When you’re searching for ways to increase your business’s reach and conversion rate, a few deftly applied marketing tips can go a long way. Perhaps the most important thing to remember when trying to sell your product or service is that no matter how well you position yourself online or in traditional media, you are still trying to sell to human beings.
Which means you have to get inside real people’s heads and learn how they think. Seems like a pretty daunting task, no?
Actually, it’s easier than you think! Despite the idea that we are all unique individuals with snowflake-like wants and needs, psychology has shown that we humans tend to think and act more or less predictably.
And that’s great news for those who want to attract new customers or clients with their marketing! These six marketing psychology principles will get you started.
Clustering
The first of our marketing tips is based on a pretty intuitive idea—in order for you to grow your sales, people need to remember who you are and what you can do for them. Memory is a powerful tool that you can harness to put your business ahead of your competitors. You just have to know how people remember things, and that’s where clustering comes into play.
People only have so much “storage space” in their short-term memories. When given a list of things to remember, most people only have room for so many pieces of information at a time. To be precise, seven pieces of information, plus or minus two depending on the circumstances and individual. Because of this quirk of human memory, most people tend to group or “cluster” information when they have a lot to memorize. People group the information they consume in many different ways, including by similarity and spatially.
Understanding this principle of psychology can be invaluable when creating content. How does your current content make clustering easier for those consuming it? Are you presenting too much at once? If you are creating visual content, does the layout promote ease of recall, or does it hinder it?
Priming
In marketing, every little detail matters. The tone of your content sets the mood. Your color choices can relax your audience or make them anxious. The images that you choose for your website and other marketing materials can create subconscious associations. When you use your marketing to influence your audience’s decisions, that’s what is known as priming.
Let’s say you own a restaurant. You serve food that is similar to other restaurants in your area. But your prices are lower. If you want people to consider price over other qualities when deciding where to eat, you might want to include an image that reminds the viewer about money. Simple as it is, including a picture of a dollar bill or a wallet will “prime” your audience to think about what they are willing to spend on dinner, thus putting your low prices in a better light.
Reciprocity
Reciprocity is a marketing psychology principle that you might already be taking advantage of without realizing it. It is the reason that so many businesses offer “free stuff” to potential customers.
The idea is that when someone does something nice for you, you want to do something nice for them in return. What goes around comes around. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Any business can use this concept to promote their brand. Offer a free consultation or a trial subscription. Use it to attract new customers online by offering valuable information that only you can give. The more you give, the more you get.
The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon
Have you ever bought a new pair of shoes and suddenly you see the same style everywhere? This experience is called the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon, also known as the frequency illusion.
Despite the fact that this phenomenon occurs a lot when you make a purchase, you can harness its power as a business owner to attract new clients and customers. All you have to do is make what you’re selling relevant to your audience. To do that, you have to grab their attention, which is why lead nurturing is so important. At first, what you have to offer might not seem important. But then you try, try again, and all of a sudden you break through. Once you break through, your leads will start to see you everywhere (as long as you are actively marketing).
Social Proof
Most people have been following the marketing psychology principle of social proof since they started school. Think about how your friends influenced your behavior in school. Were you more likely to dress a certain way, talk a certain way, and take part in certain activities? In essence, it is the herd mentality that makes some things socially acceptable and others unacceptable.
Many business owners take advantage of this principle by making their online content shareable. If you haven’t already, add social share buttons to your blog posts so that your readers can share your content with their networks.
Framing
Would you rather go on a vacation that is “wasteful and terrible for the environment” or one that “offers luxury lodgings and access to several of the world’s most beautiful cities”? You would probably choose the second one, but the truth is that both descriptions refer to the same thing: a trip on a cruise ship. They’re just framed in different ways.
What the above demonstrates is that framing your product or service is as important as, if not more important than, the thing you’re actually selling. Framing is all about the context that you want to be associated with your business. It’s about making people think about you in a positive way.
Start Putting These Marketing Tips to Good Use!
Now that you know about these marketing psychology principles, don’t let them go to waste. Start using them today in all your marketing efforts. Good luck!