‘Persuasion architecture’ may be the best way to connect with customers

Editor’s note: Michelle Stockman works with Little Rock-based Arkansas Capital Corp. to promote entrepreneurship development around the state. Stockman earned a bachelor’s degree from Loyola University-Chicago in communications and fine arts, and earned a master’s in entrepreneurship from Western Carolina University. Her thoughts on business success appear each week on The City Wire.

It is ironic how many entrepreneurs set out to change the way business is accomplished only to find themselves sliding into traditional silo setting systems within the entity. With so many tasks and issues that need immediate attention, start-up business owners divide up their to-do lists into their basic functions.

Operations, finance, marketing, sales, human resources and more create the make-up for business management.

However, time and technology are beginning to bridge the barriers between disciplines within the business. One area that has proven a great collaborative success is in “persuasion architecture.”

This is a concept proposed in 2006 through a white paper produced by Future Now Inc. Within this concept, persuasion architecture incorporates marketing and sales in a cohesive manner “with the premise that the buying decision process and the sales process must work in tandem.”

Through persuasive architecture, the business must help guide the “buyer” through the decision-making process by tailoring the message to the buyer’s psychology. In order to do this, the business must obtain a better understanding of their customers or clients. While most businesses assume they know their average customer, this concept challenges the notion that any business has an “average” customer.

In this day of product and service customization for customers, it is clear that people are different. Through the diversity, businesses can find common characteristics from their customers and tailor their messages and sales towards those character traits. In referring to websites “persuasion architecture provides a detailed process for persuading your visitors to take the actions you want them to take. Nothing is left to chance. To provide visitors with the information they want, when they want it, in language that speaks to their individual needs, you design persuasive paths based on personas.”

In essence, persuasion architecture helps businesses teach their prospects how to be better buyers. By identifying the different types of customers your business has, the entity can start developing additional information about that customer’s demographics, learning styles, decision processes and what appeals to the psychologically.

Knowing this information allows you to craft your branding, messaging, advertising, web site and sales process that encapsulates the customer’s needs in making the buying decision.

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Stockman can be reached at [email protected]