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As marketers, we must understand that the current economy is growing at an exponential rate. Consumers now face a new set of problems. Now, instead of one, there are dozens of choices of products. However, why the customer choose product B over product A? Was it a random choice, pricing, location, or the packaging of the product? Alternatively, is it everything?
To dig deep into the brains of human behavior, economists took help from rational and mathematical concepts. They claimed that a customer chooses a specific product over others because of price. For marketers, it is clear that that’s not always the case. Something was way off. People took unreasonable, impulsive, or irrational decisions all the time. This has nothing to do with Maths but everything to do with psychology.
In this blog post, we will explore concepts of psychology that are making people buy or reject products.
#1 The Confirmation bias
Our brain process information based on how the information is presented to us. For instance, consider Tom. He works on the same floor, but you know nothing about him. If someone asks you, ‘Is Tom a good person?’ Your brain will start recalling everything good that Tom has done to you. The way he talks, his smile, jokes, or his friendly nature. Upon confirming even one good deed, you will agree that Tom is a good person.
Now, if someone asks, ‘Is Tom a bad person?’ Now the dynamics will change. You will recall when Tom smiled at an inappropriate joke or how Tom took your lunch without asking.
As unbelievable as it sounds, research shows that your answer will depend upon how the questions were asked. Also, that’s just the starting point.
People make important decisions in life based on the questions they get. For example, the best way to make people subscribe to your blog is to put ‘sign-up’ as a default option. The decision is there, and you need to confirm it for the user.
The takeaway
Do you want people to answer a survey positively? Ask a question like, “Was product Y useful to you?” This will trigger the user to choose ‘Yes’ as a default answer.
#2 The Halo effect
Halo effect occurs when one positive characteristic of a person dominates the way we see the whole picture.
For instance, people judge a politician’s competence by combining their trustworthiness with strength. Just relying on the facial features people decide whether the politician is competent or not. Of course, there is no such evidence that proves how a politician will perform in the office if he is good-looking.
More studies indicate that people judge intelligence based upon their attractiveness. Here attractiveness works like a halo. However, this is not the only trait which people use to determine intelligence. People also think that attractive people are brave and kind, along with other positive character traits.
The takeaway
If you are a startup or a well-established business looking-forward to scale your business, begin by marketing one feature of your brand. If it’s friendly staff, ensure that everyone in your team is super-friendly towards customers.
An outstanding customer service labels the company as a company they can easily trust. Use attractive influencers to establish trust among customers.
#3 Decoy Effect
In a famous subscription-based offer, economist.com gave three options for users:
- com (web edition) – US $59.00
- Print subscription – US $125
- Print & web subscription – US $125
In Dan Ariely’s study, it was revealed that nearly 84% of the people choose option three. Here you can see that option B is just a decoy. 68% of people choose option A while only 16% choose only web edition.
In a nutshell, the Decoy effect is about introducing a new option that doesn’t impact other options but helps users choose other options without forcing them.
The takeaway
You see people using a decoy effect in retail all the time. One house is charged a premium and the next home with the same dynamics is priced low, to show how bad life can be. You can use the halo effect in an e-commerce website to entice customers in choosing one of the few options that you offer.
#4 Anchoring
It’s impossible for a human brain to make decisions in a vacuum. We require some information to take a decision. Even if the information is completely irrelevant, we go for it anyway. Why? Our brains are designed in a way to take decisions based upon the first information that we get. This information is known as an anchor. Anchoring, therefore, is something that helps us to make impulsive decisions with less information.
For example, if you enter in a furniture store and you see a $4,500 sofa right on the entrance. You’ll judge every item based upon that initial anchor. Now, if you see a pillow with a $100 price tag you will buy it because it’s cheaper than the sofa. Regardless of if you know a pillow worth $30 individually, you will not purchase it at any cost.
The same thing will happen if you want a professional website for your brand. If a professional website design agency offers a complete package you’ll treat that as an anchor. Everything that comes after that will be measured by the first anchor.
The takeaway
Anchoring is often used in negotiations where a person sets the tone of the meeting by offering something fundamental right at the start. Here, anything that will be presented first will be treated as an anchor and people will decide whether to take the product or not based upon that initial anchor.
Conclusion
Big brands have understood that branding is more about psychology and less about everything else. Have you ever noticed how Amazon use Psychology to generate more orders? You can do something similar. You can master these psychological tricks and use them to benefit your brand.
Author Bio:
[thrive_testimonial name=”” company=”” image=”https://dsim.in/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/muhhamad.jpg”]Muhammad Osama qualified professional with a ground-breaking experience in developing SEO campaigns, analytics, and monitoring the ranking in Google search pages and currently working for website design agency. A clear communicator with an experience of digital marketing and improving the ranks of a brand within a few months. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.[/thrive_testimonial]
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