. You can learn all of these by running a simple A/B test. Visit us at Convert to know more about increasing your conversion rate.