Whether it’s to find accommodation quickly or with no rush, whether it’s for a meeting in a different city or a holiday, this website is one of the first choices for most people.
I am sure you know Booking.com and, if you are like the majority of people, you have used it at least once to book a hotel.
One of the reasons for its success is that Booking.com features over 1 million properties globally on their website.
And this is because it is one of the booking websites with the highest conversion rate.
In this article, I am going to show you 4 techniques Booking.com use to have a positive emotional impact on their audience and drive a high percentage to convert.
Ok, but why emotional impact? What does this mean and why is it important?
Driving people to trust your business and purchase, comes from the ability to empathize with them, understanding the way they feel, and giving them the reason to stay with you.
Yes, exactly, understanding the way they feel.
Feelings and emotions are the most emphatic. Science proves that over 90% of human behavior is driven by emotions.
This is why the impact that your digital marketing and communication have on your target audience is so important and is the key point to increase your sales.
This is why companies like Booking.com use techniques able to positively impact their audience to be so successful.
Depending on the audience and on the product or service, the driving emotions are different.
Each business is unique, and so their target audience.
If you want to learn more about how emotions influence buyers’ purchase decision-making, click here to see our emotions and purchase behavior guide.
Now, let’s take a look at 4 emotional marketing techniques Booking.com use for a strong positive emotional impact to get a high conversion rate.
1. Easy Layout and Suggestions for Major Emotional System Reception
The human brain works using two systems to process information and make decisions: rational and emotional.
The rational one is energy consuming and gets mainly activated when the information to process is not clear or there are red flags and objections.
The emotional system instead doesn’t require much energy to be activated, being, therefore, the preferred system by the brain, and gets stimulated when the information is clear and easy to process.
So, basically, the level of ease impacts how positively we feel about something. To make it simple, the easier the better.
This means that if the information shared with your audience is clear and easy, they will feel comfortable with what they see and will avoid questioning.
At this point, making the right positive emotional impact results to be incredibly effective as all the cognitive barriers are down and the emotional system more receptive.
Here is how Booking.com use this principle?
When a user starts typing the desired destination into the website search bar, the platform immediately offers relevant search suggestions.
For example, as shown in the image above, when typing “Lo…” it suggests the option of “London”.
This makes it so much easier for the users.
They get what they wanted in less time than expected, lowering the amount of cognitive effort required.
2. Loss Aversion for a Powerlessness Feeling
Booking.com empowers their digital marketing by using psychological negative incentives. And, as it’s what has the greatest impact on their audience, they have become masters in that.
So, it is that on the top of the results list, they show potential customers the consequences of their not taking action.
This technique is called Loss Aversion and relies on the tendency to prefer avoiding losses rather than acquiring equivalent gains.
You have to imagine that humans are mainly influenced by two forces: the desire to gain pleasure and the aversion to pain.
This technique stimulates the Cognitive System that is attracted by the feelings of pride, victory, status, and averse to losing power.
Booking.com use this very well, showing their audience the hotels that they have just lost as they are taking time before reserving a room.
The words “You missed it!” get empowered by “Your dates are popular.”
This generates a feeling of pressure in the users, making them feel like if they don’t take action now they might be missing other opportunities, remaining without what they wanted – remaining powerless.
This step is done at this point to stimulate their powerlessness aversion and make them more inclined to choose one of the options below to stop feeling that way.
All this is already quite impressive.
Let's now see the other two emotional marketing techniques Booking.com use to get such high conversion rates.
3. Scarcity for Further Pressure
Booking.com use scarcity as an additional technique to put pressure on their potential clients to take action as soon as possible.
At this stage of their digital funnel, they use this technique as it’s what makes their audience feel like the time available to stop the powerless feeling is limited.
This is what induces users to warm up even more and get inclined to press the booking call to action.
Booking.com uses this technique by showing those options where there are only a few rooms available at the same price.
Yes, the same price.
And this takes us to the next point, which is the final technique to definitely convert their potential customers.
Learn +50 Powerful Neuromarketing Principles to Boost Your Engagement and Your Conversions
4. Anchoring for Victory and Great Deal Feelings
As you can see in the images above and below, the price is shown as discounted.
This technique is called Anchoring which relies on the tendency to utilize the first piece of information as a point of reference for making judgments about the following pieces of information.
Booking.com cleverly displayed the price before the discount (€1438) so that it can work as an anchor, which is also indicated in red to drive attention.
The second price of €633 looks much more generous when €1438 was the initial price and the point of reference.
If there is no initial price listed, €633 would work as the anchor, and, in this case, the offer doesn’t seem as generous anymore, does it?
This final technique is what generates a feeling of victory and a great deal in the users, driving them to hit the booking call to action.
Basically, Booking.com gives the solution to the powerlessness aversion – booking a room – at a discounted price, so that the users feel even more incentivized to say Yes.
These are 4 emotional marketing techniques Booking.com implemented into their digital funnel, and each one of them has the goal to drive people down the bottom of the funnel.
With these 4 emotional marketing techniques, it is how Booking.com manage to be known globally and have such a high conversion rate.
How can you implement emotional digital marketing in your business for higher sales?
SM Agency, is consedered a leading emotional digital marketing agency London brands can benefit the most from by using neuromarketing techniques to empower digital marketing strategies.
We rely on the latest tech innovations and partner with cutting-edge data providers like AeMotion to precisely uncover audiences' emotional drivers and motivators along the sales journey. AeMotion offer the only neuroscience-based, tech-enabled data analytics service that enriches campaigns with non-verbal patterns for precise subconscious understanding and higher customers' value growth.
Getting such reliable data about audiences' behaviours and psychological profiles allows us to build more effective strategies and use the best neuromarketing techniques to get the most positive impact and create strong connections with customers - allowing us to be considered one of the leading internet marketing agency London ventures use for neuromarketing informed strategies and marketing services.
Thanks to our unique approach, SM Agency services are requested by businesses of any industry looking for an expert digital marketing agency, London-based with international exprience to provide services in English, Spanish, and Italian and market their brands in the UK, Euripe, and US, delivering profits growth.
