7 Powerful Psychology Lessons That Will Boost Your Digital Marketing Game
By: Alex
Tags: Marketing, Marketing Strategies, Growth Hacking, Psychology, Digital Marketing

1. Emotional Marketing

There are two types of strategies that affect consumers’ buying habits:

Rational marketing that promotes the quality and usefulness of the product, emphasizes the benefits and appeals to the rational or logical consumer.

Emotional marketing that approaches consumer on a personal level and focuses on the tone, lighting, and mood to increase loyalty and boost conversions.

It’s been proven that consumers base their purchase decisions around feelings and emotions rather than the rational information of products’ features and attributes. So, it’s worth remembering that customers will more likely be loyal to brands that evoke positive emotional response. Use this knowledge in your content marketing strategy and create content that:

Inspires, creates excitement and interest.

Reminds of special moments.

Sparks conversations, reactions, and engagements.

Apple is the perfect example of a company that uses emotions to connect with their consumers and increase brand loyalty. Apple’s marketing strategies tend to create a desire to become a part of a lifestyle movement, to be a part of something bigger. Recently, Apple joined Instagram and their #ShotoniPhone campaign fully encompasses those values. Instead of focusing on shiny product shots, Apple invites regular users around the world to share their iPhone photography with others.

2. Social Proof

According to social psychologist Robert Cialdini, social proof is one of the most important tactics for influencing and convincing customers. Social proof or social influence is based on the fact that people love to follow the behavior of others. We tend to adopt the beliefs or mimic the actions of people we trust and admire. Implement this knowledge in your marketing strategy by using:

User-generated content, testimonials and reviews.

Influencer marketing.

Social plugins and sharing buttons.

For instance, clothing company Old Navy cooperated with social influencer Meghan Rienks on Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. In her videos, Meghan suggested style ideas to her followers using items from Old Navy, thus providing a powerful social proof.

3. Grounded Cognition

Grounded Cognition theory is based in the principle that people can experience a story that they read, watch or hear as if it was happening to them. It also states that people tend to forget dry facts and figures. If you want your customers to remember your message, you have to incorporate it into a story. Taking this into account you can boost your marketing by:

Speaking to your audience in a friendly way.

Telling the stories they can empathize with.

Sharing a personal story or experience.

High Brew Coffee provides a great example of a personal story that enables the audience to connect with the brand. The founder of the company, David Smith, together with his wife have shared their story of coming up with their business idea. They let the audience know exactly where it comes from — a long trip through the Caribbean with their whole family.

4. Paradox Of Choice

Giving people the freedom of choice can positively influence your marketing efforts. However, too many choices make people nervous and can negatively impact conversion rates. According to psychologist Barry Schwarz, providing people with limited range of choices reduces customers’ anxiety and leads to better marketing results. Use this knowledge and:

Emphasize a few key points at a time.

Create clear CTAs.

Give your customers no more than two clear paths to follow.

The Paradox of Choice theory can be applied also if you wish to offer your customers a wider range of choices. For example, while Amazon offers millions of products, they still manage to avoid choice overload. It’s done by highlight few different categories of products, each with up to 7 product options.

5. Information-Gap Theory

George Loewenstein proposed that people experience a strong emotional response when they notice a gap between what they know and what they want to know. This means that you have to create a feeling of curiosity within your audience and give them information that fulfills their need for knowledge. An effective way to incorporate it in your content marketing is by creating powerful headlines. There are plenty of free online tools that can help, such as:

Take an example from the digital marketing expert Neil Patel who is a master of strong headlines that create curiosity and generate clicks:

6. The Commitment and Consistency Theory

This theory states that if you make a small commitment to something, you are more likely to say yes to a bigger commitment in the future. This means that if you get your customers to make a small commitment towards your brand, like signing up for a newsletter, they are more likely to make a larger commitment e.g. in the form of a purchase or membership. To improve your marketing strategy, start with small commitments like:

Ask for customers’ contact details.

Invite them to subscribe to a newsletter.

Ask prospects to share your content on social media.

Offer them to sign up for an e-book or webinar.

Search Engine Journal, for instance, takes advantage of this theory and offers a free webinar for their website visitors. Although it’s simply asking for a name and an email address, it’s already a small commitment the user makes towards the brand.

7. Loss Aversion Theory

Loss aversion theory refers to the tendency of people to avoid losses rather than acquire gains. The negative feelings associated with loss are even twice as powerful as good feelings of gain. You can effectively use this theory in your advantage if you analyze your audience, learn their fears and create content that emphasizes benefits of your brand that eases those fears. There are many analytical tools that can help you know your audience better, for example:

ModCloth used this theory in their email reminders. After a few days after not making a purchase, customers receive a reminder that inventory is running low and the item they looked at might soon not be available anymore.

Wrapping It Up

Using psychological theories is a great way to improve the success of your marketing messages without any additional technologies or big budgets. These theories can help you better understand your customers, consider how your customers think and create a content that cuts through the information overload we’re all bombarded with.