The buying process produces potential customer anxiety. This is a fact.
Just about all CTAs (call-to-actions) generate stress.
Something as simple as the wording in your CTA, can increase that stress and it’s your job to take steps to reduce the potential customer’s anxiety. This in turn will increase your conversions.
Conversions in this case relates to getting visitors to actually buy what you’re offering, getting visitors to say YES to your CTA.
Here are 3 Powerful Strategies to Reduce Buyer Anxiety:
1. The CTA Wording
As mentioned, the wording you use in your CTA can increase or decrease buyer anxiety. According to Marketing Experiments, it’s all about the expectation of what your wording produces.
In testing conducted by the marketing group, two CTAs were put to the test. The first was “Start Free Trial.” The second was “Get Started Now.”
Which do you think converted better?
It was “Get Started Now” and the reason is it produced less anxiety because there is NO implied cost. To many, ‘starting a free trial’ conveys an implied cost.
2. Timing of the CTA
Timing is when and where to introduce the CTA on the sales page. In other words, do you put the CTA at the beginning of the conversation, in the middle, or at the end?
For the average marketer, it’s usually a good idea to provide the visitor with focused and persuasive content (information) before introducing the CTA. This will help develop interest and motivation. The information explaining how the product or service will solve the visitor’s problem will encourage him to buy what’s being offered.
3. Offering a Guarantee
For the buyer, one of the most stressful things in the buying process is to think he’ll lose money.
Questions your visitor may think of:
- Is the product high quality?
- Is the cost reasonable for what’s being offered?
- Will the product meet the promises made?
- Will the perceived value meet expectations?
- Is the money I’m going to spend worth it?
- What if it doesn’t help me or I don't like it?
One of the best ways to reduce most of the anxiety related to the buying process is to offer a money-back guarantee, a risk-free guarantee.
The guarantee must be clearly worded. The visitor will need to know exactly what he has to do to get the refund, when he’ll receive the refund, and any other information that will make him feel more comfortable in his decision.
There are five primary elements to a knock-it-out-of-the-park guarantee:
1. The length – you can offer a 5 day, a 7 day, a 30 day, or other refund time limit.
2. The conditions – the refund policy can be conditional. For example, “If you complete Lesson One, including the assignment, and decide this course isn’t for you, I’ll give you a complete refund.”
3. The coverage – you need to make it clear as to exactly what’s covered in the refund. For example, is it just the cost of the product or does it include shipping, handling, and/or other fees.
4. The placement – place the guarantee just below the price and then again after more persuasive content. You might head the additional motivation as, “Still Not Sure?”
5. The process – make it very clear what the customer needs to do to initiate the refund process. For example, she may need to contact your support team or you directly by email.
The article, “
How to Craft a Guarantee,” at Digital Marketer provides more information on the first four elements mentioned above.
Using these tips will help you create powerful CTAs that will reduce buyer anxiety.
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