What is Online Sales Psychology?

“Online sales psychology is a set of principles and processes that have been proven to increase a websites Conversion Rate” – Craig Murphy, ALT Agency.

Not just another word for Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO), Online Sales Psychology is a term and process coined by ALT agency that has been proven* to increase the number of conversions/sales/enquiries that a website generates.

An example of Sales Psychology in action:

Having launched in the UK, Amazon were surprised to find that their website was not converting as well as its American counterpart. After hiring consultants and reportedly spending north of £1,000,000 to solve this issue, Amazon change 1 single word on their website. They changed “Add to Cart” to “Add to Basket”. Conversions reportedly jumped 12% almost overnight.

What does Online Sales Psychology Involve?

Online sales psychology comes down to 7 fundamental core principles that range from reducing the amount of “friction” generated on a website to subliminally improving the trust that your website generates.

Much more than a checklist of 7 core principles, that your website must maximise, Online Sales Psychology involves understanding where your website visitors come from, which ones convert best and how to optimise their journey even further so that you convert more of your website traffic.

Going 1 step further than simply using Google Analytics, a process of online sales psychology is using screen recording software to actually see what your visitors are doing and why. Analytics only tells you if there’s an issue, Online Sales Psychology identifies exactly what this issue is and resolves it.

An example of how Online Sales Psychology helped 1 of our clients increase their sales at checkout:

Social Deals was averaging an 8% conversion rate at checkout with warm traffic from Facebook. What we noticed during the very early stages was a high cart abandonment rate, so we installed a heat map and video recording software to work out what was going on. What we found was that people were clicking on the “money back guarantee” graphic, and when clicking on it, nothing happened. So we simply added a pop up that detailed terms of the money back guarantee and this lifted conversions to 11%.

What are the 7 core principles of Online Sales Psychology?

Principle 1 –The irresistible characteristics of your Call to Action

Principle 2 – The Psychology and use of Colours

Principle 3 – The 3 second Rule

Principle 4 – The “F” pattern

Principle 5 – Simplify, Friction, imagery

Principle 6 – The Trust Elements

Principle 7 – Testing, Testing, Testing

What is the most important principle of Online Sales Psychology?

Without doubt the most important principle is Testing, Testing, Testing! Without testing it’s difficult to know which of your websites developments will work and what will not. Whilst the 7 principles are based on sound logic and thousands upon thousands of tests and data analysis of millions of website users there have been instances where the first and second version of a page fail to deliver the expected results. Online Sales Psychology is an ongoing process and your website is an living breathing evolving thing and so testing and testing some more is the only way to find out what works and what doesn’t.

An example of how Testing, Testing and Testing helped improve our clients sign ups by 35%

One of our clients was suffering from an average number of daily sign ups to his membership subscription website. He was generating $7,500 a week and was pretty happy about it, but after looking at his analytics we noticed that his sign up page had a high bounce rate. So by adding in a second sign up page that was completely different to the previous one we managed to improve the conversion/sign up rate by 35% and with continuous testing to headlines, button colour and text the website now generates on average $11,000 per week and we are still testing aiming for $14,000 a week. 2017 Update: This client is now getting $17,000 a week!

What are the typical results from Online Sales Psychology?

We have found that our clients from day 1 can see some overnight success. Using these principles we have managed to:
– Increase bookings at The Beatles Story by 27%

– Increase traffic at F1.co.uk by 487%

– Increase enquiries at EXTREME by 37%

– Improve website performance by 50% at Quba.com

To learn more about online sales psychology call ALT agency on 0121 663 0202 or email hello@altagency.co.uk and a member of our team will be happy to answer your questions and explain the benefits of Online Sales Psychology to you.