Psychology in Marketing theory to practice

Marketing is mostly understanding people.

Aka psychology.

Everyone talks about psychology.

Phenomenons and cognitive biases.

But no one shows you how to USE those principles.

Stay with me for a practical approach to psychology.

We’ll be discussing all the phenomenon and biases with examples.

1. Simplicity

Our brain is lazy.

It doesn’t like to do the heavy lifting.

The easier something to understand, the more likely we are to believe it.

Example: use easy to understandable fonts on your website.

Pick soothing colors.

And writing…

Longer the paragraph, more difficult it is for your readers to comprehend. Human mind skims for the information worth reading. This paragraph is gonna be extremely long and most of you won’t read or would just skim through it. While you skim for the information, you’re more likely to miss the important details. On top of that, it appears as a clunky big wall of text which inherently your brain procrastinates to read and you lose conversions.

Instead, write snappy copy.

With lots of line breaks and shorter paragraphs.

And occasionally medium long (2-3 sentence) paragraphs.

To break the monotony.

2. Halo effect

What’s halo effect?

When one trait influences how you feel about any other totally unrelated trait.

Eg: attaching positive traits to an attractive person.

Suppose you went to Starbucks and saw a nerd looking dude with his hoodie on, continuously typing on his laptop

You’d think of him as a hacker or an introvert.

How you could use halo effect in marketing?

Using good design.

Using suitable color schemes.

All these elements make you trustworthy.

Let’s step up one level.

Name dropping Forbes, Business Insider, Inc featured.

Let’s take it to an even further level.

Celebrity endorsements.

All these elements bump the perceived value of your brand or product.

3. Persuasion

Is persuasion manipulation?

A subtler version of manipulation.

It’s the act of sparking emotions to affect the decision-making process.

How you can instantly be more persuasive, aka believable?

Light swearing.

Use words like damn it, holy cow, bugger, etc.

Mild swearing increases the intensity of your speech.

Jolts the readers awake and keeps them hooked.

4. Curse of knowledge

Curse of knowledge when you can’t relate to a convo because you don’t have the background knowledge.

How to avoid the curse of knowledge in marketing?

Avoid using jargons or a load of technical terms.

Understand your customers (research).

And talk like them.

SaaS and AI guys, this is your biggest conversion killer.

5. Paradox of Choice

More choices = more $$$

Right?

Totally off the mark, oh boi, don’t get me started on this.

The more choices you’ve, the less happy and satisfied you’re.

That’s cause of the two reasons:

a) it increases your mental load to make the choice (analysis paralysis)

b) fear of missing out. You feel like you should have gotten the other items in the guise of those being better (buyer’s remorse)

Reduce the options available on your website.

6. Expectancy Theory

People buy products for a better future.

And they take action when they are motivated.

3 Elements of motivation.

expectancy X performance X value of reward = motivation

Expectancy: will taking an action help achieve a goal.

Performance: will taking action lead to a reward.

Value of reward: Is the value of reward greater than the efforts?

And how do great marketers motivate people?

By talking to the deeper desires of an audience.

Present your solution as…

Low effort + High reward = High motivation

7. Pratfall Effect

Flaunt your faults.

But how is it a blessing in disguise for marketers?

Admitting imperfections is appealing.

Cause mistakes make you relatable (and likable).

8. Solomon’s Paradox

People are notoriously good at solving other’s problems.

But terrible at solving their own problems.

We can easily dish out solutions for others.

But for our problems, it’s harder to find a solution.

How you could use this bias for your brand?

By reframing the problem.

Focus on questions, not the answers.

9. Transparency Effect

Being upfront.

Builds trust.

People fork over more cash.

When brands are transparent with them.

Example…

Your favorite luxury brand is giving a 50% discount.

At first, you’ll be suspicious of the quality of the product.

But if the brand reframes their wording…

50% discount on our 10th anniversary.

You’re gonna end up spending more than average.

That’s it.

Make people want to BUY from you.

Don’t force them (with the snake oil salesman’s sleazy techniques).

Understand psychology and behavioral economics.

PS: If you’re looking to start a newsletter or someone in your circle’s looking to start a newsletter, send ‘em my way (I’ll pay you a nice referral cut, I swear).