One of the main parts of being a marketer is understanding the behavior of your target audience. For example, how do you create compelling content that attracts the consumers to buy your products or services? What are the consumers behaviors or typical habits?

As a leading digital marketing agency Austin, it’s important to understand the psychology behind marketing. Why? This is because marketing is more than publishing content that works for Google.

How psychology and marketing work

These are a couple of the top psychology theories that work with marketing:

Social proof  

Social proof is the concept that people will conform or take action only if everyone else is doing it too. If everyone is taking action, then I will. This is because the audience trusts this company or specific person.

How does this work with marketing? Case studies, viral tweets, social media challenges, blog mentions and influencer marketing. All of these different strategies in marketing can help with social proof.

All of these people are using our services, so why aren’t you?. It creates trust between the customer and business.

Decoy effect

As purchasers, everyone has run into the decoy effect without even realizing it. The decoy effect entices you to pick the best option for your money. On a website, there could be a pop-up that sells you three different options for your purchase.

1. Spend $100, get free shipping

2. Spend $200, get free shipping and a free item

3. Spend $300, get free shipping, free item and a discount code.

One could say there are two different kinds of shoppers for this effect; the impulsive buyer and the bargain buyer. The impulsive buyer typically spends at least $1K on impulsive buys per year, and this could be one of those. Why not spend $300 and get all of those offers?!

The bargain shoppers is going to be “price conscious.” This shopper might be willing to go with the first option, but the second one might be even better. Free shipping and a free item?!

Verbatim effect

A customer goes to your website to see your products and services. This shopper is the researcher. This person will research every result that shows up in Google to make the best purchase. The verbatim effect deals with the researcher reading your content.

The verbatim effect explains that a customer goes to a website, reads the content and tries to understand the basics of your business. This is why any website including an e-commerce website should utilize the right marketing strategies set in place by digital marketing agency Austin!

The researcher is there to learn more and this is where UX design, SEO strategies and other digital marketing strategies are helpful. A researcher is going to go to the services page and about us to learn more. There is a chance that they will go to your social media platforms as well. Short, great content works well with the verbatim effect because a consumer is only going to remember the general “gist” of your business.

These three theories and others are the key to marketing. What kind of shoppers is your business attracting? Loyal, impulsive, researcher or others? It’s imperative for a business to understand this to reach the right target audience.

For help with this research and other digital marketing strategies, contact OMG Austin.