In this episode of "The Conversion Show" podcast, Erik Christiansen welcomes back Jon MacDonald, President & Founder of the good, and author of "Behind the Click".  Erik and Jon delve into consumer psychology and the psychological principles that shape our online decisions and how they impact a company's digital presence. They also discuss the digital customer journey and the importance of understanding customer needs and decision-making processes to improve conversion rates, retention, and trust. Jon also offered a discount code for the e-book version of "Behind The Click," and shares key takeaways for busy readers. 

Erik an Jon discuss:

• Understanding the customer's mindset at each phase of the buying life cycle.
• Decision fatigue and the critical role of simplifying the purchasing process.
• Building trust and ensuring customer retention through the post-purchase experience.
• Challenges of personalization and the power of segmentation and automation.

Host: Erik Christiansen, CEO of Justuno

Guest: Jon MacDonald, President & Founder of the good

Transcript

Erik 00:00:51  

We're going to kick off the conversion show today with Jon MacDonald, a former guest. And I'm really happy to have Jon today because, wanted to celebrate his new book, Behind the Click. I read his last one, opt in in the Optimizing Optimization. also founder of the good. And today we are talking about consumer psychology. and so welcome, Jon, to the show.

Jon 00:01:18

Hey, thanks for having me again. Great to be back.

Erik 00:01:20

I was excited to talk about consumer psychology because it's what we've been talking about a lot lately. would you like to share? Let's hear about the book real quick. Let's hear about why you wrote it and what you're covering in it.

Jon 00:01:36

Well, Behind the Click is about the psychological principles, behind the shortcuts that our brains take to make decisions every day. And how the different elements of your company's digital experience either guide customers towards that purchase, or sends them running to a competitor. And so understanding all of these, I think, you know, what has happened is I've been in the CRO industry for 15 years now.

Jon 00:02:04

You know, the good just turned 15 in April and, you know, the more work that we've done to optimize conversion rates, the more we've realized that to make real, lasting gains, you have to pull way further back on the customer experience than just conversion. And that was kind of a light bulb moment for this book, right? So many factors affect your conversions.

Jon 00:02:29

and it starts way before a customer even begins to start thinking about purchasing from you. Right? As they're doing their research, they have a need. So every element of your website tells the customers something about what they do or do not want with or to buy from you, right? It's one of those things where if you have to understand in order to be effective, what's going on in the minds of your site, visitors.

Erik 00:02:58

The you know, I often refer to the Amazon experience. And you know why? Why do I refer to the Amazon experience. It's because they've been customer centric from day one. Yeah. And that they truly understood the needs of their consumers. And I've delivered. And so as we kind of step back and I know I love whenever I see Jon post stuff on LinkedIn, you know, it's always I always like bashing pop ups and or and there's a good reason for it is because digital marketers still don't understand how to don't understand consumer needs.

Jon 00:03:40

Erik 00:03:41

Consumer psychology. And that's what we're going to talk about today. Let's talk about when someone arrives on your website. What are their needs. How do you with behind the click. How do you approach introducing this concept of you know understanding your customers?

Jon 00:04:00

Well I think the, the first thing is that you really need to understand that there are four key phases to that buying lifecycle. And if you can understand what's going on in each of those four phases, then you will be able to convert at a much higher level. When the consumer gets there, you're in really need to be thinking about it as the discovery phase, right?

Jon 00:04:26

This is where customers are going to form that initial impression, just based on whether your company understands their problem and has a potential solution to that, right. I've said this a lot. Consumers are only at your site for two reasons. It's to understand if you can help solve their pain or need, and if you can, to convert as quickly and easily as possible.

Jon 00:04:48

And so really, this discovery is that first step. Do they think is there a central, do they think that you can help them to solve that pain or need. They may not be sure. They haven't decided if you can, but is there some hint there that they think they can? You know, and that's that's really the first step is understanding what's going through somebody's mind at that stage.

Erik 00:05:12

You know what we've been really working through these last few years. And you know congratulations on 15 years by the way. Yeah, that's you know, thought God, 14 years would just, you know, and you know, and you're saying, Jon and I have been fighting this good fight for Virgin for, for combined nearly 30 years. And, you know, as I reflect back these last couple of years, I feel like there's been a moment and momentum shift of sorts, you know, with customer acquisition costs increasing.

Erik 00:05:40

You know, we're seeing, we're seeing marketers focus on the website experience. You know, we're we're hearing Shopify talk about the highest converting checkout as well, are recognizing that, you know, it's harder to get traffic to their site. It's more expensive than focus on retention or lifecycle marketing. You know, as we talk about these phases and we talk about discovery current, I still I feel like we're in the infancy of understanding the customer experience on site.

Erik 00:06:10

the consumer psychology and their needs. Presently and historically, pop ups have been used to give a discount. Yeah. I mean, arrives on your website and you give them a discount. What I'd like to talk today about today is alternatives, which is you know what we're you know, the view now is let's we understand lead capture is critical to the funnel along with, first party data.

Erik 00:06:37

The, lead capture and sales is two buckets. I like to put kind of look at it as. Yeah, focus on the lead, capture your. You know, you're looking to capture an email, whatever. But when that visitor returns a second time, a third time, the fourth time, understanding that time to purchase, why they not purchasing that aspect is where Amazon has nailed it with, you know, why do people abandon carts?

Erik 00:07:06

It's still because of shipping. why else do people not make purchases, you know, is it communicated? Returns? You know, understanding why why people, believe a website to go to Amazon. That's the other I don't know if you do. You've covered that at all is like understanding why people will leave your website.

Jon 00:07:28

Right at each step. Right. And each of these four steps, there are reasons why people would desert and it all really again comes back to psychology. It comes back to needing to understand what's going on through and through their heads at each step. So yeah.

Erik 00:07:46

Okay. So how how do they do that? Is it the four steps?

Jon 00:07:49

Well, I think the four steps is the first thing to be keeping in mind here is that if you look at it like a funnel, right. Each of these steps helps people get further down that funnel. Okay. And so while somebody in that discovery phase might just be forming an initial impression, the next phase is that information gathering phase.

Jon 00:08:09

This is the point of that digital journey where customers move beyond thinking. While they might this might be what I'm looking for. They might be ab