The key to selling something to a potential client is not in persuading him to buy from you. Nowadays, it is all about influencing his behavior and indirectly motivating him to make the purchasing decision that favors your business. Customers in the 21st century are too jaded and tired of advertising to be convinced by direct advertising – which means that marketing has to look for new approaches. In this article, we will cover some methods that are useful in this respect.

1. Be Simple

There is such a concept as cognitive fluency – in layman’s terms, it means that people always tend to prefer things that are both familiar and easy to understand (this is why simple sites are rated continuously higher than their visually complex counterparts). The takeaway is this – the easier your offer, the description of your product and your website are, the more likely your clients are to respond positively without thinking twice. It goes as far as including the name of the company – the easier it is to pronounce, the more instinctively positive is the client’s reaction to it.

One of the most efficient ways to improve customer experience is upgrading your customer support to make sure that any problem is solved as quickly and efficiently as possible – many studies say that a problem solved with spectacular efficiency leaves a more favorable impression on a client than if his interaction with your business went without a hitch.

2. Employ Word of Mouth Marketing

According to Nielsen, 82 percent of consumers believe recommendations coming from friends and relatives – it is by far the most influential source of information, far exceeding the potentials of social media, blogs and, of course, advertising. Word of mouth allows you to reach customers that you wouldn’t be able to track otherwise – after all, many people use anonymizing tools in their daily surfing, greatly decreasing the efficiency of analytical tools.

How do you do this? By making your customers happy. Always putting their problems and needs at the forefront of everything you do. Delivering faster, doing better service, offering refunds, always being ready to meet the customer halfway.

3. Be Honest

Transparency is increasingly rare in our overcrowded market where everybody tries to make an impression that things are being stellar and there is nothing to worry about irrespectively of how things are in reality. If your business makes it a habit always to be honest, transparent and forthcoming and strictly ethical with its clients, you are certain to be rewarded. Especially if you aren’t afraid of reporting about your own mistakes and failures. They make your business appear more human, not just a habitually smiling front presented to those you try to sell something to.

4. Use the Power of Reciprocity

Another powerful psychological concept you can employ is reciprocity – in marketing terms, it means that if you give your client something free of charge, he is more willing to do you a favor because he subconsciously feels to be in your debt. Whatever your freebies are, make sure they are relevant for your target audience.

5. Establish an Emotional Connection with the Client

According to research, people make buying decisions based on emotion first and foremost and use reason mostly to rationalize the choice they already made after the fact. What does it mean for a marketer? You should do everything in your power to establish a positive emotional connection with your client as soon as possible. Once the connection is formed, it is going to be difficult to sway the customer’s opinion about you – he will be more inclined to find rational explanations to why he buys or doesn’t buy from you. You can do this in a number of ways: carefully hear out and answer your customers on social media, be authentic and human in your interactions and humanize your business in general.

Influencing the customer’s behavior, the maxim of inbound marketing is the future of ecommerce – the sooner and more completely you adopt it, the greater will be the benefits for your business. It is built more around general principles than specific techniques and may take a while to implement, but once you do this, the rewards are truly bountiful.

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