The consumer's behavior is closely related to his emotions, feelings, needs and personality. All his choices are based on how he perceives reality and how this reality affects him. Marketers realize that using this knowledge in practice can bring spectacular results. How does psychology in marketing work? What influences consumers' decisions?
According to a study conducted in 2018, less than 11% Poles like to watch advertisements, slightly more than 13% have an ambivalent attitude towards them, and as many as 50% respondents show reluctance towards advertising messages. People don't like ads. They consider them artificial and forced. Does this mean that advertising products or services has lost its sense at all? Not necessarily. The main thing is to do it the right way. Today's consumers need additional incentives. They want to watch unusual advertising messages. Those that are not only intrusive promotion of products or services, but carry a message. Psychology in marketing is of great importance today. How to use it?
Cognitive Psychology in Marketing
Today's marketing is full of cognitive psychology, which encompasses processes related to perception, categorization and reasoning. Contemporary marketers pay great attention to how a given product will be perceived by the environment. When creating ads, they take into account both the sensations they evoke corporate identity elements, including logos or colors, as well as emotions caused by a specific form of communication. Specialists strive for the message to make a good first impression and determine the commitment of the potential client. The ad's predisposition to be easily remembered is also of key importance to them. Messages that are permanently imprinted in consciousness bring better results.
How do emotions affect us?
Advertisements filled to the brim with emotions have a strong impact on us. Such messages are natural and credible. They don't force you to buy. Instead, they tell a story. A story that touches, amuses, delights and fills the heart with pleasant warmth.
Emotions in advertising build a bond between the recipient and the company. They engage the consumer and help to remember the message. But how to create a message that will promote the appropriate values? Will it affect this sphere of consumer's feelings, which will allow the company to achieve the assumed marketing goal?
Good humor rules in many advertisements. Positive emotions shorten the distance and cause sympathy. These feelings increase the need to share and weaken rational thinking. This makes consumers more willing to buy the presented product. The message affects them in a persuasive way. An example is viral marketing, i.e. funny posts or video spots, most often shared on social media. Idea viral advertisingis to amuse the recipient and influence him in such a way that he himself wants to pass it on. The consumer, unaware of the advertising nature of the material, shares it with his friends, who later do the same, passing the post on to other recipients. The material spreads like a virus and there is a natural buzz around the brand. This supports your marketing activities.
Often the messages of various foundations are based on sorrow. Sad ads create empathy - recipients are more likely to donate. This is confirmed by the aforementioned study. According to him, as many as 23% recipients say that under the influence of emotional ads, they are more likely to help those in need.
Marketing psychology also uses nostalgia, which increases longing and creates a need to recall what happened in the past. This emotion was consciously used by the Bobo Fruit brand in its campaign aimed at adult consumers who remembered its cult juices from their childhood. The advertisement evoked positive associations. She was sentimental. And thanks to this, it brought the expected results.
Psychology in marketing - Cialdini's rules
Robert Cialdini - an American professor of psychology - in his book "Influencing people" presented 6 principles of persuasion that increase the effectiveness of marketing activities. One of them is the reciprocity rule, which says that we always try to repay the person who gave us something. According to Cialdini's ruleProviding consumers with free samples or other giveaways builds a sense of gratitude and commitment. This is how we subtly persuade them to buy.
The second rule worth paying attention to when talking about psychology in marketing is the rule of liking and liking. Its idea is to make the recipients feel positive about the brand and build friendly, long-term relationships. A consumer who feels connected with a brand and thinks well about it is more likely to buy its products or use its services.
Psychology in Marketing - Other Techniques
Psychology in marketing is also a rule of inaccessibility. The more inaccessible something is, the more we want to have it. Unavailability creates in us a need to possess. It awakens desire and disturbs rational thinking. This psychological mechanism occurs in marketing in the form of time-limited promotional offers, limited series or hard-to-reach products.
The decoy effect is also a mechanism that is willingly used in marketing. It consists in placing the less desirable thing next to the actual product in order to present its above-average attractiveness. An example of this is the pre-wash and post-wash garments pooling in powder ads or dirty and clean utensils in dishwashing liquid campaigns.
Another factor influencing consumers' purchasing decisions is personalization. According to a Google report, personalized ads are 86 percent effective. The recipient is more inclined to purchase a specific product if the company proposes individual solutions tailored to his needs. This mechanism has been used for years by Starbucks, which places the names of its customers on coffee mugs.
Psychology in marketing is of great importance today. And there is no indication that this will change in the coming years. Emotions have a strong impact on us and shape our decisions. Skilful applied psychological mechanisms in advertising messages give a chance for a spectacular success on the market.