7 Marketing Psychology Tips for Impactful Marketing

The golden ticket to customers’ hearts? Know what they want.

Easier said than done, right?

Well, you can ace it right if you explore the dynamics of consumer psychology. But marketers aren’t psychologists, so how do we do it?

It’s no rocket science and understanding marketing and psychology can help in powerful ways to hit the sweet spot where you can connect with your audience on a deep, human level.

Let’s explore how a consumer’s psychological biases influence their behavior and how you can use the art and science of psychology to take your marketing efforts to the next level.

What is consumer behavior?

Consumer behavior tells you how consumers make decisions about what they need, want, desire, and how they buy and use goods. When you understand consumer behavior, you may identify opportunities that trigger your customers so you can create new products or craft engaging marketing campaigns.

What is marketing psychology?

It is the study of consumer behavior which can help you understand what influences customers and why they make their decisions the way they do. With these insights, you can increase the chances of customers purchasing something.

How does psychology help marketers?

These days, people are always in a rush and your target audience has limited time and attention, which is why you need to make every effort count. When you understand how people make decisions, you can convey the value of your product/service to customers in different ways that are meaningful to them.

Big brands like Amazon, Google, and Apple have already embraced behavioral psychology in their marketing strategies.

For instance, Amazon understands that their customers need and deserve a personalized experience, so they offer specific recommendations. And they are spot on, aren’t they? This is why Amazon has fans.

7 tips to use marketing psychology for smarter marketing

You don’t have to be a full-fledged psychologist to understand your potential customers. A good understanding of some key principles of psychology can level up your marketing.

We’ve got a few quick tips for you to use marketing psychology to attract, connect, and convert more people with your brand. They are:

1. Reciprocity

The concept of reciprocity is if someone does something for you, you, naturally, will want to do something for them in return.

This obligation to give back can be used as a powerful tool in marketing. Here’s what you can do:

• Give your customers something that holds value to them and is not contingent on a purchase. It could be a free sample or a pop-up discount code for just visiting your site.
• Let your creative juices flow when you choose gifts for your customers. For instance, you can send a ‘thank you’ note after a customer closes a deal with you. This helps solidify your relationship with a customer.

2. The decoy effect

The decoy effect plays around with price since it is the most fragile element of the marketing mix.

When presented with two options consumers will choose the product of lower price if both the options meet their needs. However, if presented with the original two options plus a third option, a combination of the two at a perceived discounted price, consumers will go for the third option.

Interesting, isn’t it?

These 3 options in your marketing strategy can boost profits and sales of your products. Here’s an example to understand this better:

Let’s say, you are a SaaS company and you offer two subscription options:

• Basic: for $20 a month with three product features
• Pro: for $200 a month with ten product features

You want to increase the proportion of your customers choosing the Pro option instead of the Basic option. The target subscription is the Pro option. You could add a decoy to the product spread that makes the Pro subscription look more valuable.

So, you might add a decoy “Pro Lite” subscription for $100 a month where the customer gets six product features. It’s less expensive than the Pro option yet offers more features than the Basic option, making it a valuable bargain for your customers.

3. Social proof

According to Robert Cialdini, when people aren’t sure what they should do, they look around them for advice on what should be done. We trust recommendations and word-of-mouth over everything else. This is why, in the digital world, the importance of social proof has amplified.

The theory is that people will adopt the beliefs or actions of a group of people they like or trust. You may call it social proof or the bandwagon effect.

Remember the famous ALS Ice Bucket Challenge? Remember how it was all we could see while scrolling across different social media platforms and new people joining in everyday?

Include testimonials on your landing pages from happy customers, even better if you use video testimonials. You can use user-generated content or influencer marketing to build trust through social proof. Even big brands like Starbucks, Apple, and L’oréal use user-generated content to build trust among their users and potential customers.

4. The ‘commitment and consistency’ theory

This theory states that if you make a small commitment towards something, you are more likely to say ‘yes’ to a bigger commitment in the future.

For marketers, this means if you get your customers to make a small commitment towards your brand, like signing up for your blog, newsletter, etc, they are more likely to make a larger commitment in the future in the form of a purchase, subscription, or membership.

Start small with:

• Asking for customers’ contact details
• Inviting them to subscribe to a newsletter

For instance, you can offer a free datasheet or case study to your website visitors and in exchange for their name or email address. Although the ask is small, it is the small commitment towards the brand that you’re looking for to begin with.

5. The paradox of choice

When people have the freedom of choice, it can be a positive influence. However, too many choices can make people nervous and can negatively impact your conversion rates.

According to a significant psychologist, Barry Schwarz, offering people limited choices reduces their anxiety and improves marketing results. Here’s what you can do:

• Emphasize a few key points at a time
• Create clear-cut CTAs
• Give your customers a few clear, explicit paths to follow

For instance, while Amazon offers everything from A-Z, they still manage to avoid choice fatigue. Usually, they highlight a few different categories of products, each with up to 6 or 7 product options.

6. The verbatim effect

A study suggests, usually, people are more likely to recall a fuzzy, basic gist rather than the entire information. This is called the verbatim effect.

In the abyss of information across the internet, people are spending less time actually reading online, skimming and headline-scanning are the new black. If people are skimming through your content and are not likely to remember specific details, that’s a tricky situation.

What you can do is to spend more time on the content headline to make it unique and catchy. It’s the short, crisp, and interesting content that readers would recall better.

7. Sensory marketing

In general, consumers form stronger relationships with brands that deliver an elevated experience which creates a sense of desire within the consumer’s subconscious.

For instance, you can create virtual reality demos for your product for your customers to fully immerse in the experience. Or maybe display your product in stores, conferences, or summits, to offer customers the opportunity to try your product hands-on.

Here’s what you can do.

• Spend time choosing the music, jingles, look, and feel of the product, website, or ads to create an elevated experience.
• Create campaigns that appeal to the 5 human senses so as to leave a lasting impression on customers.
• Give your customers something unique that brings the spotlight on you.

Conclusion

Psychology is the Robin to your marketing Batman. It’s, in fact, a match made in marketing heaven because marketing seeks to influence consumer behavior and psychology answers the ‘what and why’ of consumer behavior. Now that you have these awesome tips up your sleeve, be sure to delight your customers every step of the way.

If you’d like to talk about more things marketing, feel free to drop us a line at [email protected], and we’ll take it from there!