Dive deep into the minds of online shoppers with Jon MacDonald, founder and CEO of The Good, as he unpacks the psychological forces that shape e-commerce behavior. In this episode, Jon and I explore key insights from his new book, Behind the Click, offering actionable strategies for e-commerce brands to enhance their digital customer experience and boost conversions.

Key topics discussed:

• Understanding the two types of online shoppers: 'satisficers' vs. 'maximizers,' and how to cater to both
• The critical questions customers ask themselves before making a purchase, including 'Does this company understand my problem?' and 'What does buying this product say about me?'
• How to create an emotional appeal that makes customers feel like they already own your product
• The importance of post-purchase communication and why asking for reviews too early can backfire
• Real-world examples of successful e-commerce strategies, including Easton Baseball's 247% increase in online sales through a simple quiz
  

Whether you're a seasoned e-commerce professional or just starting out, this episode provides invaluable insights into creating a more engaging and conversion-friendly online shopping experience.

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Chapters:

(00:00) Introduction 

(05:58) First Impressions and Understanding Customers

(09:59) Making it Easy for Shoppers to Find What They're Looking For

(23:07) Addressing the Needs of Different Shopper Types

(28:50) Is This Product For Me?

(33:26) Making Emotional Appeals to Drive Conversions

(41:37) Effective Post-Purchase Communication and Guarantees

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Show Notes:

• Jon MacDonald (LinkedIn) 
• The Good
• Behind The Click
• Opting In To Optimization 
• Alchemy
• Why We Buy
• RevAir
• Easton Baseball
• Bass Pro
• 1978 Hertz Commercial (w/OJ)
• Simple Human

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Connect With Brett: 

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thebrettcurry/ 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@omgcommerce 
• Website: https://www.omgcommerce.com/ 

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Past guests on eCommerce Evolution include Ezra Firestone, Steve Chou, Drew Sanocki, Jacques Spitzer, Jeremy Horowitz, Ryan Moran, Sean Frank, Andrew Youderian, Ryan McKenzie, Joseph Wilkins, Cody Wittick, Miki Agrawal, Justin Brooke, Nish Samantray, Kurt Elster, John Parkes, Chris Mercer, Rabah Rahil, Bear Handlon, Trevor Crump, Frederick Vallaeys, Preston Rutherford, Anthony Mink, Bill D’Allessandro, Bryan Porter and more

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Transcript:

Post-purchase, unfortunately is the step that most brands overlook, but it is the biggest lever to being successful in my point of view.

Well, hello and welcome to another edition of the e-Commerce Evolution podcast. I'm your host, Brett Curry, CEO of OMG Commerce, and today I've got an old friend joining me on the pod, Jon MacDonald. He is the founder and CEO of The Good. And very few people on the planet understand online buying behavior, shopping, behavior, version rate optimization like Jon. And so we're going to be talking about Jon's new book behind the Click and talking about psychological forces that shape the way people shop online. And so some really cool topics we're going to dive into here to make your shopping experience better so that you can delight customers and engage them and get them to convert more. With that, Jon, welcome to the show, man. And how's it going? Great. Thanks for having me again. Yeah, we have known each other for quite some time now. It's been great.

I think this is maybe podcast number three, four. I don't even know. I'd have to go back and look, but I'm trying to remember when the first podcast we did together was, it was well before covid, so we're talking 2017 or something. 2018 maybe. I dunno. Well, we're both OGs in this business, right? Yeah, no doubt here. We're no doubt, man. No doubt. So yeah, really excited about diving into the book. And so what's the big idea behind the book? And there's some really practical stuff that we're going to unpack here as we go, but what was the big idea and why write a book? Well, I really wrote a book. I mentioned I'm an og, I guess been in CRO for 15 plus years now. It's hard to believe I started the good that long ago, but the more work we've done to optimize conversion rates, the more we've realized that to make real lasting gains, you have to pull back way further than just a conversion.

And there's so many factors that affect conversion from psychological, deeply ingrained factors that we deploy every day and they happen before the customer even begins to think about purchasing from you. And so every element of your website tells the customer something about why they do or do not want to work with or buy. So I didn't want to just tell people tactics to use to optimize those digital journeys. There's so many tactics out there. I would say CRO is actually becoming a bit of a commodity. It is, dare I say that word, but it a hundred percent is I wanted to show more about why these digital journey issues occur. Why are your conversion rates low and why a specific tactic might work for your specific audience and explain when it all comes down to it, you have to explain it as fundamental psychology behind the issues so that the teams that we're talking to can come up with solutions that work for that specific audience.

Realizing that decisions online are not just logical, but so heavily influenced by psychological factors that I felt like it had to be said. I had to bridge this gap by applying psychological principles to improving digital experiences and try to rise above that commoditization that's happening, the checklists world that is out there. Yeah, I mean it's so good and certainly there's value to saying things like, hey, better headlines on your product detail pages, headlines that are benefit oriented and that highlight the features and better product imagery and add to cart above the fold and some of those things. But those are sort of table stakes, right? That's potentially the commoditized part of this. But understanding the psychological factors behind why we do what we do as shoppers, what we're looking for really matters. And so I'm going to recommend two other books obviously. First of all, shameless plug for you, get the book behind the click, but two other books.

Have you heard the book Alchemy? I have by Rory Sutherland, I believe. Yeah, I love this. He talks about, hey, some problems in business and in sales and in social settings, they don't require a logical solution because humans aren't always that logical. And he uses the term psychological, not psychotic, but using psychology and logic. And he talks about how sometimes what you do to get people to donate more to a charity is not the logical thing. It's kind of almost an illogical thing. And so understanding the psychology there is very important. And then one book that I know you and I both love why we buy Bi Paco Underhill, I love how he talks about simple things like, hey, when you first walk into the store, this is like a physical store, brick and mortar retail store. You need a landing space and you need to feel comfortable.

And people are making decisions in those first few seconds, am I going to politely scoot out of here as quick as I can or am I going to go deeper and is this the right store for me? I'm looking at the people, I'm looking at the products. Is this store for me? Am I in the right place? And I think a lot of those principles apply with nuance to the online experience. And so really excited to dive in here. And in fact, that's a great place to start. Let's talk about kind of first impressions. So when someone lands on our site, whether that's homepage, landing page, wherever they land, they're making evaluations. And I know in your book you talk about there are two questions and actually more than this, but two questions you mentioned that I really like. One is, does this company understand me?

And two, does this company have a solution to my problem? So unpack those for us a little bit and how do we think about those so that we can craft an experience that really delights customers? Well, I think you hit it on the head with the landing area in a retail store, right? I am firm believer, and I know you've heard me mention this several times over the years that really should treat your e-commerce site as if it was a retail store. Meaning if you wouldn't do it in retail, don't do it on your e-com. Too many brands turn visitors into a number as opposed to a human because they can with e-commerce, it's easier, but there are the same psychological principles at play here with that landing, what PA was trying to talk about was basically two psychological factors that then lead to the questions that you mentioned.

The first is anchoring bias. So this is the idea that people will overly rely on that first piece of information that they encounter. So if you don't have a good landing home spot, they're going to bounce, right? They're going to turn around and leave the store or move off your website. And then confirmation bias, which is the tendency to give more weight to information that aligns with preexisting beliefs. So if somebody came to your site via an ad or a friend referred them, whatever that ad or that friend said really needs to be reinforced when they get to the site because they already have this preexisting belief from that referral or that ad. And so this is where people are asking themselves, does this company understand my problem? Because consumers are only at your site for two reasons, and that's to understand if you can solve their pain or need and if you can convert and then leave as quickly and easily as possible, get on with their lives.

Nobody's at your site to hang out. So really that first question of does this company understand my problem is all about crafting that first impression, making sure that you have a great anchor to reinforce along that entire digital journey that follows. So open that welcome mat, right? Make sure you're speaking the same language that was prompted to get them there. And then you have to follow it up pretty quickly. What does this company understand or have a solution to my problem? If you do understand it, then can you solve it? Okay, so this is really where I recommend brands do user testing to determine what your customer's needs and what their assumptions are because they're coming to your site with these assumptions formed by that first question, I have a problem, do they understand it? And then they're going to have all these assumptions that come out of that.

And so really what you need to do is address both of those questions immediately within the first third of the homepage if you can, or whatever landing page they're on, which is where it becomes a little more of a broader site journey. If you have an ad, you should take them directly to a landing page that addresses the content of that ad. Don't just send 'em to a product detail page. Don't just send 'em to a homepage. Make sure there's alignment there if you send them to a specific page. Yeah, it's so good. And so talk about some specifics here or maybe what would be helpful is looking at some examples. So what are some companies, what are some sites that do this really well? What I can tell you is how many SaaS sites have you been to SaaS products that we use every day?

You go to this site and you're like, I have no idea what this company does. It's word soup. You're like, oh my gosh, what are they trying to say? I can't tell you what they do. They're trying to talk to too many people. And this is really where I think even a lot of e-commerce brands struggle is they don't have a very clear ideal customer profile that they're speaking to. And this is where working with OMG, et cetera, where you would run ads, very specific segments that take them to very specific landing pages that when you marry those two up can really address both of these questions very quickly and get people into that next phase of information gathering. But I would say in terms of good sites that do this, the reality is I am not a fan of looking at competition. I'm a fan of focusing on yourself.

And there are, I talk about it in this book quite a bit. I know I talked about it a lot in the last book, opting into optimization. But the reality is that there's a reason race horses wear blinders. If you want to get to the finish line first, the quickest path is directly there, right? Straight line between two points. If you're consistently looking around and looking at the competition, who knows if what they're doing works for them. Who knows if you're being opted into an AB test, who knows if that tactic was brought by an executive or recommended from customers or their private equity firm said, you have to say this, right? Nobody knows what the situation is except for them. So I'm a huge fan of instead of looking at your competitors or trying to copy from others, is talking to your customers and asking them, what brought you here?

What are you looking to solve? Do you think we can solve your problem? Looking at your customer's information is really going to get you where you want to be much quicker than looking at competitors. Yeah, I think it's important to be aware of the competition, but be obsessed with your customers. And I think if you, to use that racehorse analogy, you do want the racehorse to focus, but there's also something about feeling the other horses around them. Maybe some horses get faster, and so we can do that too, knowing the competition is there, I'm getting up earlier, I'm working harder, I'm aware of what they're doing, but I'm not copying what they're doing. I'm thinking about who is my customer, what do they want? How can I delight them? And you really know that by doing user testing, by watching your data, by doing surveys and things like that.

And so if you do that, man, you are really set up for success. Well, and this is where if you notice a lot of these, I have a bunch of breakouts in the book, and if you look at a lot of these, you'll see that they're right. I specifically did not mention who the clients were. I did not mention specifically any of the branding. I left all of that out and I broke it down to just simple wire frames because what's important is understanding the psychology behind what was deployed, not who did it, and whether or not it was going to work for you in that same manner. I wanted to show an example of something and use. So yeah, I specifically tried not to mention brands in this book as much. Nice, nice. Okay. So if we're going to answer the questions of, is this product for me or does this company understand me and can they solve my problems?

What are just a couple of tips. We talked about a few, but a couple of tips to how do we make sure we're addressing that properly? Well, I think the first thing you need to understand here is with that anchoring bias, you really need to answer that quickly. So right up front, it should be the main headline. Too many e-commerce brands focus on pushing one new product or have, heaven forbid, an auto rotating banner with lots of marketing. You really need to, at that stage in this discovery phase, these consumers, they're being pretty selfish. I don't want to spend my time here if it's not going to help solve these problems I have. So with that in mind, really want to focus on very quickly addressing those two questions right up front and center and making sure that you're doing testing on that to make sure that consumers align with it.

Now, the biggest issue I see is that too many brands continue to market when somebody gets to the site. Really at that point, I'm under the belief that your marketing has won. People are at the site, it's now time to facilitate a sale. I'm not saying that you deploy tactics, black hat tactics, et cetera, that are really pushing people in that direction. But I do think this is a problem that a lot of e-commerce marketers get wrong. They think that their website is a great repository for all this marketing when the reality is it just creates more challenges for the consumer to get through that information. And it's unfortunate it's an epidemic that I see all over the place. But yeah, this really, really great point. I think it kind of leads to our next topic. One thing I just want to call out really quickly related to this, I think part of this is just really deeply understanding your customer.

And I think to do that, sometimes you have to do things that don't scale, like talking to your customer, even talking to your customer on the phone and doing surveys and things like that. And I'll give you a quick example. One client of ours, rev Air, really unique hair drying appliance. It's kind of like a reverse hairdryer. You kind of to see it, really understand how it works. It's Scott, the inventor of the product and the founder of the company, brilliant engineer and inventor. And so it's almost like a reverse hairdryer where you put your hair in it and it kind of pulls air through and dries it. Anyway, I created it for his family, for his daughters. Turns out as he started to get to know customers, women with type four hair, which I was unfamiliar with the types of hair, but largely the African-American population falls into type four hair.

It's like revolutionary. This product works like nothing else. But they only found that out as they really got to know customers and talk to customers. And so then that really shaped the whole experience on what they did online and who they featured on the landing page, who they featured in their ads and how they position things. But it really comes down to how well do you know your customers? Because I would argue, Jon, as I talk to e-commerce brands, there's a lot of brands that really don't know who their customer is. Our customers a women that's 35 to 54. I'm like, that doesn't mean anything. So you got your customer, and one of the best ways we've found to get that information is to talk to your customer service team. Yeah. Because the ones on the front lines, they are addressing the questions that come in.

They're the ones where if you say, Hey, for one week I want you to fill out this simple Google form every time you have a conversation and just answer a couple of quick questions. And really it's what type of question you answering. So you can filter by that. And then what was the question they had or what topic did you address? And is there anything else you'd like me to know? Within a couple of days, you're going to start seeing similarities. And we had this issue years ago now with the Easton baseball, they make bats. Oh sure. They around forever. In fact, if I can point, there's a bat right up there. They gave us, I see it. Yeah, it says the good. That's awesome. That's so cool with their logo next to it. But they were basically, if you went to their website, you just got a wall of bats and they all look the same.

If you can imagine small picture of a bat, they all look exactly the same in a grid. And parents had no idea what bats to buy their children, but the kids were like, I need an Easton Bats little league. This is what everybody swings. Okay, great. So what they started doing is we had 'em talk to their customer service team said, what are the biggest challenges? Well, we're getting a lot of returns and phone calls from parents that are upset. I said, oh, wow, okay, tell me more about that. Well, the problem is the kids would go and use it for batting before a game and they'd warm up with a bat, put a couple dings on it, scuff marks or whatever, and then they'd get up to the plate and the umpire wouldn't let them swing with the bat. And they say, oh, that bat's not certified for this league.

You can't use it. And the parents were so upset because they had no idea that there are different types of bats for the different leagues that have to be certified. And I can't imagine what it was like buying a bat on that site beforehand. So what we decided to do was, okay, let's create a quick quiz. First question, what league is your kid in? Second question that filters it down to maybe 10 bats. Second question, what type of hitter are they? Because not every kid is swinging for the fences, just it's the way it is in little league. Okay, we can answer that question really easily. A parent knows their kid. And then next was budget. If you answered those three questions, you were able to get it down to one, maybe two bats, and all of a sudden it's a no-brainer. As a parent, do I want to spend 400 or 200 and okay, I'll spend 400.

I know this bat is going to work for my kid now because I feel much more confident about it, they're going to go and not get half the return it. And this led to a massive 247% increase in online sales, not to mention the fact that they had severely reduced returns. So all in terms of revenue, I mean the return on investment of just talking to your customer service team, that is huge. Yeah, this really underscores something you said earlier that nobody wants to hang out on your website unless you are Bass Pro shops the physical store, and people want to go and look at the museum and just dream about boats or whatever. They don't want to hang out at your site. So no parent. But I think probably what Easton did, which is what a lot of companies do is like, oh, you want to bat we have 5,000, which would you like?

And we're like, I don't know. I'm just going to pick one or let my kid pick one or something. Well, they were filtering wrong choice. They were filtering by color, they were filtering by technical terms. We know, and these technical terms were invented by Easton. It wasn't even like industry standard terms. It was their branding team and their marketing team saying, we want to be different. So we're going to name some of these new technologies we have and everyone's going to be excited about them. And meanwhile the parents are like, I don't know what that means. Sounds cool. But so yeah, once you start talking to the consumers, you understand what their challenges are and you can help 'em through that information phase. Yeah, really good. And so that really kind of leads to some of the next questions you mentioned in the book that you talk about is can I find what I'm looking for?

And then to go back to kind of Paco Underhill and talking about the in-store experience, it's even more true there where a lot of shoppers don't want to ask questions. Now, me, if I'm in a retail store, I'm going to ask, where is the whatever? Because I don't care what I look like. I just want to go get it and get out of there. But a lot of people won't ask. And so if someone feels confused, they don't want to look like an idiot, they're not going to ask in store. And I think online it's the same. We don't want to work hard. We don't want to feel like an idiot trying to find what we're looking for. So how do we address that? How do we address that online quizzes, great example. How do we make it easy for someone to find what they're looking for?

Well, I think what you need to understand first is that there's really two types of shoppers, and neither really wants to ask questions of anybody else, but the satisfiers they're called are the folks who will take that first solution to their problem and buy it and move on with their lives as quickly as possible. And would you call this shopper again? Satisfier. Satisfier, okay. Right. And then there is what's called the maximizer. The maximizer is somebody who is going to go in and open 25 browser tabs. They're going to go to all the competitors. They're going to line up everything, compare contrast, they're going to Amazon and doing all this research. And then each of the individual brands of the products they find on Amazon, they're going to their site. These are the folks that no matter how big the purchase is, and you would think this might vary based on the dollar amount being spent or the importance to the life of the person buying it.

Not true. There are people who will go buy the first car they see on a car lot, and that's a expensive purchase. And most people's lives, or there are people who will go and buy a basketball and they'll do so much research about what the best outdoor basketball is and what's going to last the longest and have the most grip, whatever. The reality is that no matter what your price point is, there's these two type of consumers you need to answer their questions. But it's not just figuring out what the questions are and answering 'em. You need to not overwhelm the consumer. So you need to provide the information. And the best at doing this I've seen is Amazon. Amazon really is good at this because they give you all the bullet points upfront, the short information, a few photos, and then you can add to Carta buy now.

But if you scroll down, you see on almost every product, even if the brand of the product has not done this, Amazon will do it. They'll do a comparison table, here's the one you're looking at, here's some other options. And they'll have the comparison table where they are very easily showing you how they align. Now, that is for the maximizer. They're trying to keep 'em on Amazon instead of going someplace else. So as a brand, what questions you're answering are going to differ based on your products, but those two types of people, you need to make sure you're addressing really quickly the bullet points. Yes, this aligns, I'm going to buy it and get on with my life, or here's the bullet points, but here's more information that you probably want to. And if you can address that in a way that does not overwhelm the satisfiers than you are in a good spot.

And I think looking at the satisfier and the maximizer and then trying to kind of assess who am I as a shopper, I think it kind depends on what I'm buying. I'm probably more maximizer if it's a ticket item. When I went to buy my truck, I really analyzed a lot of things and I watched a ton of YouTube videos on four wheel drive trucks, and I really nerded out and had fun with it. If I'm buying a pizza cutter or something like that off of Amazon, I'm just going to look at reviews and does the picture look okay? And worst thing going to happen is I don't like it. I give it to somebody else or whatever because I really don't return things. I dunno if that's what I've learned about myself. If I buy some on Amazon, those was a really expensive purchase, I'm probably just going to give it to somebody. It's too much trouble to return. They love you. Yeah, exactly.

But I think looking at it that way, so for the satisfier, if I can neatly package, what's the minimum amount of information that someone will need to know to feel comfortable making this purchase? Can I make that instantly obvious with the pictures, with the bullet points, with the title, make that instantly obvious. And then if it's somebody that's really getting into comparison shopping, then yeah, tables, charts, graphs, videos, other things that we can provide in another category. I like coffee a lot, and Jon, I like coffee paraphernalia. I've got a pretty nice coffee maker. I've got the espresso machine. I've got a nice grinder. I buy quality beans. So if I'm looking at a new coffee accessory, I'm probably going to check it out, having fun in the process. And so having those kind of dual pads or enough information for both types of shoppers, it's brilliant.

Yeah, I would a hundred percent say you're a maximizer through and through, even though you gave the example the pizza cutter. Because the folks who are satisfied is, what they will do is go and say first image on Amazon, when they type in pizza cutter, it will say Amazon's choice. They'll click that and then add it to cart right away. Okay, yeah, that's not me. All right. So they won't even look at the photos. They're not going to look at the reviews. They're just like, it's a pizza cutter. It's backed by Amazon says, it's their choice. Let's go. It does the job. I'm out of here. So that's where it's kind of like you don't want to get in the way of those people because that's easy conversion. So make sure there's that easy path as well. Yeah, remember there's a great sales analogy. I remember one of my first sales managers that I had, and I started selling when I was in college, and one thing they said was, Hey, when someone is ready to buy, when someone has said yes, shut up.

Stop selling and take the order. Start signing the contract. You could talk yourself out of it if you keep going. And I think there's some online application to that as well. So really, really good. Any other thoughts on the information gathering stage? Oh, one other brilliant question that you asked in the book, which I love this so much, then this is a question that customers are asking, who else has purchased this product? And if I join them, what does that say about me? So can you unpack that for us? Well, really what you need to do here, show 'em exactly what the purchasing choice says about them to other people. So how do you do that? Well, social proof is huge here at this stage, right? Because I want to look at not only what the results were or how happy other people are, but who are these other people?

This is where influencers come in and why influencers have blown up over the past decade. Social media has definitely helped that, but it's just made it an easy vehicle to address this concern in this question. Now, celebrities, I mean all the way back before, I mean you had maybe not the best example, but OJ Simpson running through the airport for Hertz at the time. He was well-known enough, dude, he was so lovable until he wasn't right. The naked gun movies, he was in those brilliant, the Herz commercials. Yeah, whole nother story. But the reality is that that was saying, Hey, I like that I too have had to run through airports to get to my rental car. How cool is that? That's relatable. And so you start saying, oh, wow, even he had to do that, right? So you have to start thinking about these types of things of how are you relating to the customers and making it realize that they are part of the community now.

And there's a lot of ways to do that. There's loyalty programs, there's forms, online forms, there's ways to have these influencers do more than just post a social post or a video, but be more involved. Maybe come into a studio and make a whole video about how this has changed their lives or something of that sort. This is also where infomercials on TV work really, really well for this specific reason. Oh yeah, I can see myself in that situation or whatever. So I think this is one of those things where going back to the psychology of it all the way back to evolutionary way, way, a long time ago as humans, if we were in a pack, we had a unit together with several of us, we were safer than if we were off alone by ourselves. So the need inherent need to feel like we're part of a group is hardwired into our psychology as humans, and it's unlikely to change.

And this is where even just going back to a few years ago, COVID was so hard for so many people because we are hardwired to be social. And when we couldn't be as social because the factors outside of our own control, it became really difficult for folks. And so that just pinpoints again, that psychology that is deeper rooted in each of us that we need to be taking into consideration when we are building these digital journeys and driving people to our website and trying to get them through to conversion. And that's why celebrity endorsements mean so much, even though that doesn't seem super logical. If I buy Patrick Mahomes cleats, I'm not going to run or pass like Patrick Mahomes. But it works. Influencers, micro influencers, they work because every buyer is thinking, if I buy this product, what does it say about me? Either the way it makes me feel if I'm the only one that knows that I bought this, if it's something that maybe isn't publicly displayed or what will other people think about me if I buy this?

And so yeah, it's a really important question that people maybe aren't asking out loud or thinking about consciously necessarily, but they are thinking about it. And so you've got to address it with your landing pages, with your homepage, with your ads. Is this product for me and what does it say about me? Love that question. So good. And you can see how you wouldn't be able to answer that question effectively unless you've answered the other questions we talked about first. Yes. So these all kind of build on each other as part of that journey. Yeah. Really good. And so then moving on to the purchase and conversion stage. So now we're really clear on, hey, this is designed for me. It will solve my problem. I am in the right place type of thing. It's also saying, Hey, this is for people like me and it's going to communicate something to my community that I want to communicate.

So then now how do we get someone to purchase? And so you talk about making an emotional appeal, so getting someone ready to convert. So kind of slightly preconversion, getting them ready to convert by making an emotional appeal. Can you explain that a bit? Well, the emotional appeal is if you are answering the questions up to this point, effectively, logically they're saying, yeah, okay, this is the right product for me. I could probably fit in here. Now is time to do that emotional angle because we're ready for it. Our psychology is ready for it. At that point, one of the best ways to do this is to make customers feel like they already own that product. So what is their life going to be like after they have this product? Okay, you're buying a pizza cutter right now. Last thing, we have family pizza night.

Every Friday here we have one of those uni out on our deck, homemade pizza oven things. Love it, man. Love it. And I can tell you the last thing I want to be doing is messing around with a pizza cutter when I'm trying to just enjoy pizza with my family, et cetera, it should just be something that's done and I don't even think about, right? So the emotional peel here would be, wow, what would it be like if the pizza cutter didn't cut, right? If it was too hard to use. If you ever used one of those ones that you see at pizza shops, that rocks back and forth. Yeah, I've never used one. No. Are those great? Well, they're great if you want to lose a finger, right? Don't give that to your 8-year-old. There you go. Exactly. You see a machete. Exactly. So you have to really be showing people what it's like in their houses and why a pizza.

It's like, Hey, here's a safe alternative, or here's a good option for have your 8-year-old use it so they can be more independent, et cetera. So start talking about things like that. They're going to hit on emotional appeal of what it's like when they already own that product. What's it going to be like in day-to-day use? How's it going to improve their lives in a way that's not just logical? That car can get you from A to B, and maybe though you really want to enjoy the smooth ride because you're going to be in that car and you're going to be driving 50 miles each way every day. So you just want a comfortable ride. So you'll see some ads on TV that will talk about how quiet the interior is, et cetera, right? That's more of somebody helping somebody realize that they're in that position and that is the emotional appeal to them.

So one thing I want to mention right here, and I'm open to suggestions, and maybe you have one, Jon, we do pizza night on occasion. It's not a regular thing. I applaud you for that. It sounds super fun. I don't know that we've ever purchased a nice pizza cutter. I don't know what the problem is. I don't know if we're buying in the wrong place or buying the wrong, I don't even know what brands we're buying, but seems like every time I turn around there's a new pizza cutter in the drawer and they're all terrible. So if you've got a good recommendation or someone listening's got a good recommendation, I'm all ears. Can I tell you what we do? Yes, please. Okay. Get a knife sharpener and sharpen the blade occasionally. That is the key because they all just go dull on the just go dull.

I guess it's a knife just like anything else dull. Right? Exactly. And that's what people don't realize is I had a friend when they came over, they were here just for pizza night one night, came over and hung out with us as well, and they were like, wow, do you have a knife sharpener? And I was like, yeah, okay, here you go. And they sharpened the blade on it. And now I'm like, wow, I'd never thought to do that. So that's the hint. Don't spend any money. I never thought about that either. So we just throw the pizza cutter away and buy new ones all the time. Just got to sharpen the blade. All right, well, that was a pro tip right there. That's a free tip. Optimizing your pizza night courtesy, Jon MacDonald. Thanks, Jon. That's awesome. So speaking of making emotional appeals, and it's so important to make an emotional appeal, there's a couple of things I want to point out.

I heard this quote from a guy named Roy Williams a long time ago where he said, no person goes physically where they haven't first gone in their mind, and that includes clicking a button to purchase. I don't click a button to purchase unless I've already pictured it in my mind, pictured owning that product and what that's going to be like. And I think if you look at the advertising grates, and you talked about quiet interior made me think of the famous David Ogilvy Rolls-Royce ad, right? Where it says that 60 miles an hour, the loudest noise you'll hear is the clock dash, right? And so you're just picturing, I'm in this luxurious ride cruising down the highway and I'm hearing the ticking of the clock. And so we've got to go there mentally, emotionally for they're actually going to do it in real life. So love that, make the emotional appeal.

What else are we doing here to make the purchase to guide someone and make it easy for them to say yes and bye? Well, I think the last thing to really be thinking about is if addressing that, if they think this is the wrong choice eventually, what is the worst possible outcome that they could experience? So really what you want to do here is eliminate all of those possible issues that they could have. What's the easiest way to do that? Well offer some type of guarantee. So build trust with them throughout the process up to here that you understand who they are. You're talking directly to them, you're making it easy for them, whether they are a SFI or maximizer, all those things that we've done up to now should have built some trust now guarantee. So if you do a guarantee now they're going to trust your guarantee.

They already have built up some trust through the rest of that process, right? Then if anything goes wrong, they know they can get help. They know that you're going to take good care of them. There are so many examples of when things go bad or wrong in a purchase and then you end up saying, wow, this was a horrible experience. I'm never buying from them again. But they have built trust up with me and I get ahold of them because like you said earlier, the last thing I want to do is ask for help. So the last thing I want to do is contact them to get help, get a replacement, whatever it is. So if they make that super easy, I'm all in. I mean, we just had good example. We just had a soap dispenser from Simple Human. They make really cool modern homeware stuff, and it was just a soap dispenser in our kitchen and it stopped pumping.

It was like an automatic one to touch whatever. It stopped pumping. And I sent them an email. Last thing I want to spend my time on, it was just like, Hey, this stopped pumping. What can we do? They're like, no worries. As a two year warranty, we'll send a box right now with a new one. Just put the old one in the box and use the label that's inside. Send it back. We're good to go. Two days later, it was at my house. They two day shipped it to me and I shipped it right back to 'em. And I got an email this morning, said, Hey Jon, we got the shipment back. You're all good. Thanks. If anything else happens, let us know. And I was like, I'm buying your products again. You doubt made it super simple and telling everybody, because this was amazing.

There we go, right? I'm telling the story right now. So again, what's the worst possible thing that could happen here without a soap dispenser for two days? And they send me a new one for free. Where's possible solution? And turning even that negative into a surprise and delight kind of moment, which is really magical. And so let's wrap up by talking about post-purchase. So how can we leave shoppers on a good note really no matter what? Yeah, well, I think post-purchase unfortunately is the step that most brands overlook, but it is the biggest lever to being successful in my point of view, because you're going to get your lifetime value up and you're going to get the return on your ads up. You're going to have so much. The easiest dollar to make is when you've already sold. So you already know that customer. They already know you.

So you want to answer three specific questions here where my expectations met. So help them to understand with proactive communication, what's going to come next, right? The good and the bad, right? Oh, well, we've had customers ask this question. Our product doesn't really do that, so we wanted to call it out. Now, that is one of the best things you can do because again, you're building up that trust, you're helping retain that trust. And most consumers can be like, yeah, okay, whatever. Did this product or service work as should. This is where onboarding, no matter if you're selling on e-commerce, you have a SaaS product, whatever, onboarding matters. And it can't just be a simple email flow. It really needs to be something where you send 'em to a video on how to use the product, how to assemble it, how to, thinking of the soap dispenser.

They have online videos on how to change the soap. Seems pretty easy, but it's actually not easy. I had to watch the video, which is how I know, but I was delighted that the fact that the video was there and worked. And then the third question people have is, what I make this decision again or recommend that a friend does the same. This is where too many brands ask for a rating or a review right after purchase. Way too early, way too early. You got to give some time. You don't know. And there's some add-on services out there that you can buy that will immediately ask for reviews, and they talk about how many reviews they can get you those people. You are not reinforcing the positive experience yet. You're just racking up reviews for review's sake at that point. And then you're not getting good detail in those reviews either.

And I think that's a really important factor. Again, for maximizers are probably going to read some of the reviews or just at a podcast with an Amazon pro, and we were talking about with Amazon now there's the AI shopping assistant, and you can ask Rufuss, what do customers say about this product, about X, Y, Z? And Rufuss is going to dig through those reviews and synthesize that for you. Even Amazon has been pulling out and saying, this is a frequently returned item, and they've been denoting that now on products. And if you're a consumer, you're going to look at that kind of with some side up like, oh, I guess I have to read the reviews, or should I just go to the next product? Depending on what type of buyer you are. Exactly. Yeah. So good. Well, Jon, we are out of time. One last plug here.

Check the book out beyond the click, where can folks find the book? And also Jon, for those that are like, Hey, I'd like to work with Jon. I'd like to work with the good and see what they can do to help my company. How can they get in touch with you? Yeah, so the book, it's everywhere. Books are sold. Amazon, it was a bestseller on Amazon in multiple categories. Congratulations. Thank you. The best place to go get a book though is the good.com/btc for behind the click. And there's a code. You can use BTC podcast five zero for 50% off a copy of the book. So if you get it off of the good.com, I'm happy to give you 50% off. My margin's the same either way. So happy to share that with everybody. Or of course, Amazon, et cetera, wherever you'd like to get it.

If you want to go to hold of me, find me on LinkedIn, I'm so active on there, feel free to DM me. I do read everything that's going to be the best bet to get ahold of me personally. Awesome. Jon MacDonald, ladies and gentlemen, Jon, really appreciate it, man. Super fun as always, and looking forward to next time. Yeah, thanks again for having me. Absolutely. And as always, thank you for tuning in. And hey, we'd love to hear from you. If you liked this show, we ask that you share it, share it with somebody else that could be inspired, buy it or could find it useful. And if you haven't left a review for the pod, we'd love that as well. And leave a detailed review just like we were talking about here on the show today. And with that, until next time, thank you for listening.

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