Drive and Convert

Announcer:
You are listening to Drive and Convert a podcast about helping online brands to build a better E-commerce growth engine with Jon MacDonald and Ryan Garrow.

Ryan:
All right. Jon, you recently came out with a book called Behind the Click where you get pretty deep into the psychological principles of conversion and what people do online and why. You've obviously done a lot of research on this. And I find it fascinating. The book's nubbing out selling a lot of those. Maybe you're not going to do conversion anymore because you sell too many books.

Jon:
It was number one new book in marketing and consumer behavior on Amazon. It beat out two folks that I've looked up to as content producers over the years. So beat out Gary Vaynerchuk's new book, which is-

Ryan:
What?

Jon:
... unheard of. Yes.

Ryan:
That is phenomenal.

Jon:
And then-

Ryan:
A virtual high five for that.

Jon:
I know. And then it beat out Ross Simmonds, which if anyone knows who Ross is, he's all about content and B2B world and very popular following. So it's his first book.
I'm stoked because those are two people I never would've thought that I would've had a chance to beat out in a bestseller.

Ryan:
That's pretty awesome. So all right, if you're listening and you see Jon out, he's buying.

Jon:
Little does Ryan know you do not make money selling books.

Ryan:
But all that said, obviously you are an expert in understanding the psychology behind the clicks. Today I want to ask some questions and get some understanding of the why people do things. I see the data and I know why I do. Well, I might think I know why I do things, but it's probably a lot of subconscious things.

Jon:
That's the key.

Ryan:
Childhood issues that come back, rears its ugly head when I'm trying to buy things. But it's like why do people suddenly abandon carts? I see the data and it still boggles my mind. You searched for something that says you are trying to buy this. You got to the page to buy that. You put it in the cart and then you didn't buy something like, oh, as a digital marketer, it's frustrating why we have such high abandoned cart rates, platforms, all these things, but I know that there's a lot behind it.
So give us an overview of what are some of these hidden, let's say psychological forces out there that influence what we do online that maybe we're just not even aware of.

Jon:
Yeah. Well I think it all stems from the fact that in today's competitive online landscape, but there's just a need. You really, it's a need. It's not a want. It's not a desire anymore. It is a need to have a seamless and compelling customer experience.
I don't think enough brands understand that. There's so many companies that focus on tactical changes. When you really start thinking about true optimization, it lies in understanding the why behind consumer behaviors, and that's what gets missed.
Again, at the core of successful digital experiences are all of these psychological principles that influence how customers interact with your website and/or app. The key to unlocking this mystery lies in the way that our brains work.
There's really three big principles. We'll probably only have time to cover a handful today, so let's focus on three. Heuristics, mental models and that subconscious trust that gets formed from the other two.

Ryan:
Heuristics, that is a big word, and if I ask my kids to spell it, they would struggle. So let's start with heuristics. What does that mean and what do you do with that?

Jon:
I will admit that I can only spell it because I had to write it 100,000 times for this book. So yeah, that was a mental leap for me for sure.
But look, to make sense of all of this constant barrage of information, we really rely on mental shortcuts and that's what's called heuristics is these mental shortcuts. So these shortcuts shape consumer perceptions and they influence purchasing decisions, whether or not you know it.
So as a brand, by understanding heuristics, you can design experiences that cater to those shortcuts instead of get in the way of them. That ultimately leads to more conversions and ideally loyal customers. So to summarize, you can really think of heuristics as brains shortcuts. We're wired to take these shortcuts to make quick decisions, and they play a crucial role in how we navigate and even how we perceive online experiences.
First things first, we might look at a site and say, wow, this site looks untrustworthy just because the design looks very dated, for instance. Maybe there's an old Yahoo store that you go on, you're like, wow, okay, I don't know, this looks like it was built in 1990, probably maybe not safe. I don't know. What are they doing with my credit card? Is it secure?
I say all this to basically say that consumers really have a perception and that perception holds more sway than objective reality. So this is why companies play such a critical role in shaping how customers perceive those companies. If you understand how customers' mental models function, you can really make a great digital experience.

Ryan:
Got it. Okay. So obviously getting a site that feels modern, that's going to be different from most people, but just a similar flow or feel to the site. Then I could see, all right, something that would go against that would be if I landed on a product page and the image was on the right and the checkout button or add to cart was on the left, that would negatively impact my brain 100%.

Jon:
Right. Well, this goes right into Steven Krug's book, Don't Make Me Think, where he's basically saying, we have these mental models. We have these shortcuts our brain is taking when we interact on websites online and we expect things to work a certain way. If you change that up, all of a sudden now I have to figure it out and I can no longer use my mental shortcut.
So there's a lot of talk about button colors. You don't hear it as much anymore, thank God.

Ryan:
Thank God.

Jon:
But I will say it used to be all the rage, like, oh, let's try changing button colors, and I'm like, "No, because you're just screwing up my mental models. Green means go, red means stop." So don't make the buy button red, just don't deal with it. Why even test it?
Now you could do branded colors, et cetera. Outside of those mental models I don't care what color you make your buttons, it's not going to make a difference as long as you are not disrupting somebody's heuristics and mental models. So if I look at something and I know red means stop, green means go. If you flip that on me, I'm likely going to click on the wrong button and then I'm just going to be upset and then it's just downhill from there.

Ryan:
Okay, got it. So heuristics would be just shortcuts that I take mentally to get to the end place. And then is mental models a subset of that or is it just closely related cousin or something?

Jon:
Yeah, it's related, and I've said the two together here a little bit today. A mental model is more like a map of the entire customer's journey. Think about it this way, where you have a map of what somebody needs to do to go from point A to point B, like a treasure map, but maybe there's a dotted line that goes between two separate points and skips over a third. It's a shortcut.
So heuristic would be, oh, I know I can cut through that yard as the crow flies and I'm going to be able to get there quicker than if I go step by step. So this is where the mental model is that full map of instructions. I kind of know I'm going to go research the product if I like it, I know I'm going to add to cart. I know I need to enter my payment and shipping information and then complete the checkout. I also think I should get a confirmation post-purchase email.
There are these things that I know what to expect of the overall experience I'm going to go through. That's my mental model of that experience because I've done it so many times.
Heuristics is going to say, okay, I know I'm always going to ship to my house, so maybe I'm going to use something like one password and it's always just going to pop in my address and I never have to think about it. I just click one button and it's done. It's a shortcut.
Or I know that if I am on Amazon and I really want that product, I can just one click purchase and buy now and it's done. I don't have to enter anything because Amazon has all my info.
So you can look for these opportunities, but really what mental models are going to help you do is understand and even predict the customer's behaviors as they interact with your website or your app. So by ensuring that your customer's mental models align with your digital experience, you can create a seamless, effective experience that's going to lead of course to increased conversions and customer satisfaction.
The challenge I see is that so many marketing and sales departments grasp this concept in theory, but they so often miss the mark on the execution. The first step, unfortunately, is often needs to be revamping the customer journey to focus on what is going to really have an impact on that experience.
Unfortunately, what most brands are doing is they're focusing on superficial changes. They're aiming to make their website prettier, for instance. Oh, it doesn't match. It's not great branding. It doesn't look great. Well, as long as it looks trustworthy and it's in line with your brand to some degree, that's all you really need to convert because the consumer sees that they trust, and then the mental model is, I know what steps I need to take. So they go and they take those.
So if you focus on this mental model, what you're doing is you're shifting the focus squarely onto that consumer's experience, and if you actively remove the barriers that interfere with those shortcuts that people are doing throughout those mental models, you're going to build that subconscious level of trust with your customers.

Ryan:
I feel like the danger a lot of brands can do is try to make a platform fit your belief of the brand rather than have your brand fit the platform. I see brands try to do this. Now that we can do headless, for example, on Shopify, like, oh, we can do this really crazy stuff with this front end and then just have them check out on Shopify because Shopify is easy.

Jon:
But what you're doing is you're disrupting that entire mental model of what people need to do before they get to check out. You've given them... You're meeting their expectations once they get to check out, but they're not going to get to check out if you've disrupted that entire model before it.

Ryan:
Yeah. I think that brands really have to figure out what that balance looks like, have the brand experience be cool, but also don't ruin what my brain has been trained to do on [inaudible 00:11:52], on Shopify and whatever else.

Jon:
Right. And I hear this all the time, is, oh, we're going to use Shopify's checkout because people trust it. Sure, I agree with that. Consumers see it, they trust it, but do they trust the rest of your site? Maybe not, right?

Announcer:
You're listening to Drive and Convert the podcast focused on E-commerce growth. Your hosts are Jon MacDonald, founder of The Good, a conversion rate optimization agency that works with E-commerce brands to help convert more of their visitors into buyers. And Ryan Garrow of Logical Position, the digital marketing agency offering pay-per-click management, search engine optimization, and website design services to brands of all sizes.
If you find this podcast helpful, please help us out by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts and sharing it with a friend or colleague. Thank you.

Ryan:
That leads us into that subconscious trust. I talk about subconscious trust based on search results pages and where you should be and how or why. So I understand that piece, but once you get to the site, how do you build that subconscious trust if I don't know who you are yet?

Jon:
That's a great question. You bring up a really good point though, Ryan, which is there needs to be that thread from the ad somebody sees to the page that they land on when they click on that ad. And if there's not a thread there, you immediately lose their trust.
If an ad says something, but then they go to a landing page that doesn't align with that, and this is why Google scores ads based on a landing page in part. You'll definitely know more about that than I do, but I know enough to know that if you have a landing page that resonates with the ad, you'll be in much better position in terms of ad score.

Ryan:
For sure.

Jon:
Yeah. That's why Google wants you to do that because they want their ads to feel trustworthy. So when you work with these kind of mental models and cater to the shortcuts, you earn that trust, and that's really what it's all about. It's familiarity, of course, and ease for the consumer, and that's far more powerful than any catchy marketing slogan that you could use.
I think brands really need to understand that this is the baseline. If you don't have a familiar experience that is easy for consumers to use, do not worry about anything on the marketing side. Get the base in there first.
You really need to have a trustworthy digital experience, and that means three things. To feel familiar. To do what it says. You're making a promise, you want the website to live up to that promise, and then you want it to function intuitively. And if you can do each of those things, then you're going to win.
So maybe I can talk about each of those really quick. So feel familiar. So the internet has matured and with it so have user expectations. Customers have developed a strong sense of how websites and apps, how they should function.
So everything from your classic navigation menu to having the ever-present search bar at the top right, there's a certain, let's just call it rhythm to digital experiences.
So when a customer adheres to these established norms, customers really feel like they have a sense of familiarity and control, and that really just focuses on reducing friction and gives them a more positive reception to your brand. So deviate too much and you just risk creating confusion and really eroding trust.

Ryan:
Well, I guess as we're looking at this and saying like, yeah, it's got to be familiar and it's got to be the same as we expect. How do we evolve online? We can't just be stuck with the existing Amazon checkout or Shopify feel on process there. Do we just rely on somebody else to change it or do we make small tweaks? What do you think about, I mean, how does that function?

Jon:
It's a really great question and one I get all the time. Well, aren't we going to end up in everybody having the exact same website? The reality is no, I think is the short answer. The longer answer is, would it be that bad if the web was so usable that everyone could get what they needed done quickly and move on?
I'm not suggesting there's no branding, there's no marketing. All of that needs to be there. You need to differentiate yourself somehow. This is where creativity can come in to play, is how you're going to apply your brand on top of these core tenants, these core principles. Because you want it to feel familiar. So that's important.
Now, not everyone should be using the same imagery, the same branding theme colors or the same page layouts. I'm not suggesting all of that. I am suggesting that there are these mental maps, these mental models of how people know they're going to get their task done on a website, and if you totally disrupt that, you don't feel somewhat familiar on that journey, you're going to have problems.
So I'm not looking for this sea of sameness, but what I am looking for is for everybody who's swimming in those waters to at least understand they're in the same ocean. Does that make sense?

Ryan:
Yeah, I think that helps. There's always going to be small evolutions and we can't be afraid of those. At least if you're testing it, don't just do it and believe it's going to work and ignore it. But I mean, the spork had to come from somewhere and so somebody didn't reimagine a fork. So small tests.

Jon:
There you go. And the sporks, if you got that at a restaurant, you'd be like, what is this? You would at least question it. It would feel unfamiliar. But-

Ryan:
But it would be close enough that you're like, I get what I'm supposed to do with this.

Jon:
Exactly.

Ryan:
It's not going to change that shortcut and mental imagery I have on it.

Jon:
It probably wouldn't. You would still use it to eat, right? However, you do pause and it does make you stop and be like, oh, what's this? This isn't normal, and that can be dangerous.
Now how do you get over that? Well, it should do what it says, which is the next thing. If the spork can accurately feed me. I can use it as the tool I need to use it as great, right? It does what it says, because customers really crave that predictability and that transparency in their digital experiences.
So as a brand, when you make a promise, whether that's about your pricing, your refund policy, your product features, you have to honor that promise. It's essential. When you get to a checkout and there's unexpected fees or you have a really convoluted purchase process or hidden terms and conditions that violate the consumer's trust, you just end up having more issues and people are going to abandon.
You have to really be upfront about all costs and keep interactions straightforward to build confidence and credibility. So if a server came up to you and said, hey, yeah, we serve sporks here, so just know that's what you're getting today. Now, they probably would be, the consumer at least, would have an upfront understanding of that and not be as shocked because you let them know.
So I love, by the way, how we took an example of something completely offline to compare a digital example, but I will say it's true and people get it right. So not a bad analogy.

Ryan:
It was a small enough iteration that nobody freaked out. You're like, oh, I get it. But if you moved your terms and conditions into top now, they'll be like, that's way too different. Just maybe move it left, right.

Jon:
That's fair.

Ryan:
That's making more sense now in how we can small iterations of testing to evolve, but you're not going to drastically change it or you ruin [inaudible 00:20:16].

Jon:
And I think that's a great segue to the third point here, which is functioning intuitively. So Intuitive design is crucial, especially for SAS products, but very much so for online purchasing.
Users are really familiar with digital platforms in their lives, so you don't want to force them to relearn fundamental workflows for your product. So really, instead you want to leverage these common design patterns and visual cues. And a spork, again, that's what I was saying, if actually does what it needs to do, holds that promise, and it's easy to understand what it's supposed to do, nobody freaks out, then it feels natural. And customers can really focus on the value you're providing, which in this case would be the meal, not the spork, the utensil.
That's really what you want to focus on is the value that you provide.

Ryan:
Got it. Okay. So is this really about the customer as the advocate?

Jon:
For sure. I think that focusing on psychological principles means flipping the script. It's a shift from what do we want to tell customers to what do we need the customer to know to move forward, and that's a very different point of view than most brands take.
Because way back, oh, it's been 10 years now, maybe, when I published my first book, Stop Marketing Start Selling was a whole book all about this core tenet of how brands are always shouting at customers when they get to the site instead of helping customers accomplish their tasks and getting them to move forward to that next step.
So businesses that truly excel put themselves in the customer's shoes, and I think that's what you need to do. That's the only way, and I think understanding the psychological principles is that the consumers are going through is key to doing that. You got to champion the needs of the customer, even though the customer's not physically present in your company meetings, you can't see them on your website. You still have to have that empathy for them.
The most successful digital experiences put that customer at the forefront. By understanding the psychological principles that drive their behavior, you move beyond that surface level changes to create meaningful interactions that resonate on a deeper level.

Ryan:
Yeah, it's not about trying to trick the customer.

Jon:
No.

Ryan:
I think as long as your perception or the way you're looking in the lens of your site is to help and get the customer to the end, not everybody's going to buy your stuff.

Jon:
Right.

Ryan:
You accept that. Understand, I'm not trying to trick somebody that wasn't going to buy it into buying it. The people that are going to buy it. I need to make that as seamless and as easy as possible to get to the end of that transaction and move on with their life because their entire life shouldn't be trying to transact on my site.

Jon:
Right. Exactly.

Ryan:
I like it. That's always customer first. So thank you, Jon, for giving us some insight into heuristics, which I'll remember how to spell for the next probably two or three minutes, and then I'll forget.

Jon:
You're not alone. I bet you that if I had to rewrite it again today, there's a 50/50 shot, I'd get it right even after spelling it 100 times. So look, I was never a spelling bee champion, so I'm okay with that.

Ryan:
Me neither. Now I'm okay with it as well. As long as we're helping people convert online.

Jon:
If you know what it means-

Ryan:
Help customers.

Jon:
... after today. I hope you do. Then you're in a good spot.

Ryan:
Thank you, Jon. I appreciate the time.

Jon:
Thank you, Ryan.

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Thanks for listening to Drive and Convert with Jon MacDonald and Ryan Garrow. To keep up to date with new episodes, you can subscribe at driveandconvert.com.