Consumer Behaviour: The Psychology of Marketing

Have you ever wonder what makes someone interested in a brand, product, or service? Why do people click on some headlines more than others? What is it that makes a visitor to your website decide what to click on, share, or purchase? If only there was some kind of system, or set of tactics that you could use to influence their behaviour. There is such a 'system' and it's called the psychology of marketing. Broadly speaking you can think of it as the quest to understand what drives consumers' decisions. Understanding a bit about consumer behaviour will help you better understand your target audience and why they do the things they do on your website. In this post we've curated some great resources about tried and true psychological tactics that you can use to attract and engage consumers, and compel them to take action on your website.

The Rational & Emotional Minds

Neil Patel is one of the most influential marketers today. He's named as one of Forbes Top 10 Marketers, and is a NY Times best selling author. He's a marketing guru, and co-founder of the marketing tools and platforms Crazy Egg, Hello Bar and KISSmetrics. In his response to a questions about psychological marketing tactics he shares detailed examples of techniques he's personally used with great effect to build his and his clients' brands online. If you're using any kind of display or banner advertising, especially on a channel like Facebook, you need to read Neil's response to the question, What are some interesting psychological marketing tactics?

Priming, Reciprocity, Clustering and More

HubSpot is undoubtedly one of the leading inbound marketing companies you can find online. In this article, Marketing Psychology: 10 Revealing Principles of Human Behaviour, they share 10 principles of human behaviour to help you understand how people operate. Two principles that I found very interesting where priming (using one stimulus to affect the response to another stimulus) and clustering (how layout and design can improve memory retention).

Another One by Neil

Neil Patel also maintains his own blog, and has published an extensive article - 19 Psychological Principles That’ll Improve Your Homepage Conversion Rate. A couple of things I like about this resources is that you can apply these principles to any page on your website to improve conversion rates, and it's loaded with examples. Neil walks through real world examples such as how Apple uses cognitive fluency, or Amazon uses instant gratification. In Conclusion The field of psychology as it applies to marketing is expansive. There's a wealth of information for marketers to discover about consumer behaviour. By applying psychological tactics to your digital marketing strategy you can have a tremendous impact on your outcomes.