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Psychology has been used throughout the history of marketing to improve brand awareness, sales and, overall, business. In doing so, marketers are delving right into the core of what customers want and how they think with the aim of working out how to trigger a customer into taking action, for example, making a purchase. This often takes research and strategising but the results can be highly effective.
To maximise your strategies, we recommend combining what you learn in this guide with some of the best tools and softwares on the market. Popular softwares like Freshdesk and Zendesk can help your business get on its way to providing the best customer support , so you can be sure that your customers are looked after. In this guide we will explain the psychology used in automated marketing and how you can implement a marketing plan for your landing pages, emails and beyond that uses psychology to get results, whether that be more awareness, followers (subscribers) or sales.
Exposure
When we make new friends, it’s often because we have spent time getting to know them, we have been exposed to them. The same is true for business and marketing. If a potential customer is exposed to you enough times they will eventually make a sale. An example of this would be in email marketing, sending quality content to your subscribers until they feel that they know and trust your brand. The aim is to be consistent but not spammy.
Give to Receive
Love your freeloaders. People love to receive things for free and often when they do, they are willing to give something back in return as long as it costs them nothing. Perhaps you might send out a free e-book or products related to your business but to access the content, the customer needs to enter their name and email which can be added to your subscriber list. Your potential customer gets something and you get something, it’s a win-win.
Exclusivity
Customers want to feel special and they want to be rewarded for being a loyal customer. By giving customers exclusivity, it not only encourages your current customers to keep buying from you but it also tells potential customers that they will be rewarded for being loyal. Some of the best ways this executed is, giving early access to new products or creating a club or group where members receive rewards and discounts for their loyalty.
Deadlines
You may remember the term FOMO arising a few years ago but it’s based on the truth that people do not like missing out on what others have. In this instance you might be offering a discount to maximise sales. It’s fine to send out reminder emails, but, what will strike fear in the heart’s of your customers is explaining that by not making a purchase they will miss out on the discount once it has expired. The aim is to make sure they know what they are missing out on and that they have a limited time to rectify it.
Endorsements
It’s a universal truth that consumers are more likely to use your products or services if others have had a positive experience of your business. Testimonials, sales numbers etc, they should all be included on your landing pages, email marketing and website. This shows potential customers that your business is trustworthy because other customers have given you good reviews or bought x amount of products, which will encourage them to make a sale.
The Mirror
In physiological psychology, we can use mirroring of someone’s body language to make them feel more comfortable and able to relate to us. In the online world this isn’t possible, instead we mirror language. This requires some research, but you take the typical language and phrases that your customers base use and copy it into your content. You can do this on your landing pages or your email marketing. What this does is build a level of reliability that makes potential customers feel that they can relate to your brand, turning trust into sales.
Simple goes a long way.
Less really is more and in marketing the goal is to keep the target audience engaged. Keeping campaigns smooth and easy to follow means that customers can engage and make decisions quicker. If a customer has to read through reams of content before getting to the call to action, chances are they have turned off two paragraphs ago and while imagery is great, it’s easy to get bogged down with too many images. A good email campaign or landing page will have a headline, image, snappy engaging text, and a call to action in the form of a clickable button.
These are just a few ways that you can apply a bit of psychology to your automated marketing campaigns but there are many more that you can try out. We recommend picking a few of these methods and implementing them before trying to tackle them all, see what works well with your customer base and go from there.