How to make your prospect want you: Understanding the fundamental attribution bias
A 500 word essay on the fundamental attribution bias and it's role in consumer decision making - and how you can work it in your favor.
Hey friends,
Welcome to Issue #20 of Market Curve - a weekly newsletter exploring the intersection of marketing with consumer psychology and behavioral economics. Through Market Curve, I hope to offer marketers and founders a different perspective on how to better understand their customers - one that is rooted in science.
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Today on Market Curve, we talk about the Fundamental Attribution Bias.
I came across this bias this week while researching for a client - and it blew my mind! I thought I had to share this with you, so I dug deeper and deeper both in the depths of the internet and my own mind.
In this issue, you’ll learn:
What the fundamental atrribution bias is.
It’s importance in customer decision-making.
9 steps you can take today to apply this bias in your own landing page.
But before we start, a word from our sponsor:
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Now, onto today’s issue.
It's a warm summer day where you live. You and your partner are both working from home. Before you know it, it's time for lunch and you begin to feel your tummy rumbling. So you give a shout out to the missus - "Hey what do you want for lunch?"
You're expecting something along the lines of "Make a tuna sandwich - I'm in the mood for some tuna!"
But instead, your partner ends up barking and shaming you for always having food on your mind. This ends up escalating into a fight which ends up you going across the street to grab lunch.
If you're like me or the rest of us, you would be thinking "That was unreasonable! She really gets cranky when she's working." You "attributed" a particular trait to your partner caused by a particular action. Your brain, in a quest to conserve energy, quickly closed the loop between cause and effect, without caring much whether it was the truth or not.
But what if the roles were reversed? And you were the one lashing out at her? And she was the one across the street having her meal? If you're like me, you would have come up with a million reasons to justify your behavior.
This divorce between what we think of ourselves and what we think of others is the basis of the fundamental attribution bias.
The fundamental attribution error refers to our tendency to attribute another person's actions to their character or personality, while attributing our own behavior to external situational factors outside of our control.
Your customers are more similar to you than you think. Just like you were quick to label the behaviour of your partner, likewise, your customers are also quick to label your behaviour as a business.
Thanks to this bias, your customers can often leave brands for dead in the water or become loyal ambassadors. It goes both ways.
Let's see how you can use the fundamental attribution bias to esnure that the prospects who end up on your landing page become your loyal customers, or at the very least, who don’t leave you for someone pretty :/
Put yourself in your customer's shoes
Put yourself in your customer's shoes and ask yourself "what would make me buy this product". Remember, your customer is your hero - it is your job to understand everything about him. You can start with these three things:
Find out his market awareness levels. Map out your customer on the scale from being totally clueless about your product to being on the edge of buying it. You can refer to this post for more details.
Find out his actual and desired state. Find out his motivations to move from his actual state to his desired state. See what you can do make his behavior consistent with his motivations.
Talk to your customers and find out what objections and reservations (s)he has against the product or the market in general.
Write these down and address them all in your copy. You can definitely do it by yourself, but if you need help, my agency Market Curve can make that happen for you.
Slow down your prospects
Research has shown that prospects you show up on your landing page recall both your product and the solution you're solving far better if they stay on your page for more than 1 second.
If they do end up staying for more than 1 second, your brand's recall power increases by more than 20%. The bad news is that the average customer spends mere milliseconds on your page before bidding adieu.
This is not good news for you, is it? Here are 3 things you can do today to help your prospects slow down and take note.
Write powerful headlines. Your headline is the anchor upon which your prospects make a split decision on whether to stay or leave. Make it count.
Make your prospects feel seen. Say or do something that catches them off guard. Something like "Tired of scrolling all day? Take a breather. Click here to listen to some relaxing sounds. We'll be here when you're ready". Remember your customers might be having a bad day too.
Make the website interesting to navigate. I remember a while back, I came across a portfolio website where the visitor would gain points if he found the designer's email address or something. I tried it out and it took me around 5 minutes to find it out. That's 300 seconds. And guess what? I never forgot that website.
Speak like a human
Your voice needs to be authentic and sound like a human. You want to speak to him, not at him. Here are three things you can get started on right away:
Speak to the reader like you would speak to a friend. It's a good idea to start out as if you're writing a letter to a beloved friend. Once you have the first draft ready, you can hem out the rough edges and polish it up.
Be funny and witty - but don't try too hard. Think of it like wooing a pretty girl. You want to come across as funny, witty and intelligent without coming across as cold or desperate. You got to hit the right spot between creativity and objectivity - left brain and right brain.
Admit to your customers you are not perfect. Empathy is a great seducer. Tell them "We know we're not perfect, we screw up many times that we can count but you know we sure as hell are trying our best". Suddenly, you don't seem like a corporate conglomerate to your prospects but as a living and breathing human - someone they can relate to.
I remember Peter Thiel saying that a business is succesful if they create a win-win for all stakeholders involved. Whether you're a venture-backed company or not, a win for your customers is a win for you. The fundamental Attribution Bias is a reminder of that effect.
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Thank you so much for reading! If you want to get in touch, you can respond directly to this email or reach out on Twitter or LinkedIn.
If you want to hire the services of my agency, or just want to jam out some ideas, feel free to email me. Always excited to meet like-minded people!Â
Until next week!
— Shounak.