How to Use Persuasion Architecture to Drive Conversions

What if I told you that you could convince someone to do what you want?

As a marketer, this is what conversion optimization is all about—getting website visitors to click your CTA, fill out a form, subscribe, or purchase something. 

These actions don’t happen by mistake. There are certain things you can do to guide people into making certain decisions and ultimately converting. One of my favorite ways to approach this is by applying Persuasion Architecture principles.

What is Persuasion Architecture?

Persuasion Architecture is a marketing method that uses a website visitor’s needs and motivations to guide their conversion path. It starts by creating one or more personas for your target audience. Then based on those personas, you can create a conversion path based on their specific goals.

In the simplest possible terms, the Persuasion Architecture helps influence people to take the action you want but in a way that resonates with your target persona.

The Persuasion Architecture Method was developed by Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg of Market Motive. But the principles of this method are based on the Myers/Briggs behavioral studies adopted by psychologist David Keirsey in the 1950s.

The Eisenberg brothers took the four primary temperaments defined by Keirsey and turned them into something more practical and intuitive for marketing purposes.

There are numerous sites where you can take a free Keirsey Temperament Sorter test, and the results are often eye-opening.

Design for all four temperaments by adding things that entice each user type (persona) and then use analytics to track which ones are dominant in terms of being the most common visitors to your site.

Breaking Down the Four Types of Marketing Personas in Persuasion Architecture

Methodical (SJ)

Attitude: Businesslike and detail-oriented
Time: Disciplined and slow-paced
Requirements: Evidence of your experience and knowledge
Weakness: Documented evidence and preparation
How to Present: How you can provide a solution
Problem Solving: Support their principles and rational approach
Facilitate Decisions: Provide evidence and service

Spontaneous (SP)

Attitude: Personal and activity-oriented
Time: Undisciplined and fast-paced
Requirements: Evidence that you are trustworthy and friendly
Weakness: Show personal attention and interest
How to Present: Why you are the best solution
Problem Solving: Support their feelings, interests, and excitement
Facilitate Decisions: Provide guarantees and opinions, not options

Humanistic (NF)

Attitude: Personal and relationship-oriented
Time: Undisciplined and slow-paced
Requirements: Who you are, what you think, and who you know
Weakness: Give recognition and approval
How to Present: WHO you have provided solutions to
Problem Solving: Support their ideas, intuitions, your relationship
Facilitate Decisions: Offer testimony and incentives

Competitive (IT)

Attitude: Business-like and power-oriented
Time: Disciplined and fast-paced
Requirements: Your qualifications, records, and values
Weakness: Documented evidence stressing results. As explained in Bryan Eisenberg’s book, weakness refers to the things that will make this persona convert, by appealing to their weakness.
How to Present: What you can do for them
Problem Solving: Support ideas and conclusions
Facilitate Decisions: Provide options, probabilities, and challenges

Examples of Persuasion Architecture in Marketing

Let’s look at some different ways that you can persuasive copy that converts. For each of these examples, our goal is to get the website visitor to click the underlined hyperlink.

Methodical (SJ): Click here to see a list of the benefits of our diet plan and a timeline of expected weight loss with documented case studies.

Spontaneous (SP): Try our diet plan today and start feeling great right away.

Humanistic (NF): Read testimonials of recent customers who have worked directly with our award-winning founder Joe Trainer.

Competitive (IT): Read our comparison chart that shows how we stack up against the competition.

For all four of these, we’re still trying to get people to convert. But we’re approaching it with a different path for each temperament.

Some people will be very interested in details, facts, and figures, while others will be influenced by eye-catching pictures that make them spontaneously react. Different personas require different web design elements and types of copy to be persuaded to follow through.

One person might want to see a case study before they ultimately convert, while another prefers seeing a competitive analysis.

Final Thoughts and Next Steps

To effectively apply the Persuasion Architecture in marketing strategy, the first thing you need to do is define the final conversion action and create different paths for getting there.

Then you can align each path based on the four elements defined above, and create copy that resonates with each unique persona.