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How can you use customer psychology to boost your sales?

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Knowing customer psychology is like having a secret weapon. It is game-changing since it allows you to understand what motivates customers to choose your product over your competitor’s. 

Customer psychology may help you choose the right incentive, manage your relationships, and influence how others see you. It will also assist you in creating the right content for your ads and any other channel that generates the desired response, whether it’s generating leads, sharing content, or driving sales. 

The majority of our daily decisions are made subconsciously. That means that if you want to enhance your sales, you need to think outside the box and communicate with others on a subconscious level.

This article will look at various psychological triggers that you may use to drive sales.

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1. Tap into social proof

Social proof is anything positive spoken about your business in writing or on video by people who aren’t affiliated with it. It is powerful since it appeals to our natural desire to imitate others’ acts. It also builds trust and credibility for your business. 

As a marketer, you can make it simple for prospects to discover the proof they need. You should start developing your social presence on various platforms such as social media and review sites. Additionally, make an effort to advertise it and establish a relationship with your followers.

On your social pages, you might share stories of previous clients and how your product or service helped them overcome their challenges. Social proof may also be used as part of your email marketing strategies. You can send reviews and data to your newsletter subscribers. 

In the example below, InVision featured a quotation from their client. The ad also highlighted the number of designers who used the InVision platform. At the bottom of the ad, they added a share button so users can share the image to their Twitter followers. 

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It’s critical to encourage your customers to share their thoughts or other customer reviews on websites that are solely designed to collect user testimonials for customers, such as IMDB for movies, trip advisor for travel tips, and Yelp for restaurants. 

Also, when you share your awards, data, and numbers, you provide social proof. Hubspot, for example, displays essential data from its products and services. They highlight their monthly bog visitors, certified experts who have finished their courses, app marketplace integrations, and other initiatives.

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Other types of social proof might encourage sales and persuade more people to believe in the product’s quality. The social proof offered by reputation experts or celebrities, for example, may be more successful than reviews from ordinary users. 

2. Build an emotional connection

It is a fact that individuals respond to their emotions first and then their logic. As a marketer, you should connect with individuals emotionally as much as possible. This type of customer psychology is effective since it gives your audience a reason to engage with your company and leads to brand loyalty.

Emotional marketing starts when you connect your messaging to positive emotions like pleasure, satisfaction, relief, or inspiration. M&M, for instance, is one of the most well-known chocolate candy brands in the world. It uses M&Ms that move, walk, and talk like humans. This approach brings M&M closer to their clients on an emotional level.

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Aside from that, finding a story to tell is an effective way to build connections with customers. Stories go beyond our reasoning and go straight to our emotions, causing us to form an emotional bond with a person or a brand.

Also, to maximize positive emotional experiences, focus on emotions through visuals to effectively affect a customer’s subconscious mind since approximately half of our brain has visual processing power. You must also pay attention to typefaces, logos, color depth, and movement. 

Make an effort to make your consumers feel valued. Every human being has the desire to be seen as significant by others. Providing excellent customer service is also a terrific approach to showing that you value your customers.

3. Be consistent

Your company is three times more likely to survive for ten years if you have a consistent brand than if you don’t. Consistency provides a level of authenticity since it keeps you committed to your core reason for existing. It clarifies what you do, who your company is, who you are attempting to assist, and what you stand for. 

 

A good marketing strategy requires consistency in quality, pricing, touchpoints, and promotion. Aside from that, you should maintain your brand’s personality. It implies that the message you provide to people through your appearance and actions should remain consistent. 

You must create a set of brand guidelines to define how your brand should appear in public. These will include brand voice, the appearance, and the use of every aspect of your brands, such as your logo, fonts, colors, typography, and other visual elements.

Dropbox provides a simple example of visual consistency. They use the same free design template and personalization on every Instagram post. Of course, every post always includes a Dropbox signature.

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In the same way that visual branding must be consistent, the brand’s tone of voice must be as well. Your verbal communication, how things are expressed via social media, video, and podcasts, should be consistent.

Aside from that, when promoting your product or service, you must be consistent in your persuasion methods. The foot-in-the-door strategy is a great example. You begin by asking your consumers for a simple request. If they engage with it, you may ask for more, and they will be more inclined to answer your subsequent request. However, the most crucial aspect of this strategy is to maintain consistency when implementing it.

Bonlook, for instance, a company that sells eyeglasses and sunglasses, offers a virtual try-on that allows customers to use their device’s camera and view how they might appear with a particular pair of glasses. People who enjoy it are more likely to accede to more Bonlook requests.

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You should also engage with your audience regularly and use a marketing calendar to plan and connect with them. Create a calendar for all of your marketing efforts, including campaigns, social media postings, and any other material you produce. This engagement will create a memorable customer experience, promoting credibility, reputation, and brand trust.

4. Use reciprocity

The reciprocity principle is based on our drive to give back to those who give to us. It may have a significant impact on your consumers’ purchasing decisions. It enables them to justify future purchases of that brand or service. 

Reciprocity comes in many ways. It might be emotional, material, or monetary reciprocation. People have a strong unconscious impulse to reciprocate when you make them feel good about themselves. When you offer someone a physical object, it’s the same thing.

The starting point of reciprocation is to look for opportunities to do things for your customers. You can, for instance, provide them with an initial offer of your product or service, such as a freebie, coupons, or a discounted price.

Also, one of the most effective strategies to develop reciprocity is to educate your audience and supply them with valuable knowledge such as tips, tactics, and other material. You can create a content marketing strategy to develop reciprocity. Copyblogger, for example, offers an email drip campaign that provides a ton of free content, such as blog posts, ebooks, seminars, and webinars. That also helps them grow blog followers and improve conversions.

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Reciprocity between businesses is also possible. There’s a good likelihood that if you share positive advertising and marketing opportunities about other businesses, they’ll do the same for you. If you share a story about a business on Instagram, for instance, it is more likely that it will share a story about you.

So, you may share resources and networks with other companies to generate reciprocity. That might help you increase client acquisition and revenue by enhancing your company’s profile.

5. Create scarcity

Scarcity marketing makes use of a customer’s fear of losing out on something, as well as the psychological premise that people prefer difficult-to-get things. It boosts sales and makes people perceive limited quantities as more valuable and desirable. Scarcity is usually associated with a limited amount of time or quantity.

The most well-known method is to include a countdown timer in your email, website, or social media to capture your customer’s attention and create a sense of urgency. You can also display the number of people interested in your product to create a sense of urgency and scarcity in your audience.

Booking.com, for example, employs a limited-numbers strategy. They also highlight that the deal is exclusively available on their website to urge buyers to act as soon as feasible.

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You may design a seasonal offer, deal, or discount related to a particular occasion throughout the year. It might be a specific event, like Memorial Day or Columbus Day, or the start of the school year.

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It’s a good idea to use membership to create scarcity by making particular items or deals available exclusively to certain people in your audience. When you inform prospects that the item has sold out, they will see the item as a desirable thing. That will prompt them to buy it right away the next time.

Summary

Psychological and emotional triggers are universal in people. Regardless of the size of your business, using psychological concepts and customer psychology can drastically impact your business. Customer psychology, when applied appropriately, has the potential to improve sales, develop trust, and expand your business.

It enables you to find more effective strategies to attract and engage consumers. 

So, once you’ve figured out who your target market is, be sure to include consumer psychology into all of your marketing strategies. You’ll see that boost in your sales sooner than you expected.

About the author

Michal is immersed in developing, implementing, and coordinating all manner of content marketing projects as the Content Marketing Manager at GetResponse. He has 8-plus years of expertise in online marketing with a Master of Science Degree in Strategic Marketing and Consulting from the University of Birmingham (UK). Michal is the author of more than 100 articles, ebooks, and courses for both GetResponse and renowned websites like Crazy Egg and Social Media Today.