Quality traffic and conversions.

Nature and Nurture. The psychology behind quality traffic and conversions.

July 7, 2021

“Imitation is not just the sincerest form of flattery – it’s the sincerest form of learning.” – George Bernard Shaw

How do people learn how to behave? Is it nature, or nuture?

Scientists have long grappled with this chicken-and-the-egg-like question.

Scientific findings demonstrate humans as an equal measure of both ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’ across the behavioural spectrum.

Dr Beben Benyamin, a researcher at the University of Queensland, agrees that instead of ‘nature versus nurture’, we should look at is as ‘nature AND nurture.‘

In the context of the buyer journey and purchasing decisions, this could look like:

~50% Nature
Nature as instinctive preference (colour, aesthetic design, functionality)

~50% Nurture
Nurture as peer-supported online validation (social media, Google reviews, web forums)

This means peer preferences are taken into account in almost all customer purchases, at least to some degree. In many cases, to a very large degree.

What is another way of looking at nurture? We could call it, imitation. There are two forms of social proof that encourage imitation:

Paid social media influencers
Authentic customer endorsement

Both are effective for driving traffic and conversions, and prime examples of ‘imitation as nurture’ in action. For the customer on a buyer journey, trusting a product or service endorsed by a peer – be that a personal friend or influencer – is almost a no brainer.

In fact, studies show 93% of customers were influenced by online unbiased reviews and user-generated content (UGC) in their purchase decisions.

How can a business effectively utilise our proclivity towards imitation to increase quality traffic and conversions?

The answer in 2021 is utilising technology to automatically capture and deploy sentiment.

This can take many forms:

Image and video enabled reviews with UGC
Generate authentic reviews to create a seamless buyer journey, boosting quality traffic and end to end conversions.

Convert searches to web traffic
Boost public reviews in high traffic areas such as Google Reviews on your GMB pages.

Convert web traffic to leads
Show real experiences of current customers alongside your marketing claims.

Convert leads to appointments
Humanise your staff with reviews of each staff member and make appointments with people, not corporate stores.

Convert appointments to sales
Point of sale (POS) displays in store creates a culture of UGC, which organically leads to increased sales.

Increased profit margins.
Purchases based on trust and value rather than discounting leads to increased profit margins.

In short, creating social proof is about empowering customers to endorse your brand online, encouraging like-minded people to trust and engage with your brand as well.

Let’s use an example to illustrate it.

Sam is looking for a roof rack for her new Hilux.

To start her buyer journey, Sam goes straight to the Facebook of a couple she knows, who also drive a Hilux. Brand A, a roof rack business, sponsor the couple and are tagged in a post about their 4WD adventures.

Sam is not too sure about the design. It’s quite large and clunky, not to mention expensive. She looks at Brand A’s Facebook profile, noticing they have a large following and lots of user generated content on their page. Google shows up with thousands of positive reviews.

After more research, Sam finds a design she prefers a lot more, Brand B. Unfortunately, Brand B’s Facebook page is full of salesy slogans. There’s only one Google review from a customer annoyed at the service but loved the design. Sam wonders why she’s drawn to something so cheap and uncool.

Which roof rack do you think Sam is most likely to purchase?

Potential customers have a lot in common with your current loyal customers. Unfortunately for most businesses, loyal customers are kept hidden from each other. This works to undermine the time, money and energy marketing teams put into creating content.

Making social proof part of your business model doesn’t have to be hard.

Genion delivers fully customised, white labelled social proof technology in one place. Give your customers a voice to champion your brand, while you get back to business as usual.