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Below are six proven techniques that you can easily apply to your website to make it more persuasive.

 

1. Leverage Scarcity to Persuade A Visitor To Buy Now

People want what they can’t have. Likewise, when something is in short supply, prospective buyers inherently feel a sense of urgency to act before availability runs out. This is the scarcity principle, and it works whether it is supply driven (e.g., there is a limited quantity available to sell) or deadline driven (as when there is a time limit set on the availability or the price of an item). People have a natural aversion to loss–they’d rather act too hastily, knowing full well that they haven’t given the matter proper consideration, than risk missing out.

 

2. Use A Decoy To Steer Visitors Toward A Certain Product

Also known as the asymmetric dominance effect, the decoy effect uses an alternate (less desirable) choice as a benchmark against which to compare the real product or service you wish to sell.

 

3. Use Anchoring To Help Visitors Justify Their Selection

People have a tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information presented when making decisions. This becomes the “anchor” against which subsequent products will be compared. Sound illogical? It may be, but you can use this anchoring bias to help visitors justify their purchase selection.

 

4. Make Visitors Feel Indebted To You

Marketers can use this impulse to spur site visitors to action. By giving your site visitors something of value, with no expectation of anything in return, you can begin to harness the power of reciprocity.

Offer exclusive information, free samples, or even a free in-home trial — anything that has real value and is obviously and exclusively for the benefit of the recipient. That last point is especially important — nobody wants to feel that they are being manipulated or receiving a gift with “strings attached.”

 

5. Offer Things You Don’t Expect To Sell

On the surface, it may seem odd to try to sell a product or service on your website that you don’t really expect anyone to buy. Yet, according to a compliance technique called door-in-the face, this strategy will actually help you sell lower priced options.

 

6. Throw Out A Lifeline With The Hurt & Rescue Principle

In this method, the marketer allows the prospect to see that they have a problem, and then offers a way to fix it. One excellent way to do this is through online quizzes. This technique can be especially effective in the B2B environment. Use your web copy to point out to visitors how much money they are losing, time they are wasting, or stress they are experiencing, and then offer them a solution. Hurt and rescue sounds negative, but it’s really nothing more than emotion-based selling.

 

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