Written By Desmond Ekeh
Digital marketing researchers, teachers, and practitioners wonder why most A/B tests fail. Some even say about 90% of these tests fail as a result of a lack of understanding of how the brain works. In this article, we will highlight some of the thoughts espoused by Andre Morys of CXL Institute on how to control attention – is the foundation for changing the behavior of your customers.
The A/B Test is Outside Your Website
It is important for digital marketers to always bear in mind that the A/B test does not take place on your website. It always measures the number of people that change their behaviors – which happens in the customers’ brains. So if we want to capture the test accurately we need to change customers’ behavior. If we want to do that we need to do whatever we do to lead to a behavior change. Neuroscience has helped us to understand that people cannot control their behavior, even though they think they could.
Experiments conducted years ago with some LEGO bricks showed that people stopped at a point to demonstrate a certain preference for a certain area where there is most fixation. These are said to be the points where people stopped their eye movement and looked at these points for at least a couple of milliseconds. If we say people cannot control their behavior what then made them stop somewhere to see something while completely ignoring the other parts? So, how do you implement the principle that gets people to stop and concentrate on a certain area instead of the others?
To enable us to achieve our goal of conversion optimization let us understand how people perceive websites – because if we know this it will help us to appreciate what the customer needs and what he wants to experience. Remember our previous discussion on customer motivation and his needs. This forms the psychology of his experience. His experience from you – whether you can meet his needs determines the extent to which you can influence his behavior, which also forms the foundation of company growth. It is customer experience – not technology or data – that leads to growth.
Customer Experience Leads to Growth
When we say customer experience does not mean technology or data, we do not mean that technology and data are not important. No. What we mean is that they are instrumental to growth but in themselves do not lead to growth. What then is the customer experience? Customer experience does not have to be one great, cool, fancy, hearth throbbing thing, no. It summarizes all that is relevant to your customer. All that combines to meet the motivation of your customer for visiting your site. It includes your relevant content, relevant images, relevant colors, relevant site arrangement, your value propositions, your implicit codes, the emotional resonance of your site – in fact, everything that sums up to meet the customer’s motivations as encompassed in his needs. But visitors to your site do not see these elements separately, they rather see or appreciate them in one whole, as one element. In one single view, they perceive your site as relevant or irrelevant. Unfortunately, this happens within a range of 50 milliseconds – to create that feeling of relevance. So when relevant elements are put together in a manner that resonates with visitor’s motivation, as we can expect the visitor to enjoy the site and experience its relevance to his motivation, it will require just a little nudge for him to take a conversion optimization decision.
The Limbic Concept: Instructions of Dominance, Balance, Stimulants
To clearly understand the principles of relevance Morys has experimented with one powerful neuromarketing tool called the limbic map. This map is a collection of values or motivations. These values or motivations are allocated in a certain way that is important to human behavior. It is also noticed that through evolutionary reasons some people began to feel better than others – I can run faster than others, I can have a better social status than others – that way some people want to behave in a way that positions them better than the others. This evolutionary property can be referred to as instruction of dominance. This instruction bothers on when people begin to think and believe that they can be better than others so they make decisions and choices that represent that mental frame. Whereas, some other people, in the evolutionary course, would say no, instead let us leave things as they are. Let us not change anything. This posture gives them stability. They believe in security, tradition, nostalgia, and conservative outlook. All these relate to instructions of balance. Then the third core instruction is that of stimulants. For these people, it is good to try new things, be creative, explore, experiment, and try to be different.
This way of thinking creates complimentary behavior patterns that could be allocated with certain values, implicit codes, words, as shown in the limbic map. Morys shows the Hugo Boss website. In that site, he explained how the color black and the surrounds are used as implicit codes to represent the brand’s values. When we look at successful advertising, says Morys, we will see a lot of implicit codes. For instance, if you look at a BMW ad you do not see a car, what you see is the way it is arranged. You see the background of the car, the copy appurtenances. In this ad, the surround is added as part of the ad copy to establish the BMW sublimity.
The customer does not see the car, the customer sees the sublime surround and associates it with the car. The customer buys the car for the limbic codes – to show the neighbors that he has arrived or reached the next level (as they would say in Nigeria). The customer uses the car to increase his social status. That you are a successful guy. Meanwhile, the customer would say she bought the car for its ruggedness or reliability. The customer takes an unconscious decision but justifies it with a rational argument.
Implicit Code: The Hugo Boss Example
The Hugo Boss ad has a lot of implicit codes. For instance, the background of the ad is dark. This makes us feel that it is all about dominance and power. The color black is an implicit code for dominance. You also notice another implicit code in the face of the man in the ad depicting an unfriendly, uncompromising mien. Another implicit code is the surround that is dark and depicts some arctic scenery. A company like Hugo Boss understands how to use implicit code for communication. Some websites fail as a result of not knowing how to capture or take control of the customer’s attention with the space of 50 milliseconds
Conclusion
To understand how to control the customer’s attention is important in the digital marketer’s attempt to gain customer optimization.
Desmond Ekeh, is a PR consultant, digital marketing professional, and researcher in media and communication. He is the CEO of Synthesis Communications and Publisher of BrandiQ.
