Persuasion Economics 4: Cognitive Distortions & Factors That Affect Decision Making.

This is week four of my Digital Psychology training by CXL has me learning about Decision Making and Emotional Reactions as well as how to map out a Persuasive Journey using Applied Neuroscience Methods.

I would be sharing my take home from these learnings as well as tips from my experience as a Copywriter and Mindset Coach.

My focus this week would be on the factors that affect our decision-making process and how cognitive load can distort us from taking some decisions.

Each piece of content would contain my thoughts and/or learning from CXL’s teaching and a personal “How Can I Brand This” section, where I would share tips on how you can use the information for your brand success.

Enjoy…

Internal VS External Factors

There are certain factors that affect decision making and our emotional reaction to them. They can be classified into Internal and External factor.

Internal Factors

Internal factors are factors that are subjective. They are inner factors that affect an individual from within. Some examples are:

Interest: A person’s interest such as personal taste may change with age or life stage. For instance, some of the things that used to interest you when you were younger no longer do because you are much older now.

Habits and Attitudes: Our habits influence our attitudes. This includes personal habits or occupation.

Motives and Organic States: Another inner factor that influences our decisions is our motive and/or organic state. That is, how we feel per time. For instance, someone who is very busy is unlikely to stop to consider your ad or offer.

Emotions: Emotion is an internal trigger that influences people’s decision processes. How you feel about a particular brand, product or ad. For instance, a person sees your ad and takes immediate action because he fears missing out.

Past Experiences: When someone has had a previous bad experience with a particular brand, they are unlikely to take similar action. The internal factor triggers the past experience and warns them of a similar bad result if action is taken.

How Can I Brand This?

• Before pushing out your product or service, ensure you understand the interest of your target customer and tie your product around that interest. Around how your brand, product or service meets their personal, inner interest.
• Understand your potential customer’s emotional triggers and use them on them.
• What habits do they likely possess around a certain interest? What is their occupation? How can your offer be tied around their regular habits?
• Your offer may be overlooked because at the time it was received by the target customer, they were excessively busy. Ensure you put steps or measures in place to retarget them, they may be less busy then.
• Your brand, product or service must be tied around an emotion. Project this emotion so well when marketing your offer.
• If marketing a product or service that has a seemingly bad past experience, find out ways to address the problem before presenting your offer as the goldmine.

External Factors

External factors are factors without. Factors outside of our immediate control. These factors are objective and they affect the way we make decisions. Some of these factors are:

Intensity: A high amount of something. A loud sound, a bright light, intense odour, bright colours.

Changes in Intensity: A sudden loud noise.

Movement: Having a moving object hover around a still background or image. Such as; animated background, sliding banners.

Size: The size of a thing matters. Such as having a small object against a large background.

Contrast: When you have two things contrasting each other. Such as two different colours against each other.

Novelty: Bring something new into an old fashioned way. Such as unique equipment or design.

Repetition: We are more likely to make the decision to take an action when we see something similar repeated over time. For example, repeated exposure to a brand’s name or logo.

How Can I Brand This?

• Sometimes, a high level of intensity could be perceived as offensive. If using a very bright colour, contrast it with something less sharp.
• Having an animated background or slider over a still image is encouraged as humans like movement and love the fun that comes around moving the eyes around the animation.
• The size of your product image matters. The size increases the perceived value of the product when viewed on a website. Don’t make the image of an object such as a flash drive so big on your website that users begin to doubt its authenticity. In the same vein, don’t make the image of big products so small it feels too small.
• Humans are naturally curious beings and would love to try new things in an old fashioned way. How can you bring novelty into an old idea?
• Show up EVERY DAY in your potential customer’s face and let them see you consistently. This would help them make decision overtime to choose you over others.

Cognitive Load

Cognitive load refers to the amount of mental energy required to process something. By minimizing cognitive load, you can maintain a user’s attention span.

Cognitive load makes it harder for your potential customer to take action. Giving them too much information might leave them confused than educated. It is important that at every stage, you make the decision-taking process a bit lighter for them.

Some examples of cognitive load are:

Rotating Graphics: Rotating graphics are great but they become a cognitive load when it takes too much time for the user to process a single graphic.

Irrelevant Graphics: Imagine using teenagers pictures on an adult website.

Confusing Copywriting: Not being clear on the message you are passing to your user. Inconsistent and unclear messaging.

Unclear Value Proposition: Not having a clearly stated value proposition. Who you are, what you do, and how you help.

How Can I Brand This?

• If you must have rotating or animated graphics or sliders on your website, ensure the rotation time is reduced greatly.
• Use only a clear and relevant image for your brand. Avoid distracting images and graphics that do not authenticate your message.
• At all times, your message must be clear and consistent. Your audience should be able to tell what you mean per time.
• Your value proposition must be clear and visible to your audience to enable them grab and understand immediately.

That’s it on this week’s learning on Persuasion Economics. My personal take home from the learning sessions at CXL on Digital Psychology and Persuasion. Thanks to CXL for the learning opportunity. You can check out their website for details on many more digital courses and become badass great at marketing.