Conversion Optimization Mini Degree Review — Part 3
This week I will review 5 courses from the Conversion Optimization Mini Degree at CXL:
- People & Psychology (Peep Laja)
- Social Proof (Joel Klettke)
- Intro to Neuromarketing (Roger Dooley)
- Developing & Testing an Emotional Content Strategy (Tolia Wolf)
- Influence and Interactive Design (Dr. Brian Cugelman)
Welcome to the third part of the 12 review series.
People & Psychology
Course instructor Peep Laja starts this course by covering Cialdini’s 7 principles of persuasion. I feel like the more I hear about them, the more I start to believe in them and understand how important they are. What I liked the most about this first part of the course is what Peep said about one of the principles and namely Authority. What he said about it inspires me, so I wrote down his words and keep them in front of me on my desk so that I don’t forget about it:
“In the long term, it’s best for you if you become the authority figure. Start acting like one now. Speak with confidence, lead discussions, blog, post videos, or find another way of establishing yourself or your company as an authority figure.”
The second lesson is about Fogg’s behavior model. Essentially what it says is that the desired behavior like purchase happens when three conditions are met: motivation, ability, and trigger. It might sound simple and easy, but there’s so much to it that ‘simple and easy” would be the last words I’d use about it.
Then follows a lesson about neuromarketing. Super interesting. What wasn’t so interesting was the next lesson and its name describes it very accurately — “ A big List of Persuasion Techniques”.
Okay, yes it was interesting, but I feel a bit skeptical about it. Do I need to know all of them? I would be happy to work more in-depth with the information provided if I knew why it’s so important to know them all.
Whilst I am overwhelmed with the amount of information I have to give them credit for structuring it, it’s brilliant.
The next lesson in the course is about cognitive biases. It confirms my mantra “never assume”. Just that in this case it’s about not assuming that others are like me.
Peep also covers emotional and rational decision-making and after that how people view websites. Then follows a product page study and the last lesson is about cognitive fluency.
Social Proof
I used to think that there isn’t much to know about the social proof, it’s pretty self-explanatory and yet after watching the lessons comes the realization that it was one more thing that has so much more to it. This course by Joel Klettke has given me a good understanding of social proof, how and where to use it, how to conduct customer interviews, and what are common mistakes I should avoid. What I will pay more attention to is video social proof. Joel says that even though it is great to do people don’t usually do it and I also can’t remember one website where I found video as social proof.
Intro to Neuromarketing
The instructor Roger Dooley starts the course with shocking statistics that only 3% of people trust marketers. What’s even scarier is that only one of five CEOs trust their chief marketing officers. That’s scary statistics, but when I think about it, that’s exactly how it was in my previous jobs. In one of them that turned over 30M EUR, there was no marketing department at all!
So to summarize the course and my thoughts about it, this was a good course to gain more overall understanding and knowledge about the subject of neuromarketing and I feel it is going to be very useful.
My key learnings are the following:
- I have to remember to ask myself a question if I am marketing to the bigger part of the brain — then 95% non-conscious brain of my customer?
- I can do a better job in marketing if I will be applying neuroscience knowledge
- There isn’t one single theory that explains all behavior, knowing Caldini’s and Fogg’s principles isn’t enough
- Persuasion slide — a framework that incorporates some of the persuasion psychology
This course also includes an event video where Andre Morys presents neuromarketing hacks on how to dominate a market. I liked his skepticism on some results that are claimed by other marketers.
Developing & Testing an Emotional Content Strategy
A course by Talia Wolf outlines her framework that explores the emotional triggers and behavioral principles that shape customer’s decision-making process.
In the course, she walks you through the above-mentioned 4 step framework in the context of online dating platforms. My personal opinion is that the information in this course, the whole idea of emotional content is fantastic, but it only scratched the surface and I’d like to know more.
Some interesting facts I learned from the course:
- We don’t buy a product. We’re buying an emotional value. We’re buying a better version of ourselves.
- The goal is to better understand the decision-making process of our customers, understand what they’re looking for emotionally, and then use that knowledge
- There’s a 270% gap between conversions on desktop and on mobile (!!!)
Influence and Interactive Design
This course by Dr. Brian Cugelman presents a framework that breaks down a typical behavioral flow. In the lessons, he walks you through the model, the importance of concentrating on outcomes, then design strategies to lead to those desired outcomes. This is followed by lessons about directing attention, educating customers, evoking emotions, decision making, trust, simplicity, and re-engagement. And finally, there’s a bonus pdf file with questions for a flash test.
In this course, I liked the example he used from Amazon about discounts being spelled out for a customer: list price, new price, savings in cash and savings in percentage. Other than that it felt to be a bit academic, not that it’s a bad thing.
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This was my third review, the first one can be found here, and the second one here.
I am still in the Foundations part, which is the first part of the five of the Conversion Optimization mini degree at CXL. So far I find the courses to be very high level and highly recommend them.
