April 9th, 2010 by Glenn

The trouble with websites is they’re mostly one-way. A sermon, not a conversation.

That’s not how effective persuasion works in the ‘real world’. You wouldn’t launch straight into a sales spiel, in face-to-face conversation with a prospect. There’d be to-ing and fro-ing. Laughter, sharing and meaningful pauses. Courtesy and social maxims to observe. You’d give your prospect time to digest what you’re saying, and you’d help her if you saw her struggling with something.

So why not do the same on your website? Sure, you don’t have the same range of communication methods and cues at your disposal, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore the fundamentals of communication. I discuss 6 below.

1) Conversation: Ease into it

How would you feel if we met at a business networking event, and I launched straight into a sales spiel? Or if I just started listing my many (many, many, MANY ;-) strengths? Would you invite me back to your place for a cuppa? Ask after my family? Spark up a conversation about the latest episode of Survivor, Heroes Versus Villains? (Go Russell! He’s so arrogant, but so entertaining to watch!)

Unlikely; you’d be repulsed.

No. If I wanted to engage you — even if only to sell to you — I’d ease into it, with some conversation that I was confident would evoke a positive response from you. Most likely, I’d ask about you… make you the subject matter.

Your website should do the same. (Granted, it’s unlikely to have my rugged good looks and irresistible charm, not to mention my humble nature, but we all have to work with what God gave us! (Did your web designer mention he’s God? It’s an industry standard clause, you know. Should have been in your contract…))

This is really online marketing 101, but the simple moral to the story is: Find out what your visitor wants / needs to read and see when they first arrive, and give it them. And I don’t mean just what benefits or promises they want; I mean what makes them feel comfortable, happy and secure. A corporate-looking site with a 30 year old brand? A dynamic ‘Web 2.0’ site with a quick and easy solution? Or something totally different?

Ease into the conversation with something that inspires trust and promotes openness.

2) Social Maxims: It’s more than courtesy; it’s an expectation

Philosopher and linguist, Paul Grice, developed a series of ‘rules’ for conversation, which he called ‘social maxims’:

1. Only say what you believe to be true
2. Only say what you have evidence for
3. Make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purposes of the exchange
4. Do not make your contribution more informative than is required
5. Make your contribution relevant to the interaction
6. Indicate any way that it is not
7. Avoid unnecessary prolixity
8. Avoid ambiguity
9. Be brief
10. Be orderly

(List courtesy of Wikipedia article on Gricean Maxims.)

Note that these aren’t rules he set out to enforce; according to Grice, they’re rules most people already know and follow, and which listeners will assume are being followed. Think of them as something of a social contract.

In reading the list, did you notice any that you don’t follow in your face-to-face conversations? (Other than the one about prolixity. I have no idea what that means! Sounds suspiciously like it wouldn’t make it through Australia’s looming internet censorship filter, though…)

Chances are you follow them all, without even thinking about it. And although we all have a dear old uncle who ignores most of them, it’s likely that most people you know follow them automatically too.

So why wouldn’t you use these same maxims in your online communications with prospective customers? Say as much as you need to, and not a word (or pixel) more. This applies, not just to your copy, but also to your design, your layout and your information architecture. It’s not minimalism, it’s ‘just-enough-ism’. Be honest and respectful. If anything, undersell. Be clear about the price, the terms, the deliverable and the catch. Include contact details. Include believable testimonials. Consider pointing out your flaws. Discuss believable benefits. Answer questions you know the reader will be asking. Show some personality. Show you understand the reader’s situation. Offer a money-back guarantee. And so on.

3) Participation — Draw them into the conversation

Strictly speaking, with the exception of blogs (and the occasional site with a social widget), a website is not a conversation. But you can still make your reader feel like they’re part of one. Draw them into a dialogue, just as you would in real life.

• Provide answers, but not ALL the answers. Sure, people are at your website because they want answers. But that doesn’t mean you have to provide all the answers. By leaving certain questions unanswered, you retain mystique and evoke curiosity. And of course people are then more likely to contact you with questions. Also, people like to figure things out for themselves. I’m not suggesting you make it hard for them. To the contrary: join 99% of the dots, but leave the last couple un-connected. When your visitors draw your conclusion for themselves, they’re more likely to believe in it. They’ll also feel your website ‘makes sense’, and they’ll get a sense of satisfaction from it.
• Ask their opinion (whether rhetorically or in blog comments). When someone asks your opinion, you feel valued. I’ve never read any research suggesting that is true when the question is rhetorical (would love to hear if you have — please comment!), but I assume it is, to some extent. And it’s certainly true if you ask people to opine by blog comment. Sure, it’s a blog and you have an ulterior motive for wanting them to comment, but most of your readers wouldn’t be there in the first place if they didn’t have some degree of trust in you. So make your request for opinion genuine, and it’ll work.
• Discuss things you know they’ll agree with. Get them nodding and saying “yes”. It’s all about the persuasion slippery slide. Readers who are already saying “yes” are far more likely to say “yes” when you ask them to do something (your call to action). Just little things, to begin with, like, “Wouldn’t it be great if you had enough money to pay off the whole mortgage?”
• Encourage them to do something. Like click through to your next page. Or read more about something. Once they start doing, they’re more likely to keep doing. They’re also more likely to agree with you, and to comply with your wishes (call to action). What’s more, it’s an opportunity to get them to read something else. Another opportunity for you to explicitly persuade them. The trick, of course, is to figure out where to draw the line. When to say, “this is the end of this page; time to click to the next one.” I’d like to say I have a prescription for that too, but unfortunately not. It’s something you really have to play by ear. The only guidance I can offer on this score is to ask yourself the question: “Have I revealed enough to establish credibility and withheld enough to pique curiosity?”

This recommendation is based largely on the theory of cognitive dissonance. That a person will go to quite surprising lengths to not hold contradictory ideas about something. This includes adapting their behavior to match their attitudes (and vice-versa). People don’t like to think one way about a subject, and act another way. So they tend to change either their behavior to match their thoughts, or their thoughts to match their behavior.

4) Downtime: Give them time for the light to go on

Whether or not you spell out your entire argument for them, your readers need time — and space — to digest it, to mull it over, to become comfortable with it.

Give them that time. Don’t crowd them with yet more arguments, and don’t fill in all the white space with more talk. Give them a chance to think!

Just as importantly, give them a chance to not think.

Huh?! That’s right, your reader needs time to let things settle, time to let her brain draw conclusions on its own. There’s actually evidence to suggest that “our brain may be most actively engaged when our mind is wandering and we’ve actually lost track of our thoughts.” For more on this, see Robert Lee Hotz’s article, ‘A Wandering Mind Heads Straight Toward Insight’.

5) Enjoyment: An experience to savor & remember

Unless you’re Rae Hoffman (actually, I suspect even if you’re Rae Hoffman), you want most of your face-to-face conversations to be pleasant. You want people to enjoy them, to enjoy you. There’s a good reason for that. When people like you, they’re more likely to agree with you, to remember you, to speak kindly of you, and to seek out your company again.

Same goes for your website. Listen to your web designer; they’re not advocating ‘pretty’ just for pretty’s sake! ‘Pretty’ makes your website a pleasant, comfortable experience, and helps keep your visitors onsite (increasing your site ‘stickiness’). More importantly, your visitor’s positive attitude toward your site acts as a suggestion that she should also behave in a positive way (i.e. agree with you and do what you ask). Yes, I’m back to cognitive dissonance again! The longer she stays, and the more pleasant and comfortable she feels, the more likely she is to agree with you and to comply with your instructions. Because doing otherwise would be counter to her pre-existing attitudes and the behaviors she’s already exhibited.

Oh, and ‘pretty’ can also give your visitors space to not think — to sub-consciously reach that ‘Aha!’ moment, as discussed above.

6) Simplicity: Generate instinctive trust

We all know what it’s like when we’re speaking to someone face-to-face and their eyes glaze over as they zone out. (Or is it just me?!) Too much techo-talk can do that. The same thing can happen on your website. Only it happens a lot quicker, and your audience doesn’t just smile politely and let you ramble on. They leave.

I don’t mean you have to dumb things down; I mean just don’t geek them up. Explain things simply, using familiar words, phrasing, visuals and concepts, so your audience doesn’t have to jump through lots of cognitive hoops just to keep up (let alone come around to your way of thinking). And use a familiar sort of design for your website. Something your visitors will be used to seeing for your particular business type. (Take a look at what the most successful of your competitors are doing. It’s likely their design has something to do with their success.)

By keeping it simple and familiar, you can generate instinctive trust in your readers. It seems that when things are simple and familiar, they’re easier to think about, and people prefer them. The simple and familiar are said to have a high degree of ‘cognitive fluency’. According to Drake Bennett, in his article, ‘Easy = True’:

…shares in companies with easy-to-pronounce names do indeed significantly outperform those with hard-to-pronounce names. Other studies have shown that when presenting people with a factual statement, manipulations that make the statement easier to mentally process – even totally nonsubstantive changes like writing it in a cleaner font or making it rhyme or simply repeating it – can alter people’s judgment of the truth of the statement, along with their evaluation of the intelligence of the statement’s author and their confidence in their own judgments and abilities.”

One theory is that in prehistoric times, it made sense to trust the familiar, and to mistrust the unfamiliar. The unfamiliar could, after all, eat you. Until it was properly evaluated, it made sense to be frightened of it.

So keep it simple, stupid!

Conclusion

Create a website that gently, but steadily, compels your reader toward your call to action. You want a smooth, yet powerful, current. Not a whitewater rapid.

The real trick, of course, is finding the balance between what you actually need to say, and what you think you need to say.

And on that note, I’ll leave you to your own devices!

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