People desert websites for various reasons. If you’re lucky, they’ll come back to finish what they started; if you’re unlucky, they will forget all about it. ‘Abandoners’ can be hot prospects, andcompanies often invest a lot of time and moneyon retargeting (paid media) and remarketing (sending a series of abandonment recovery emails), to persuade consumers to re-visit their purchases.
Here are some techniques from the world of psychology that you canincorporate into your remarketing or retargeting campaigns, to stimulate the ‘buy’ button in your visitors’ brains.
1. Foot in the Door Technique
Sometimes visitors abandon because they are not ready to buy yet, i.e. some shoppers like to add items to their carts over several visits before they check out.Although these visitors may convert later, you can reinforce their decision to buy from you by using the Foot in the Door technique.The principle behind the technique is this: Make a small request of your customer (a micro-conversion) first, such as asking them to join a mailing list orcreate a wish list for future purchases. If they agree to your first request, they will be more likely to respond to your next and bigger request.
Psychologists theorize that the technique works due to the human’s tendency to feel indebted to someone after they’ve had some level of interaction with that person.