CXL minidegree Digital Psychology and Persuasion Review Part 12

Visarlinivelu
5 min readOct 25, 2020

Woah! It’s the final week of my journey with CXL. Guess what? I have finally completed and earned my certificate in Digital Psychology and Persuasion. Let me be honest, these past 12 weeks was very demanding.

Why you may ask. That’s because CXL’s courses are by default designed to make you fully commit to the course and weed out any of the fakers on the way. But, more on that at the end of the post.

Right now, let me give you an overview of what you can expect of my final post.

1. Some of the techniques and frameworks that I will be using in all my future projects (Why some not all –that’s because you can’t cover everything you have learned from this course in one single post!)

2. Momoko’s product messaging key takeaway

3. Why you should enroll in CXL’s courses and how it will benefit your career

The techniques and frameworks that I will be using in all my future projects

1.Always sell to both systems of the brain. Target system 1 (the old brain) to make decisions while providing ample solid proofs and reasons for system 2 (new brain) to justify the decision made.

2.Never assume, always structure your copy with proven techniques and constantly test for new ideas with the variation of a proven copy.

3.Use psychological triggers wisely to avoid psychological backfiring.

4. Any copy or web ad should be designed in such a way that it produces high motivation, easy for the reader to take action with the right trigger in place.

5. First impression does matter. In marketing online it’s so crucial that it can make or break the sales.

6. Structure your social proof according to CRAVENS.

‘CRAVENS’ states that good social proof should be:

Credible

Relevant

Attractive

Visually stunning

Enumerated

Frictionless

Specific

Momoko’s product messaging key takeaway

1.How to teardown any copy according to Momoko

a. Come up with a copy framework that is based on proven theories to guide your copy teardown

Here Momoko uses a combination of 3 power-packed and tested frameworks to guide her in the process of tearing down any copy. The deadly combo that Momoko had chosen was Cialdini’s Principals of Persuasion, Claude Hopkins’s Scientific Advertising, and MEClab’s Conversion Sequence Heuristic.

Let’s analyze MEClab’s Conversion Sequence Heuristic first as I am sure you are curious about this framework the most right now. Here’s the formula:

C=4M + 3V + 2 (I-F) — 2A

Don’t worry it’s not a mathematical formula. It’s just an equation created to convey the power of each element in affecting conversion. Now, let’s take a look at each of the elements in the formula and its power in influencing conversion.

M = Motivation

Motivation refers to the buyers' desired outcomes, pain points and purchase prompts. It is the most powerful element in this conversion formula. However, you can’t change it and can only create a copy that caters to your customer’s motivation for better conversion.

V=clarity of Value proposition

The second most influential element next to motivation is the clarity of your value propositions. Your value propositions are going to convince your customer whether they need your product or not. So craft them in a manner that highlights the advantages of using your product, the features that are going to help them to do so with deal breaker deals that are going to prevent them from going after your competitors.

I=Incentive

F=Friction

Why I grouped them? Because they are a complementary pair that affects your rate of conversion. Friction is something that makes it harder for people to buy your product. It could be something like a small CTA button or an error in processing your customer’s order. Whatever it may be, but the higher is your friction the lower is your probability of conversion. Conversely, incentives are the rewards you give your customers to overcome the friction that is preventing your customers from clicking the buy button. So the higher your incentive the lower the friction will be.

A=Anxiety

Anxiety is another element that is similar to friction but not the same. In fact, Momoko describes anxiety as something like ‘psychological friction’. To put in words, anxiety is really all about your customers’ objections and perceived risk. It’s not that they can’t figure out what you’re offering. It’s just that they’re worried for some reason. They’re either worried about risks, or they’re worried that it’s going to be a bad investment or they won’t get the result they are promised to begin with. All these together combine and influence your probability of conversion.

Claude Hopkins’s Scientific Advertising

Another framework that Momoko personally uses as a copy teardown guide is Claude Hopkin’s principle.

The principles are:

1.Be specific as you can

2.Instead of selling your customers a product, frame and sell it as a service

3.Present a complete story not just something vague or incomplete in your copy

4.Check if your sales copy can aide a salesperson in real life

Principles of persuasion

I have covered the seven principles in this review. So check it out as I won’t be expanding further on it here.

b. Use them as a gap analysis tool that breakdown a copy, not a re-writing guide

c. Record your findings and check which elements from the framework are missing

d. Now you will have an idea of what’s not working but not what’s working.

*To get an idea of what’s working in a copy, check out Momoko’s product messaging course at CXL. Trust me it’s definitely worth it.

Now it’s time for the moment of truth. What do I mean by CXL course are designed to make you fully commit to the course and weed out any of the fakers? Well, to earn the certificates from CXL you need to pass multiple tests. Here’s the catch, you can’t look for the answer on the net. You could only answer if you have gone through every single video and lessons.

This is why CXL graduates are highly regarded, that Ladder.io has included its certification as one of the 15 marketing certifications that can land you a job with them. Check out the article here.

Honestly, if you are serious about your career in marketing or your business (I mean any kind of business who are bootstrapped to hire marketing experts), you should enroll in CXL’s courses. They will guide you with experts that have worked out what works. Ratings wise I would give CXL courses a 5 star. So to experience a full acceleration on your career or business enroll in CXL and benefit from their experts.

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Visarlinivelu

B2B Financial Copywriter specialized in getting financial brands bigger bottom-line impact with conversion-driven copy.