by Ginny Soskey
One
key part of being a great inbound marketer is understanding how -- and
why -- other people think and act the way they do. Think about it for a
second. How can you create compelling content
if you don’t know why it would be compelling to your audience in the
first place? How can you personalize content to reach the right people
if you don’t know what type of content they would like, and why they
would like it?Before you start jumping into all the tactical nitty gritty of marketing, it’s really helpful to understand how people operate … which is essentially what the entire field of psychology attempts to explain. Understanding some key principles in psychology can take your content from good to amazing, all because the right audience is reading and identifying with it. Bonus: if you understand these principles and weave them into your marketing, you’ll also convert more visitors into leads, and leads into customers.
Many of these psychological concepts can be used across many aspects of your marketing, but we’re just going to give one example for each. They also aren’t universal; we all know people who are outliers, do we not? With that in mind, let’s get started!
9 Important Psychology Concepts You Can Use in Your Marketing
1) Reciprocity
Introduced in Dr. Robert Cialdini’s book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, the concept of “reciprocity” is simple -- if someone does something for you, you naturally will want to do something for them. No, this isn’t bribing. If you can act in a sincere and giving way, the other person will naturally want to help you.When You Could Use This in Marketing
Give away something -- for free -- to help build community or customer loyalty. You don’t have be rolling in dough to give something away; it can be anything from a branded sweatshirt, to an exclusive ebook, to a free desktop background, to your expertise on a difficult subject matter. Even something as simple as a hand-written note can go a long way in establishing reciprocity. By delighting your audience with these small gifts, you’ll be one step closer to establishing a true, solid relationship with your visitors, leads, and customers.2) Commitments
Another principle developed by Cialdini, “commitments” is another way of saying that people don’t like breaking their promises. If someone commits to something -- whether it is meeting for lunch or signing up for your product, they feel like they’ve made an obligation to you. Once they make that commitment, people will be much less likely to bail.When You Could Use This in Marketing
This is a great way to fight customer churn. Though you should never stop trying to delight your customers (per principle #1), it’s important to keep in mind that the longer the commitment they make to you, the harder it could be for them to churn. Think about your pricing structure. Can you lower prices but have new customers sign up for 12 months instead of one? Then, once you’ve gotten your customers’ commitment, fuel it by offering great products and customer service -- and maybe even customer-specific content.3) Authority
Most people naturally obey authority figures, according to another principle in Cialdini’s book. When we view someone as having authority, we’ll be much more likely to trust his or her opinions and suggestions, simply because we believe the person is credible.When You Could Use This in Marketing
Amp up your authority in your content by prominently featuring authors’ information alongside their blog posts, ebooks, whitepapers, or videos. This way, your audience can see just how smart and amazing your inbound marketers are, which can be a step in the right direction if you’re trying to establish thought leadership as a brand.4) Social Proof
We’ve talked about social proof a few times on the blog already, but basically, it boils down to a situation in which you adopt the beliefs or actions of a group of people you like or trust. In other words, it’s the “me too” effect. Think of this like an awkward middle school dance -- few people want to be the first one on the dance floor, but once a few people are there, everyone else wants to join in. (Keep in mind, this desire to conform doesn’t go away when you get older and less bashful about your dance moves.)When You Could Use This in Marketing
One easy way to make the most of social proof is on your blog -- if you're not already, use social sharing and follow buttons that display the number of followers your accounts have or the number of shares a piece of content has. If those numbers are front and center and you already have a few people sharing your post, people who stumble on your post later will be much more likely to share.P.S. We actually have a post all about using social proof in your marketing, if you're interested.
5) Liking
Another psychological theory by Cialdini, “liking” means that if you feel positively toward another person or company, you’ll be much more likely to interact with them or buy from them. It may not matter how smart the other person is or how profitable the company is -- if you think they’re cool, you’ll want to be seen with them more often.When You Could Use This in Marketing
Liking is crucial to developing your company’s brand. Keep in mind that being “likeable” doesn’t have to mean being “nice.” Your brand could be raunchy and kind of offensive … but if your audience likes it, you can still take advantage of “liking.” You just want people to feel positively affiliated with your brand. So however you make that happen, it's worth a try.6) Scarcity
Ever gone to buy airline tickets and seen a tagline that says “only 3 seats left at this price!” Yup, that’s scarcity (again, another Cialdini concept). This psychology principle goes back to the simple formula of supply and demand: the more rare the opportunity, content, or product is, the more valuable it is. Note: If you want to properly use this principle, you need to be careful how you word it. If you approach the scarcity concept as if there used to be a ton of a product or service, but due to popular demand there’s a few left, people will be very receptive. On the other hand, if you approach it from the angle that there are only a few products total, so get it now, the principle won’t be as effective. Check out this post from Nir and Far for a deeper explanation on why that distinction is important.When You Could Use This in Marketing
This could be a great tactic to use when planning events. If you’re looking to increase ticket sales, it might be worth sending a personalized email to people who haven’t registered yet to remind them that there are only X number of tickets left since so many people have registered.7) Recency Illusion
Ever heard about a product and then start seeing it everywhere you look? While that may be part of some clever ad retargeting online, it most likely is because of the “recency illusion.” It starts happening after you encounter something for the first time, and then you start noticing it everywhere you look.When You Could Use This in Marketing
This is important to keep in mind when you’re designing marketing campaigns -- you should be aiming to develop robust, integrated campaigns, not just a one-and-done piece of content. By not pigeon-holing your inbound marketing to one type of content on one platform, you not only expose your content to new audiences, but more importantly, keep reinforcing your message with people who have encountered previous marketing pieces.8) Verbatim Effect
According to this psychological concept, people are more likely to remember a fuzzy, general idea of your content -- not the longer, more detailed piece you originally created. For example, people will most likely remember that your presentation was generally about blogging for business -- not necessarily the details about writing and editing blog content.When You Could Use This in Marketing
In our world today, people are headline-hungry. Given the “verbatim effect,” you should try to pack as much relevant and descriptive information into your headline as you can. Besides the fact that your headline will be fighting for attention all on its own on social media (as opposed to being accompanied by the full article text), your headline is only a few words that sum up your entire post. So use it wisely -- it may be all that your readers remember. If you need some help writing compelling headline copy, check out this post on our blog.9) Clustering
People have a limited amount of space in their short-term memory. In fact, most people can only remember seven pieces of information (plus or minus two pieces in any given situation) at a time. To cope, most people tend to cluster similar pieces of information together. For example, if you had a whole grocery list of random items, most people would tend to mentally group items into certain categories (dairy, grain, meat, etc.) to be able to better remember what exactly was on the list.When You Could Use This in Marketing
Do the legwork for your audience: group similar topics in your writing together -- either under numbered bullet points or with different header sizes. Besides being much easier to scan, your writing will be much easier to remember and recall down the road -- especially if you’re creating long lists of content.What psychology principles do you use in your every-day marketing? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.
Image credit: Saad Faruque
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