Persuasive Design Pattern #2 : Ingredients/ Materials/ Components

Quick Note: Over last 12 years, I may have analyzed 10,000+ ads & landing pages as a designer-turned-marketer-turned-founder. Naturally, I started seeing repeating patterns marketers use in their communication.

In this series of Persuasive Design Patterns, I am building a library of visual patterns used by marketers to design high converting ads & landing pages and make it available for everyone.

Shared every Monday, Wednesday & Friday.

Sign up for my Patterns Of Persuasion Newsletter where I share visual patterns marketers use to build high performing landing pages & ads.

If there is one thing that your customers absolutely hate, it is ambiguity. They want to be sure what to expect even before they buy your product.

And if they are not sure, they will simply ignore it and move on.

Ambiguity Bias happens when people prefer an option that has clear outcome as compared to an option with unclear outcome.

That sounds obvious, but you'd be surprise by the number of products that miss out on this basic principle.

While making a purchase decision, especially physical products like food and furniture, we ask a sub-conscious question, "what is this thing made of?" And if your piece of communication is not answering this upfront, you're losing sales you could have rather converted.

So instead of getting creative, simply show what is your product made of upfront.

Showing Ingredients or Materials your product is made of is a 'design pattern' that counters Ambiguity Bias.

For example, showing the 'ingredients' of a food product gives you a clear idea about what it should taste like.

Or if you are buying furniture online, looking the materials it is made of gives you a clear idea about the quality of the furniture you are buying.

If you are building a SaaS, show components your SaaS is made of. Snippets of your UI works like magic for improving conversion rate. I am surprised by the number of SaaS websites that are hiding their UIs behind a Demo Call. That's unnecessary secrecy. Try showing how your SaaS looks upfront.

This closes the gap between the expectations your customers have and the outcome you are delivering to them.

Scroll👇 to see some real world examples.

Summarizing, show 'ingredients / materials / components' when you want customers to,

• Anticipate the taste of your product
• Anticipate the quality & efficacy of your product
• Anticipate the outcome of your product
• Anticipate what your product looks like before purchase

Releasing Next : Design Pattern #3 : Product In Action

Share your views in comments.👇

Sign up for my Patterns of Persuasion Newsletter to get the latest design pattern in your inbox.