In one of the most intriguing talks of our 2022 events Darren looks to apply psychological theory to the work we do as marketers day in day out, to influence our customers decision making (hopefully in our favour).
Why is psychology so important in marketing? Darren explains “whilst we think we are all logical, emotions actually account for up to 80% of our decision making… so if we know as marketers people are 4 x more likely to make an emotional decision, we must harness that and connect on a deeper level”. So, what theories that we can bleed into our marketing to achieve our goals as marketers?
Nudge Theory
“This is the idea of ‘nudging’ people ever so slowly into making a decision. Things like; re-targeting, shopping cart abandonment, welcome journey’s, reminder emails… Using those ‘nudges’ to gently usher people into making the preferred decision such as purchasing from you”.
Confirmation Bias
“Looking for things out there that confirm the beliefs you already hold are really key for you picking up on people who are aligned for your business” Darren goes onto qualify not everyone is a good fit for your product so fine-tuning your ideal clients and building products services and campaign’s that align with their beliefs will hold you in good stead.
Satisficing
No, that’s not a typo. Satisficing essentially means being adequate or just breaking the minimum threshold of being good enough and not always being “the number one supplier in the industry”. Darren suggests you don’t always need to make bold claims and statements to prove your point of difference in the market.
Status-Quo Bias
“We’re inherently lazy” states Darren. In a world where there’s so much choice and noise out there you can often find customers are facing decision paralysis and often the client will end up choosing the product or service which they know best and is an easy choice.
Loss Aversion
“People feel a loss more than a gain” therefore positioning your marketing around what customers will miss-out on rather than gain from choosing you over a competitor is often a powerful play.
Darren does cover a couple more in his talk which you can watch back on our youtube channel but for now, let’s look at how you can apply some of these theories to your next marketing campaign.
Interestingly Darren believes “even if you don’t directly compete with the big brands, that’s the customer experience we’ve now come to expect in our day to day lives and as a result, you’re indirectly having to compete and build journeys that match the big players.”
Darren breaks the customer journey down into 4 key segments; engagement, conversion, retention, and nurturing and offers advice on each area on how you can take a behavioural approach to each campaign at various stages to maximise opportunities. For example, abandonment campaigns (shopping cart, form, website…) can be used during conversion to ensure you’re bringing clients back to what they intended to buy.
Looking further along the customer journey, at the point of retention and nurturing, Darren encourages you to use reviews to your advantage. Getting your clients to leave positive, genuine reviews can not only affirm their loyalty but increase your acquisition of new clients higher up the funnel. Darren and his team have seen a 44% uplift in conversions by using reviews and recommendations with new prospects.
When it comes to social media Darren explains “it’s not thinking about each channel as individuals. the client see’s your brand as a total entity” therefore encourages you to blur the lines between each, pulling social content into your emails and using user generated content across the various channels to build consistent messaging everywhere you client sees you.
He closes his talk with a “Psychology Checklist” to takeaway.
- Tactics that influence the clients emotions will drive more conversions
- Use recommendations to show authority
- Social proof to convert quicker
- Trending and social product feeds drive purchase consensus and affirmation with your followers
- React to behaviour and target proactively your natural buying personas to see great results
We loved Darren and the team at Spotler joining us at our events last year and look forward to seeing them again soon!
