LNCPracticeBuilder.com Blog

This article focuses on the ability of Legal Nurse Consultants to influence potential attorney clients with their practice website.

Influence can be defined as the power exerted over the minds and behavior of others. A power that can affect, persuade and cause changes to someone or something. In order to influence potential clients, you first need to discover what is already influencing them. What makes them tick? What do they care about? Why would an attorney client choose you rather than another Legal Nurse Consultant?

We have talked many times about website analytics and traffic statistics, but those figures don’t really help you get to know who’s visiting your site, where they come from and what services they are interested in. If you don’t know the answer to all these questions, how are you going to influence them? The solution is to find and analyze general patterns of human behavior or thought. You don’t need to know everyone personally to understand what drives them and what they love or hate.

I recently read a post on about Neuro Web Design: What Makes Them Click by Susan Weinschenk, a book about how our online behavior is influenced by both conscious and unconscious thought patterns. It provides some scientific explanations to tactics that many marketers have been using for the longest time and ones that can be applied to your Legal Nurse Consulting practice. This book provides helpful tips you can implement immediately to improve your website. Here’s a quick summary of some of the most helpful LNC marketing these tips. We addressed some of this in “The 30 Second Speech Isn’t Working, Now What? Book.”

But before we begin looking at what you should do on your website, you must first understand how your brain works.

Trium Brain Model – We Have Three Brains, Not One-by Maki

 

The trium brain model is a theory developed by Paul MacLean in the 1960s to explain how the human brain has evolved. This simplified understanding of the brain became an influential paradigm amongst psychologists and some neuroscientists. As the name suggests, we don’t have one brain but three. These are all layered on top of each other and were developed during different stages of evolution. They are as follows:

1. The old brain. Also known as ‘R-complex’ or reptilian brain. The old brain is primarily concerned with your survival. It scans the environments for threats and benefits. It controls instinctual survival behavior and is also in charge of autonomic functions such as heart beats, digestion, movement and breathing.
2. The mid brain. Also known as the Limbic System or mammalian brain. The primary seat of emotions, memories and attention. This is where your emotions are produced and where positive or negative feelings arise. The mid brain includes the amygdala, which is involved in connecting events with emotion and the hippocampus, which is responsible for memory recall and converting information into memories.
3. The new brain. Also known as the neocortex. This is the logical part of the brain that involves rational thoughts, thinking skills as well as language and speech processing.

According to this theory, we are only fully conscious of our new brain, the neocortex. But our mid brain (limbic system) and old brain (reptilian brain) are largely unconscious. Our unconscious is incredibly efficient, smart and useful. Neuro-scientists have estimated that our five senses receive 11 million pieces of information every second with our conscious brain only processing around 40 pieces. The rest is being assessed by the unconscious automatically.

The unconscious brain helps you to determine what you should pay attention to with your conscious brain. Your decision-making behavior is greatly influenced by the unconscious brain. According to Weinschenk, to create a great website it must be designed to talk to all three brains, both the conscious and unconscious.

Such a website would be the best at encouraging any visitor to take action. Here’s what you can implement on your website to talk to all three brains:

1. Show ratings and reviews by other users (and client testimonials)

Allow visitors to rate and review services/products and give testimonials on your website. Allow users to include more information about themselves such as their gender, name, location and occupation. This makes the reviews even more compelling since it creates an instant persona (e.g. 36 year old malpractice attorney from Boston).

Why do testimonials, ratings and reviews work? Social validation. People look to others when deciding what to do, especially when they are not sure of what action to take. This is part of the mid brain’s unconscious urge to fit in and belong.

When reviews are clearly displayed, they help to unconsciously trigger people’s need for social validation while allowing their new brain to rationalize that they are making a smart choice. They work on both the conscious and unconscious: to the rational thinking mind, user ratings and reviews are also more credible than profit-seeking ad copy.

2. Provide instant gratification and a quick fix

When deciding to make a purchase, we often influenced by how fast we can have the product (gratification). In an experiment participants were asked to choose between getting $5 now or $40 at a later date. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) reports show that when they thought about waiting, the new brain or pre-frontal cortex was activated.

When they thought about getting the money right away, the mid brain lit up. This shows that the emotional mid brain is aroused when people think of getting something rewarding right away. You can take advantage of this even though as a Legal Nurse Consultants you’re not selling a digital product or something that ships the next day. You can activate the same emotional triggers by using words like ‘instantly’, ‘immediately’ or ‘fast’ to engage the mid-brain. Integrate them and other similar words or phrases into your site copy.

3. Put the most important action to be done first

When you want possible attorney clients to look for a specific service the most, make sure that it is highlighted and displayed as the first item on the page (either at the top or beginning of a row/column). A study of an e-commerce site selling tents showed that visitors picked the first tent to appear on the page 2.5 times more than any others. This is an unconscious preference. Do some similar testing on your website to see if you notice any response differences.

The idea behind this is simple: what comes first is unconsciously regarded as the best. So even if you’re selling a product, put the service you want to get them to hire you for for first. For example if you’re doing a brochure site promoting chronological case summaries, make sure that what you want to sell the most is the first to be seen when a potential attorney client lands on your website.

4. Use the illusion of scarcity

When something has a limited amount to it, its assumed value increases. We will want it even more. Make your service offering limited by showing a limited time frame to redeem it. This is a common tactic that most internet marketers and offline/online retailers use. And it works. Because we feel good when we gain objects of value.

5. Build reciprocity by giving away something for free

When someone gives you something, it triggers a sensation of indebtedness, which you will unconsciously want to get rid of by giving something back. Create this feeling of indebtedness in your visitor’s mind. You can give away things like free service add-ons, free work product samples, free case reviews, free downloads, free consultations, etc.

A study mentioned in the book suggested that visitors are twice as likely to complete a survey form after they were given access to free useful information, as opposed to being allowed access to the information only after completing the form.

6. Limit the choices available and promote bundles

While people think they prefer many choices, the numerous options available often lead to decision paralysis. Too much choice may cause your visitor to not take any action at all. The Paradox of Choice is a fantastic book which examines this issue in much greater detail.

So how do you solve this problem? You don’t have to reduce your services range, you just need to highlight specific actions you want taken.

My solution is to simply choose for your visitor. For example, certain products could be moved into a ‘Editor’s choice’ or ‘Most recommended’ or ‘Top 3 services that Attorneys Choose” list which is then displayed prominently on your site.

7. Speak to your visitor by using the word ‘You’

A quick and easy way to grab the attention of the old brain is to use the word ‘you’ often in your copy. The old brain is self-centered and focused on what is good for you; hence it’ll often unconsciously prefer what better emphasizes how You can benefit.

Here is a comparison of sales copy. The second one should appeal to you more:

No. 1: “I provide Legal Nurse Consulting for attorneys who specialize in medical malpractice. I organize files, summarize medical histories and determine case merits to assist attorneys in court.

No. 2: “You can quickly see the “big picture” of any medical malpractice case by using the services we offer. You will have organized files, a complete medical history summary and be able to use our recommendations to determine if you should proceed with this case based on its merits.

In my opinion, ‘you-centered’ copy is part of the bigger ad strategy called personalization. You’re writing copy that speaks their language. And that entails knowing what your prospect attorney and target market likes/dislikes and desires. Write as if you’re talking to a person sitting right next to you. She is your prospective attorney client. She is your blog reader. And she is your friend.

8. Get your visitors to make a commitment

People are more likely to take action after they’ve made a small commitment first. This is because a small commitment activates a persona which the person will seek to maintain with future decisions. For example, asking someone to wear a small badge to promote breast cancer awareness is an example of a small commitment.

This activates a persona which makes them think ‘I’m a person who cares about cancer patients.’ Later on, they will be far more willing to make a donation to a breast cancer charity because the action of donating is completely consistent with the persona they have taken on. In fact, donating maintains that persona and makes them feel good about it.

Your goal is to activate a persona within all your site visitors. This persona will eventually push them to take a specific action, be it buy, recommend your practice or subscribe to your blog. Methods you can use include using social media such as Linked In, guest bloggers on your own site, article submission surveys around a topic that is related to your practice focus.

Getting your visitors to commit to your website is incredibly easy. You don’t always need to get something from them, like their email or vote. By simply allowing comments, you’re allowing visitors to be publicly committed to your website. I think it’s important not to over think it. Ask for what you want. People usually love to be regarded as an expert and don’t mind sharing an opinion or two.

9. Use images that demonstrate similarity and attractiveness

As tacky as it may seem to say, use images of attractive people who are similar to your target market’s demographic profile. If you are unsure of who/what that is…may I recommend a little book called ‘The 30 Second Speech isn’t Working. Now What?” or check out our 3 part blog on LNC Marketing Basics.

People are most influenced by people they deem to be both attractive and similar to them. The old brain is unconsciously sizing up people you see and their attractiveness can rub off on your website itself, much like how an attractive person in a Macy’s ad makes whatever they’re selling look more enticing. Ever notice that drug company reps are counted among the “beautiful people”?

10. Be a master at telling stories

Use stories as part of your copy or weave them into your content/blog post. When we read or listen to a story, our brains physically react as though we were having the same experience ourselves. When combined with pictures, it is a very powerful way to immediately grab attention, convey information and ensure that your reader retains your message.

Story-telling is a fantastic method of persuasion. It’s almost like a hypnotic process. The mind is taken over because it’s actively visualizing the situation by generating images to accompany the words people are reading. A skilled story teller can easily embed suggestions or increase one’s perceived value subtly by using stories.

So there you have it. These easy methods will require that you rewrite some website copy or maybe scrap what you have and start a website the right way with SEO, Brand Imaging and a compelling message. If you need help, please contact us at LNCPracticebuilder.com

If you found these tips useful, you should probably subscribe to my blog via rss or email. Just so you’ll get easy updates on new articles about LNC practice, design, workshops and marketing.

-Article content summarized from Maki at Dosh Dosh