The psychology of websites — CXL Digital Psychology and Persuasion Minidegree Review — Part 9

This is part 9 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.

Dual-process theory

The dual-process theory refers to our two systems of thinking, these different systems are called system 1 and system 2 in behavioral economics. System 1 is our automatic system which is quick, non-logical, controlled and requires no effort whereas system 2 is our reflective system which is slow, logical and requires high effort. Since being in system 1 requires less effort than being in system 2, system 1 is where our brain prefers to be and where most of our thinking arises. This means that a lot of our behavior is non-conscious.

Value propositions

When it comes to websites the dual-process theory needs to be taken into consideration because if we make the customers think too much they will most likely not take action. It needs to be clear what our website does or what kind of product or service we are selling. Here is where a good value proposition comes in. A value proposition is a promise of value delivered and it communicates some sort of solution or benefit for the user. A clear value proposition includes:

• Who your website is for
• What the benefits are for the visitor
• Why it’s relevant for them

A good value proposition explains a solution or benefit, identifies the target audience, delivers specific benefits, and makes you look unique. The last one especially applies if you are selling products that are not unique, then you have to persuade the user to buy from you. If your offer is very similar to your competitors you can offer small value-adds. These can be things such as:

• Free shipping
• Fast shipping
• No setup fee
• Customizable
• Money-back guarantee
• Cancel at any time
• Free bonus with a purchase.

If you add these with your value proposition you can become more attractive than your competitors, even if you have a similar product/service.

How to present your value proposition

Many companies only have their value propositions on the homepage but the value proposition should be placed on all pages where you want people to do something. So except for the homepage, the value proposition should also be placed on all key landing pages, category pages, product pages, etc. Of course, the value propositions can be adjusted to the amount of space available on other pages than the home page. For instance, you might only want to have some bullet points on the product pages.

There are different ways to present a value proposition but most websites have a headline that communicates an end-benefit, followed by a short paragraph around 2–3 sentences that explains what you do/offer, for whom and why it’s useful. After that, it’s common to have 3–5 bullet points with key benefits.

When writing a value proposition it’s also important to use the same language as your visitors. This will make it easier for them to understand and it will resonate with them emotionally. A simple language will increase clarity. By interviewing your customers or use social media you can find out what their language is like. Visuals communicate faster than words so having an image that reinforces the message is also important.

By asking ”So what?” and ”Okay, prove it” you can challenge your value proposition. If you can prove that your value proposition is true that is where you can get people excited about the promise you are giving them.

Value propositions for different purposes

The two most common scenarios when creating a value proposition are

1. Nische/new products — few/no customers, low/no traffic, unproven business model
2. Broad/established products — active customers, medium/high traffic, proven business models

How to come up with the value proposition and the end-result of it is a lot different depending on the scenario. For established products, the customer awareness level is higher and therefore the focus needs to be more on differentiating your product from the competitors rather than focusing on why people need your product and what solution it brings them. For new or niche products on the other hand, the value proposition should be focused on what problem the product solves. The audience for new products is problem aware and the audience for established products is solution aware. The last one is comparison shoppers.

Value proposition strategy

This week I have learned a strategy to create value propositions from Momoko Price who was the instructor for part of this lesson. For established products, the strategy she suggests is to base the ideas on voice of customer research. If it’s a new or niche product she suggests internal brainstorming:

1. List your product’s key features
2. Pinpoint those that are unique
3. List customer pain points for each feature
4. Define desirable outcomes for each pain
5. Score pains/outcomes by severity and frequency
6. Edit top-scored pain/outcomes into unique value propositions
7. Score the unique value propositions and choose the best one

But she also emphasizes the importance of doing external research as soon as possible to validate the value proposition.

Formulas for value propositions

Depending on what audience you have and what type of value proposition you want there are different ways to design these.

Audience type: Low awareness audience

Value proposition type: Achieve enhancement

Headline and subhead formula: (Achieve specific desire) with the (only, largest, most, etc ) (product type) that (does valuable unique things)

Audience type: Low awareness audience

Value proposition type: Eliminate pain

Headline and subhead formula: (Eliminate problem) with the (only, largest, most, etc) (product type) that (valuable, unique thing)

Audience type: High awareness (comparison shoppers)

Value proposition type: Achieve enhancement

Headline and subhead formula: The (only, largest, most, etc) (product type your visitors are looking for) that (achieves your customer’s most commonly cited desire)

Audience type: High awareness (comparison shoppers)

Value proposition type: Eliminate pain

Headline and subhead formula: The (only, largest, most, etc) (product type your visitors are looking for) that (eliminates your customer’s most commonly cited problem)

Summary of the ninth week

The power of a good value proposition is underestimated. One can think that the value proposition can’t be that important but conversion experiments show over and over again how much of an impact the value proposition can have. I was already familiar with the concept of a value proposition and what it should include but what I found extra interesting about this week was to learn the formulas for value propositions. Knowing your customer’s problems and desires do not help to create value for the customer if you can’t present it in a good way. I think these learnings will be very useful for my future job as a conversion optimizer. Next week I will review my learnings from the lesson “Heuristic analysis frameworks for conversion optimization audits. See you in a week!