Reactance Theory

And a 23% increase in conversions.

Hey there 👋 - Abhi here!

Happy Thursday to the 21,599 marketers reading today :)

As of this week, I'm the CMO of **drumroll please** my mom's Shopify store. And I'm going down that DTC rabbit hole. If you got any resources, please share them along!

Anyways, today we're going to cover:

  • the psychology of Reactance

  • how Blinkist increased conversions with 1 (ethical) change

  • clear timelines, opt-in reminders, and a special surprise for you

Estimated Reading Time = 4 minutes 14 seconds

New to the Psychology of Marketing? Join here for $0 🤝

My Pick Of The Week

Want to create high-impact designs and boost your brand performance?

Make your brand stand out with Predict’s attention AI.

Predict analyzes how users will respond to your images and videos with 95% accuracy.

With AI-generated heatmaps and actionable data, you can now maximize the performance of your marketing assets. In only a few clicks.

It's the feedback you need but never got before. Served to you right on a platter.

Want to give it a shot? Grab your free demo right here.

Now to today's piece 🤝

The Psychology of Reactance

New day, new subscription. You know how it goes. And every other week, my Reminders start looking a lot like this:

At this point, YouTube Premium is the only subscription I'm not canceling. As for the rest, I'm scared I'll forget.

Forget that I'm still signed up. Forget to cancel it if I don't need it. Not to mention, I'm just built different. Most people avoid the risk altogether and don't even start their free trial.

As per Blinkist's customer service reports, for instance, "forgetting to cancel during their trial and being charged," was the top complaint from users.

At this point, most businesses choose to hide behind the screen. Hoping users keep paying and that recurring revenue keeps rising.

But what did Blinkist do? The complete opposite.

Blinkist decided to increase clarity around its free trials and created opt-in reminders to help users make the right decision.

Ethically correct. But from a business perspective, that could be scary.

Here's what happened next:

tl;dr Maybe honesty is the best policy.

Be honest with your users and help them make an informed choice.

Turns out, this is a great way to reduce risk, increase conversions, and reduce churn.

But what about their business? What about our businesses?

I'll break that down, along with a couple tactics for you, in the next segment ;)

Before that, though, here are 3 click-worthy marketing resources I found for you:

👨‍💻 Work is great, but I fear burning out. With this free newsletter, though, we can learn how to build the self-work strategies we need. Sign up with one click here.

✍️ I'm launching a Copywriting Psychology Guide at the end of the quarter! The sooner you get in, the lower the price. Sign up here, and I'll ping you when it launches.

🤝 With an audience of 21,000 decision-making founders and marketers, The Psychology of Marketing is now open to sponsorships. Check if we're a fit here.

3 Tactics For You

1. Depict A Clear Timeline

People hate ambiguity. I wrote all about it here - it's called the Ambiguity Effect.

Want to stop your users from getting overwhelmed? Be more clear.

Here's how Blinkist got their message across:

2. Remove The Risk

We're all risk averse. So make my decision easier.

Amazon, on one hand, defaults to the subscription option, almost hides the one-time purchase panel, and heightens that sense of risk:

" But what if I keep paying for the subscription even when I don't need it?" It's that thought that might push customers away from subscribing.

Not to mention the loss of trust that comes along with it.

Blinkist, on the other hand, gives users the option for a renewal reminder. Just hit that button:

And there he is - your knight in shining armor:

It might sound like a bad business decision. At first. And I get it. But this transparency:

  • makes sign ups a risk-free decision

  • gives people a taste of your product

  • and, in turn, has the potential to reduce churn

This is exactly the kind of win-win I stand for.

Kudos to Jaycee for giving it a shot, coming up with such an ethical and effective onboarding flow, and sharing all these insights in public.

Now she's a conversion consultant. The second I need some help with that, I know exactly where I'm going.

3. Keep The Win-Wins Coming

I've been talking to my readers lately, and people want me to niche down. Narrow down into specific types of marketing - whether that's retention or DTC.

And you know me. I give the people what they want.

Introducing DTC Experiments...

E-commerce ExperimentsTurn your e-commerce store into a sales machine. Get the free, daily email with 1 research-backed tactic ready for you to apply.

It's a short "experiment" to see if my readers find it valuable. I have a couple of tried and tested tactics in the pipeline. I'll start hitting send the second we hit 1,000 subscribers.

And I'm thinking Tuesdays for now, but if you got a preference reply and let me know.

Like I said, I give the people what they want ;)

Just excited to learn more about the space, help my mom grow her business, and share some tried and tested tactics with you. I do the research so you can grow your revenue.

That's all for this Thursday! 1 marketing breakdown & 3 tactics to get you started

If you missed it last week, we spoke about why you should Never Start With 0.

A Review From A Fellow Marketing Psychologist...

So what did you think of today's piece?

What do you enjoy most?

I want to deliver max value!

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

I look forward to reading your feedback :)

See you next Thursday,

Abhishek "Maybe Honesty Is The Best Policy" Shah

My Cafe of the Week: Brioche Bakery & Café

With another classic, cultured Iced Chai Latte.