Neuro-linguistic programming in ecommerce. Part 1

Across all sciences, from history and biology to psychology and beyond, talented bright minds aim their efforts at creating new theories for the overall humanity's growth. Sometimes their ideas lie at the edge of common sense. However, only in such a way, scientists can invent something new or make a discovery.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming is one example of a controversial branch of pseudoscience that’s interesting to explore. In this article, we’ll dive into the concept of NLP using its techniques in ecommerce. Stay here, and you'll get some exciting information!

Briefly about NLP

There’re a vast number of various techniques and methods capable of directing people to any action imperceptibly. One of the most common branches which bring together and explain such practices is NLP.

NLP isn't a scientifically based method and doesn't contain generally accepted standards of science. The structure of such a methodology is constantly criticized and academic societies refuse to accept it. Nevertheless, the methods and techniques are successful in practice and demonstrate excellent results in many areas. Hence, we can usefully consider many NLP techniques, methods, principles, and tricks. In such a way we'll manage to come up with relevant strategies in the industry we need for the results we want.

In fact, using NLP methods is especially relevant in the ecommerce and online sales of various goods and services. Business owners, PR managers, copywriters (link), customer support, designers, and other managers of different businesses successfully use some of those.

Important NLP concepts

Before starting to use NLP techniques in sales and marketing, we recommend to get acquainted with some important basic concepts:

1. Perceptual filter is a specific mechanism of the thinking process responsible for filtering all the information that each person is processing.
2. Representational system is a process of referring a person to the experience. It forms through receiving information in different ways and its unique processing.
3. Submodality is customary to consider a set of specific components that build the perception of various situations by a person. We are talking about what comes from the five basic senses or modalities: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, and gustatory. For each modality, people can have finer distinctions - submodalities. A photo can be black and white or color; music could be fast or slow; smells could be solid or light etc.

Thus, we see that NLP focuses on the combination of human internal processes, the unique different perception of information from the outside world, and its impact on actions and decisions.

Applying popular NLP techniques of Milton Erickson

Milton Erickson is one of the most famous American psychiatrists and psychotherapists of the 20th century. The world-famous physician actively used techniques that were later used in NLP methodology.

The scientist referred to hypnosis, where there’s no place for direct orders. Precisely the same techniques are relevant in working in the field of modern online sales. It's especially appropriate to use while writing advertising texts, descriptive and other texts in the online store itself, while planning online store design and further use of the visual components on the pages.

Let's look at a few techniques with examples that can be useful to every online store manager, designer, PM, or store owner:

1. Use truism for CTA.

Truism is a hypnotic substitute for a well-known command for a specific action. Use such famous words and phrases as: "Buy Now!", "Order Here!", "Customers can order/buy…" when writing advertising texts for online stores. Among other well-known truisms are: "All housewives choose washing powder (of a certain company)" or "Each parent chooses vitamins (of a certain company) for their child."


2. Create an illusion of choice.

It’s necessary to demonstrate a situation where the seller offers the buyer to choose between two goods/services. For example: "You can order sneakers in black or blue" or "You could buy canned food in a 200g or 250g can." Every customer needs to have a choice. But in fact, in the thoughts of the buyer appears the question "black or blue?" not "to buy or not?". Moreover, there's no place to sense the influence of the seller.

3. Implement a technique that provides a full choice for the client or all possible options at once.

It's due to the situation when the advertising message will list all possible choices. Moreover, among such proposals, there may be not only desired ones but also undesirable options. A vivid example: "You can easily refuse various sweets. But if sweets give you a good mood, why not please yourself today?”

4. Implement presuppositions to the messages.

Presuppositions are characterized by distracting the consciousness with the help of questions, choices, and sequential instructions. An excellent example is the following offer:

"Will you get our new umbrella now or next fall?" In this reality, a person "gets our new umbrella" anyway. It’s true that he or she has a choice, but it also is true that choice emphasizes the rationality of buying an umbrella now.

"Do you know that you still have time to buy a product at a SUPER price?" And in this reality, a person can buy a product at the offered price if he does it as quickly as possible.

• It’s straightforward to find out what a presupposition is: put a negation before the phrase and the part that won’t change is precisely the presupposition. For example:

“Write how much you liked our service.” - strong sympathy remains.

“By going to the next page without selecting a product, you’ll lose your personal 10% discount on the following product!” - a personal discount of 10% on the following product remains.

“Thank you for your order, we’ll always be ready to help you or to answer your questions!” - an invitation to have purchases next time in the same store remains.

5. Use the hidden command in the question.

This technique is trendy in everyday life. In ecommerce sales, you should ask various questions instead of asking customers to do something directly. Among such hidden commands in an interrogative form, it’s worth highlighting the following striking examples:

"Have you noticed how easy it’s to place an order on our website? Just in two clicks!”



"Did you know, when you buy a product in our online store, you get an official 12-month warranty?"

"Have you realized the full power of all those strategies?" - we’re asking you in conclusion of this article. Now you understand why they work!

Use these techniques in banner ads, emails to clients, or even personal online chat support. Positive results will not keep you waiting.

Set your goals high, and don't stop till you get there.Bo Jackson

Increase your sales using NLP! And read the our next article about NLP techniques to get more orders.