In this article, you will learn about Consumer Psychology and the psychology of marketing and advertising. To keep things simple, Consumer psychology and the factors influencing consumer behaviour are understanding what your audience is thinking during their customer journey with you.
As an Online Business Owner, it’s exciting to generate leads, and ultimately frustrating trying to understand why those leads didn’t convert into a sale.
Let’s forget about marketing data and metrics for a moment and remember that our leads are real people who need to be understood.
Consumer Psychology Definition
As defined by Psychology Today – Consumer Psychology is the study of human behaviour, regarding buying patterns, customs and preferences, in relation to consumer products, including their reactions and preferences to advertising, packaging and marketing of those products.
Marketing Psychology
The subject of consumer psychology or marketing psychology is huge. In business, you simply need to understand the factors influencing consumer behaviour.
As an Online Business Owner, you understand the concept of developing sales funnels and systems to run and automate your business. The key to generating more conversions in your business is the formula.
This formula is forged in two parts. Firstly, understanding your audience, secondly the 6 Pillars of Influence.
Marketing Psychology – Understanding Your Audience
Get clear on your target audience.
Read my article here about defining your target market.
By researching and understanding your audience, you will understand their wants and needs and give people what they are looking for.
Consumer Psychology – The 6 Pillars of Influence
These 6 pillars of influence is basic psychology you build into your marketing messages and sales funnels
The 6 Pillars of Influence affecting consumer behaviour are:
- Commitment and Consistency
- Reciprocity
- Social Proof
- Authority
- Liking
- Scarcity
Commitment and Consistency Theory
Commitment and Consistency involves having your audience make small commitments through your sales funnel and marketing messages.
The Commitment and Consistency theory has many applications in marketing. For example, encouraging your audience to make small commitments within your sales funnel and pages; Downloading your free lead magnet, free trial, or signing up for membership in order to get a discount.
Once this commitment has been made, you are better positioned to motivate them to continue engaging with your site. This is because they will feel compelled to remain consistent with this initial behaviour if they have a good experience with you.
Reciprocity
The law of reciprocity states that people like to return favours, and it works because it’s part of human psychology. When you focus on helping your audience, they will want to give something back to you. That something can be subscribing to your YouTube channel, to becoming a customer for life.
Social Proof
Here’s a question… Do you walk into a restaurant with only two paying customers and no reviews? Or the restaurant where you have to queue for 20 minutes with many positive reviews and recommendations?
Social proof for your online business involves likes, comments shares, and reviews. Facebook groups, discussion forums and the like with lots of interaction. Social proof not only attracts more like-minded people, but it promotes conformity, personal identity, and brand awareness.
Understanding the importance of consumer behaviour tells us that some people like to be labelled. We seek consistency and social acceptance by being labelled as part of a group. People that are labelled as superior have a tendency to spend more money, which is why having high-ticket products and services, is important in your business plan.
Authority
When I was 20 years old and wearing a Police uniform, I realised that people acted much differently to an authority figure. What surprised me as a 20-year-old, is that people would do what I asked them to do, because I was in a position of authority.
Building your authority online is developed by providing value and focusing on helping your audience. This promotes trust and respect, essential in increasing conversions and winning customers.
Liking
This is a simple one. People do business with people they like.
So how do you get people to like you?
That answer is simple, just be yourself and consistently provide value to your target audience.
Scarcity
If the perceived value increases the price of your product, then perceived scarcity increases the demand.
If your product is available in limited quantities, or for a limited time promotes scarcity and increases the demand. A product I wanted to buy some years ago was Jeff Walkers’ Product Launch Formula. I missed the deadline to order the product and I couldn’t buy it until the next release some months later. Seemingly I wasn’t alone.
The scarcity of Jeff’s product created a huge demand for the product and continues to sell successfully.
Consumer Psychology Conclusion
This article scratches the surface of consumer psychology, the psychology of marketing, advertising, and the factors influencing consumer behaviour. But the scratch is deep enough for you to learn the concepts, and adopt the formulae of understanding your target audience and the six pillars of influence.
By doing so you lay the foundations to develop your leads into conversions and loyal customers while growing an increasingly profitable online business.
Learn More About Consumer Psychology
One of the foundation stones of the McLauchlan Academy is psychology and Jules Reed is our resident Behavioural Scientist.
