With over 192 million active websites in the world, capturing customers’ attention and engagement has become an increasingly difficult task. People often forget to consider the important role of Psychology in our society. How could we use Psychology to help our digital marketing success?
The simple answer is that Psychology provides an understanding of consumer behaviour and the ability to tailor content and strategies specifically to target audiences. This allows for the utmost effective and influential marketing techniques.
What does the Psychology of Digital Marketing mean?
The main focus of Psychological research is to uncover the ways our minds function. It seeks to explain, predict and change behaviour presenting how intertwined its aims are with those of digital marketing. Understanding what resonates with a target market enticing them to delve deeper into your products or services is where Psychology comes in.
There are 5 broad ways in which Psychology can be applied most effectively.
Let’s explore these in more detail…
1. Comprehending Consumer Motivations
The realm of digital marketing is built on the foundations of consumer motivations and needs. Understanding these is crucial as it allows for the tailoring of messages to fulfil the underlying needs and desires of the target audience.
Psychological principles provide an opportunity for grasping elements of the customers’ subconscious that can signify their more hidden interests. For instance, by applying Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, marketers can identify and comprehend what drives customers to make purchasing decisions.
To learn more about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, check out the YouTube video below created by the School of Life.
An important element of Maslow’s theory is that it highlights the overarching need for a sense of belonging and social connection that humans share. With this in mind, marketers can create and advertise community-focused marketing campaigns to appeal to these needs.
Additionally, generally applying a feeling of belonging by fostering open communication and describing your values as a business can be extremely beneficial. Through this, customers begin to engage more as they perceive your business as an opportunity to belong.
2. Understanding Decision-Making Processes
Decision-making is a constant mechanism used within marketing. Aligning marketing decisions with customer decision-making processes enables marketers to influence consumers in the most direct way. Designing messages that alleviate concerns and guide customers to make favourable decisions is the simplest way to drive business success.
Cognitive Dissonance Theory is highly applicable here. This theory details that individuals experience unpleasant feelings when they hold conflicting beliefs or attitudes. This leads people to seek consistency to avoid or alleviate these feelings. In relation to digital marketing, customers may experience dissonance when information contradicts their views or past decisions.
Understanding cognitive dissonance can be applied in many ways:
- Content Creation: Creating content that matches customers’ existing beliefs reduces the likelihood of cognitive dissonance. Through researching the target market’s values, it can be ensured that content resonates with their worldview, minimising the potential for conflicting information.
- Feedback: Testimonials can help alleviate any unpleasant feelings a customer is feeling due to dissonance. If a customer is perhaps reconsidering their purchasing decision, evidence of positive experiences helps to reassure customers that they have made the correct choice.
- Consistency in Messaging: Messaging should be kept consistent across all channels as inconsistent information can undermine the decision-making process by confusing customers. Consistency also helps to establish brand identity and to build trust with customers.
3. Driving Engagement
A key aspect of Psychology concerning driving engagement is emotional appeal. By eliciting emotions like happiness, surprise or empathy, marketers may produce content that connects with viewers more deeply and increases interaction.
Emotional Contagion Theory describes how emotions can be spread from one person to another. When it comes to marketing, arousing strong emotions in viewers through content or ads might cause them to feel the same way, which can change how they behave and how they feel about the business.
Seemingly small aspects of marketing campaigns can have a great influence on engagement. Even the music choice for social media posts or campaigns links to emotional contagion theory. The emotions that the music chosen sparks in customers transfer to their perception of the company and how they feel towards it.
4. Increasing Conversion Rates using SEO
In order to increase the likelihood of conversion, psychological principles such as persuasive messaging and optimisation through SEO can be used.
- Reciprocity, a part of persuasive messaging, is considered a social norm within which people feel compelled to return a favour. Offering freebies, samples, or valuable content can trigger a sense of indebtedness in consumers, motivating them to reciprocate by completing a call to action.
- Authority is another aspect of persuasive messaging and refers to the tendency of individuals to trust and comply with information from perceived experts. By creating high-quality content, regularly earning backlinks and including about us pages, perceived authority is instantly increased in the mind of the consumer. If you’d like to find out more about how to show authority on your website, check out our blog.
- Search Engine Optimisation, also known as SEO, can further help increase conversion rates. This focuses on increasing website ranking which means that the business will be more easily visible and accessible to customers, increasing conversion rate. Furthermore, adapting Metadata within blog posts boosts visibility and draws quality website traffic resulting in higher conversion rates.
If you’d like some help with analysing your website and advice on improving user experience, our team of SEO experts can do the work for you by providing a free audit. Get in touch to find out more!
5. Customer Loyalty
Psychology further plays a significant role in customer loyalty. Through behavioural conditioning techniques, such as classical and operant conditioning, marketers can reinforce brand loyalty.
Classical conditioning refers to creating positive associations between a brand and certain stimuli. For example, building an association between the brand and specific visual cues, such as logos and colours, can trigger positive emotions and develop customer loyalty. Consistently using these cues across various pieces of content and social media platforms reinforces the association between the brand and positive experiences, increasing consumer loyalty.
Operant conditioning focuses on modifying behaviour through reinforcement or punishment after the behaviour occurs. Utilising operant conditioning involves offering rewards, discounts or loyalty points for repeat purchases. These strengthen the association between positive experiences and the brand, increasing the likelihood of future loyalty. On the other hand, providing poor customer service has the opposite effect and can deter consumers from engaging with the brand in the future.
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Written by Viktoria, for Lumen SEO.
