Product messaging and final thoughts — CXL Digital Psychology and Persuasion Minidegree Review — Part 12

This is part 12 out of 12 reviewing the digital psychology and persuasion minidegree at CXL Institute. For 12 weeks, I will deep-dive into areas such as psychology foundations, neuromarketing, persuasion models and behavioral psychology. Each week I will post one article reviewing the course content and discuss my learnings as well as my personal thoughts on it.

Last week I wrote about how to conduct a copy teardown, message-mining and message hierarchies. This week I will continue on the same topic and then sum up my final thoughts on this minidegree since this is my last post.

Editing and punching up your copy

In this lesson, Momoko Prices provides conversion-focused editing principles for significantly better copy. She emphasizes that sales page copy editing is different from regular copy-editing so keep that in mind.

Momoko’s 7 simple rules of effective sales copy-editing:

Rule#1: Be clear — say what you mean and use explicit messaging, it should be obvious what you’re selling. Don’t put your trust in the images you have on your site, tell the users what they need to know to make a decision.

Rule#2: Match the reader’s mindset — use well-researched, message-matched headlines. What brought the users to the page is what you should match your message with.

Rule#3:Blow your customers away with value — make a list of specific happy outcomes and elimination of specific pain point. Then prove it with testimonials and hard data.

Rule#4: Use quantifiable proof, if possible — use specific proof instead of generic proof. Generic proof tends to sound more fake than clear numbers.

Rule#5: Don’t just talk…paint a picture! — use ”word pictures”. ”Word pictures” are metaphors that are so on-point you instantly see, hear, smell and/or feel them in your mind.

Rule#6: Show and tell generously — the classic rule is ”show, don’t tell” but Momoko Price states this can be risky for sales copy because it is often implicit. Online sales copy needs to be explicit in order for people to get your point and then take action.

Rule#7: Cut anything that’s not doing real work — Is the copy reflecting/matching motivation? Is it conveying or clarifying value? Is it proving a claim? Is it addressing an anxiety? Is it adding authentic specificity? If the answer is no, cut it.

Conversion-focused formatting and layout

Momoko Prices also presents 7 design factors that can influence your copy’s effectiveness dramatically in this lesson.

• Position.The position of the copy is important because eye-tracking studies have shown people are viewing sites in specific patterns
• Size. The bigger/closer an object is, the more accessible and noticeable it is
• Order. The order of each piece of copy matters and it needs to match the visual hierarchy of the page
• Space/clutter. The more space/clutter the harder it is for somebody to make a decision
• Typography. The typography you choose can have a significant impact on readability. Bigger, high-contrast fonts are easier to read in general.
• Directional cues. Directional cues influence what readers look at
• Color contrast. Contrast tells our eyes and brain what to focus on

Final thoughts

Almost three months ago I joined the CXL scholarship program. After finishing my e-commerce management studies in June it was difficult to find a job because of the pandemic so after the summer I decided to continue with my studies. I have always been interested in psychology and to be able to combine my e-commerce studies with a huge interest of mine is a dream come true. I had already done CXL’s Growth marketing minidegree earlier and I knew they also offered a digital psychology and persuasion minidegree that I had been wanting to do for a while. The problem was I couldn’t afford to pay for the minidegree at that time so instead I applied for their scholarship program, and luckily my application was accepted.

The length of a scholarship program at CXL is 12 weeks and depending on which minidegree you apply for you have to finish a certain amount of lessons each week. The digital psychology and persuasion minidegree includes 50 hours of course material which means I had to set aside at least 4 hours a week to finish it in time. Since I haven’t had a job during this period this wasn’t a problem for me but I would definitely recommend this minidegree for people having full-time jobs as well. If you are disciplined and willing to allocate the time needed to finish it in time, you will make it.

Being self-disciplined can be hard sometimes but what struck my mind after learning about digital psychology was how many of the taught methods that CXL are using themselves. When logging in to your account a progress bar is shown so you can see how close you are to completing the minidegree and for every finished course you will receive instant positive feedback. These are two of many ways they are motivating and confirming your actions.

For some lessons, it’s required to pass a test and usually the passing scores are 90%. The tests were quite difficult but if you don’t achieve the passing score you can retake the test every 24 hours. My advice is to take notes while watching the videos, this will increases the chances of passing the tests. At the end of each lesson there are additional related content CXL links for those who have the time and want to dig deeper.

If you are more interested in other areas of digital marketing CXL also offers minidegrees in conversion optimization, customer acquisition, growth marketing, digital analytics, technical marketing and technical content marketing. I will definitely take more courses in the future as I proceed in my career.

The purpose of me continuing with my studies at CXL was to add more skills to my resume so it could hopefully increase my chances of finding a job within CRO. Through the CXL community, I came in contact with a CRO agency where I will soon start a part-time job. I am so grateful for having been able to participate in this scholarship program and I would highly recommend CXL’s course to everyone looking to learn new skills or wanting to improve their already existing skills.

Thank you CXL!