If your marketing strategy is not utilising psychology principles, you’re doing your business a massive disservice. Psychology should be underpinning each aspect of your marketing campaign to ensure it is as effective as it can be. After all, how can you know how to create compelling campaigns without understanding what compels your audience to act in the first place?
When it comes to marketing, understanding your target audience is vital. You need to have at least some idea of how and why your ideal customers behave the way they do. Some of this comes from trial and error. Testing the waters, so to speak, and seeing how your audience responds. But you can take this one step further by integrating the psychology of human behaviour into your marketing approach to influence buyer behaviour without them even realising. Here are three marketing psychology principles to consider when crafting your next campaign.
1. Create a sense of urgency
This is a fairly straightforward and simple idea but it’s one that is incredibly powerful. By limiting the time that something is available or encouraging people to act swiftly, you create a sense of urgency and the ultimate motivator — FOMO. This is one of the most commonly used marketing psychology principles. It’s also one of the most effective. Some suggestions for creating a sense of urgency include:
- Adding a countdown timer to the end of your offer.
- Using time-related language such as hurry, fast, now, quickly, don’t delay.
2. Build some marketing psychology into your pricing structure
Who doesn’t like to feel like they’ve nabbed a great deal? When it comes to creating that sense for your customers, it doesn’t have to come at the cost of your bottom line. There are simple things that have an effect such as dropping the price by one cent, so it becomes something .99 ($29.99 instead of $30 for example). Or, offering a buy one get one free discount. Another great strategy to employ is the decoy effect.This often under utilised marketing psychology angle involves offering a side-by-side comparison to potential buyers so they feel like they’re getting value for money. It’s not always abundantly clear which product offers the greatest value. However, the presentation of the choice alone ensures that buyers feel as though they have more power and are left feeling more satisfied with their purchase. These days, the decoy effect is mostly used by offering three options side by side. The most expensive and least expensive sits as the decoys for the middle option. And this is general what the marketer is hoping you will buy.
3. Utilise social proof
We bang about testimonials and social proof here at CSQD a fair bit — and for good reason. They’re an essential marketing psychology tactic that can turn the tide on potential buyers. Social proof subtly influences them to feel confident enough to hand over their hard-earned dollars for your product or service. Social proof is essentially evidence that you have other happy and satisfied customers and deliver what you say you will. Highlight testimonials, reviews and case studies on your website and social accounts to tap into this pivotal aspect of buyer psychology.
