Getting the right visitors from the right traffic source is hard work. Even when they click on your ad (we all know how expensive clicks can get) and arrive on your landing page, it takes under 15 seconds for them to decide to stay or bounce. This decision is often made half subconsciously and half consciously.
The days when visitors would be okay with landing on a banner farm page have gone. They’ve grown smarter and tired of anything that doesn’t add value to what they’re looking for. So even if you rotate your landing pages and deploy outstanding creative skills, it’s not a sure thing that they’ll stick around long enough to convert.
Our ability to control what we are and how we communicate has a huge impact on their decision to convert or not. When meeting a new person, we’ve been scientifically proven to decide to trust a person in a tenth of a second.
Therefore, gaining visitors’ trust in a short time should be a top priority.
Just like in real life, landing pages don’t have a lot of time to express benefits to get more conversions. By using these 4 psychological and technical principles you can immediately gain the trust you need from your visitors.
1. The Colors of Trust
“Psychology is one of the most important aspects in marketing that we all tend to overlook. From messaging to color, it’s the small details that can persuade you to either purchase or walk away.” -Neil Patel
Colors don’t just make your landing page look attractive and cool, they have the power to influence emotions which is also called color theory. This is why in landing pages we must pay attention to what colors we use and how they contrast through out the page.
In Satyendra Singh’s peer reviewed article, he found that color influences 62%-90% of the opinion you form when looking at a product.
So what is the best color to use to convey trust and security? While all colors evoke different emotions; blue and green express loyalty, trustworthiness, and reassurance. Coincidentally, they are also the most favorable colors for men and women which means you can use them for almost any demographic.
2. Trust Badges
“Every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust.”-Zig Ziglar
Trust badges are the seals that affirms your customers that their transactions will remain private and secure on your platform.
Internet fraud has become a monumental problem with over 16 billion dollars stolen from 12.7 million Americans in 2014. Additionally, an average of 17% of online customers abandon their shopping cart due to “concerns about payment security”. It’s no wonder why badges are so significant and why people tend to trust sites with them more.
A case study conducted by Econsultancy/Toluna showed the power of trust badges when participants were asked what determines whether or not they trust a site. It resulted that the trust badges gave them the highest sense of confidence and trust for the websites when shopping.
In a six month A/B test by an eCommerce store using a E-Mark badge (a well recognized Danish shopping security badge) was placed on the check out page and removed. The study resulted in a 32% increase in conversion rate because of the small change.
Another case conducted by Blue Mountain Media tested a page with and without a Versign badge to see how it would affect their visitors trust and new member sign ups. Without any other elements being changed on the page, visitors were more comfortable to give their personal information and their was an increase of 42% in sales.
Where to Put The Badge and Which One to Choose
Keep in mind that placement of the badge in a high-visibility spot also plays a key role in conversion improvement. Petco experienced a 8.83% conversion increase from 1.76% moving their McAfee seal from the footer to the top left of the header.
Additionally, it’s important to choose a badge that’s recognized by visitors to further increase trust and conversion. In 2013, Baymard Institute conducted a survey that asked “Which badge gives you (customer) you the the best sense of trust when paying online?” After three days 2,510 responded with 1,286 choosing a badge and the rest selecting “Don’t know or no preference”. As shown below, the most trusted by customers were Norton and Mcafee.
Be a Part of The Referral Program and get 10% referral fees. [/ap_call_to_action]
3. Social Proof
“We will use the actions of others to decide on proper behavior for ourselves, especially when we view those others as similar to ourselves.” ― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
Imagine you had to choose between two movies at a theater. One of them has a huge line to buy a ticket and the other only a few. Which one would you assume is better? I’d be willing to bet the first option.
Social proof is similar on your landing page, giving visitors the permission to trust not only your offering, but the opinions of others.
Just to put it into perspective, a study done by Nielsen showed that 92% of people will trust a recommendation from a peer while 70% of people will trust a recommendation from someone they don’t even know. However ads or paid social proof is only trusted by less than 40% of people.
It can come in many forms by showing the amount of subscribers followers or fans, testimonials, ratings or reviews, media logos, and influencer endorsements.
In case if you haven’t done your logo yet, you should bare in mind that having an effective logo is important if you want to stand out from your competitors, so make sure to hire a professional logo designer that will help you with it.
On landing pages it has been proven that testimonials with a photo of the customer works extremely well. High Rise saw a 102% increase in conversion just by changing their page from a text rich format, to a page with a photo and testimonial form an “ordinary customer”.
Even WikiJob increased its conversion rate by 32% by adding three testimonials without photos. While it’s not among the most recommended practices of social proof, it shows how easy to get your customers to trust and convert more.
4. The Halo Effect
“If we see a person first in a good light, it is difficult subsequently to darken that light” -The Economist Magazine
Have you ever assumed that a funny person must be happy or a greatly designed shoe must be comfortable? This is the “halo effect”: to believe that one trait of a person or brand expands to their other qualities.
Pyschologist Edward Thorndike wrote the first publication in 1915 about the halo effect. Two commanding officers were asked to evaluate a variety of qualities (physical appearance, intelligence, loyalty, etc).
Thorndike found that the highest rated qualities were also used to give high ratings for unrelated ones; hence validating the halo effect.
You must only show your brands’ best qualities and hide the worst. This could mean if you are the brand or you are marketing the brand itself that highlighting the best of your brand can create the illusion that it is trustworthy enough for visitors to invest in your product.
How can we use this to our advantage to gain trust?
Showing an attractive person using your product or yourself if you are a part of the brand is an extremely common tactic. Many studies have been done showing the correlation physical attractiveness.
In marketing we see this all the time when people are trying to push their personal brand. Influencers such as Gary Vaynerchuk, Neil Patel, and Kare Anderson put their photos everywhere using the halo effect as a way to win trust.
Let’s use fitness guru Gillian Michaels as an example which displays photos of herself in nearly everything she does. On the page below, her proposal to visitors is to lose weight with her program.
We see her with her hair done and a little make up, athletic wear (showing her physical features and a little sex appeal), and a smile.
Due to these qualities, visitors associate that her athletic figure is the direct result of her program and therefore, it has to work! Or because of her nice smile she must be a happy person. These assumptions created by the halo effect invoke a sense of trust for customers to stay on the page longer, engage with the content and convert.
Wrap Up
While you may think in the big scheme of things these are only small details; the truth is that they’ve been proven to keep visitors on your page, engage them and eventually increase conversion rate. Since the aggregation of all small things can make or break a campaign, it’s always best to experiment with split testing. The “Butterfly Effect” is sometimes happening under our watch and we don’t even notice it… Next week I’ll write about the importance of Fallback campaigns, and how they can impact your bottom line and even allow you to discover untapped and hidden traffic segments.
Split testing is especially beneficial if you’re able to redirect your traffic upon clicking on your display ad. On top of that, with a responsive tracking link you can fully adapt to your traffic identity and redirect the visitors to what truly suits them, whether OS, Mobile, Browser, Language, Country or device. Geared with that information you are able to make trustworthy landing pages which will increase your overall conversion rates.
Trust is a huge psychological principle that shouldn’t be ignored because it tells you if visitors are willing to give you their time, information, and eventually their money.
Have you ever you used these tactics to get higher conversions? Leave a comment below and let us know what the results were.