What is Marketing Psychology? Summary and Examples

We are all quite familiar with human psychology, where we would analyze a human and assume a reaction from him/her for every action he/she encounters. This is a very special aspect used in marketing. Marketing psychology is nothing but implementing ethical psychological methods to influence a human/customer.

You may even ask, does marketing psychology work? The answer is YES because the basic supplement of any brand is marketing and so feeding it with proper psychological tactics would help to reap more customers. Let's get inside the interesting facts of marketing psychology and how it plays a vital role in your brand.

MARKETING AND PSYCHOLOGY:

John B Watson, one of the fathers of modern marketing believed that marketing with good usage of psychology would catapult a brand and its services into customers' minds. He created marketing campaigns that would stir up the customers' thoughts and stimulate a desire to at least know about the product.

Marketing may have a positive and negative impact on customers. For example, Fair and Lovely is a worldwide known brand, however, the ads they used to market their brand at some point led to racial discrimination. It gained a negative feeling on people’s minds, which is why they had to go ahead and change the brand name to Glow and Lovely.?

The four main psychological aspects used in marketing are as follows:

• ?Triggering curiosity
• ?Developing a positive remark
• ?Creating memory retention
• ?Keeping up promises

MARKETING PSYCHOLOGY IN TRIGGERING CURIOSITY:

Curiosity being one of the powerful aspects of psychology is very much essential in the field of marketing. The theme, logo, name, marketing methods, and ads of your brand must be curated in such a way that makes them curious about your products/services which will ultimately lead them to buy.

How?

• Creating teasers before revealing the product
• Developing a fanbase toward the product with creative marketing
• ?Using the “Learn more” tab at the end of each email marketing

“Harley-Davidsons" marketing campaign ad of 2015 was very heart-touching and was something that created curiosity. It stands out as one of the best examples of how to create ads stirring up the strong desire to know about the product/brand. Their message at the end of the campaign was “Whatever is in you, is out there” which again was so captivating and relatable.

MARKETING PSYCHOLOGY IN DEVELOPING A POSITIVE REMARK:

As mentioned earlier marketing can create both positive and negative impacts on buyers. The message or advertisement we use to spread brand awareness has to leave a positive note on people’s minds which should let people discuss in groups and which in turn should end in word-of-mouth marketing.

How?

• Do not create ads that diminish someone’s self-confidence
• By creating marketing campaigns that empower self, a particular community, and more
• Making advertisements that create positive awareness among individuals

One of the good examples that created a positive remark on customers is the brand “Lux”. They highlighted the problems and stereotypes faced by pregnant women, influencing it is okay to break those stereotypes by doing what they love and still glowing. Their message “Women face many biases, especially during pregnancy. It is time to rise above the judgments and celebrate being unstoppable. At Lux we believe women have so many reasons to glow” created a great impact on everyone.

MARKETING PSYCHOLOGY IN CREATING MEMORY RETENTION:

The ultimate vision of marketing is to draw more buyers to the product and for that, customers should be able to remember the message at the end of each marketing campaign. The message should be captivating yet short so that the first thing that comes to their mind when they think about that particular product should be yours. By creating memory retention, they would not only be our lead customer but also suggest them to other potential buyers who are looking for a similar product.

?How?

• Creating slogans/taglines which are eye catchy and easy to remember
• Creating story-based advertisements in such a way that potential audiences could relate
• Including creative pictures and videos is a bonus

Well, we are all familiar with Amazon advertisements where at the end we see and hear “Everything from A to Z” which is quite stored in our heads because they not only make sense but are easy to remember. Each time we think about purchasing something we go nowhere else but Amazon.

MARKETING PSYCHOLOGY IN KEEPING UP THE PROMISE:

Gaining trust is one of the biggest challenges of today. According to human psychology once someone is felt trustworthy, no matter who or what is he/she, people go in sort of them. The same goes with marketing – if customers believe what is marketed has been delivered to them, they would look no further to come back for more.

How?

• Giving an idea to your customers about the raw materials/ingredients used to deliver the product
• By creating marketing advertisements including testimonials from other customers
• Understanding the basic, psychological, and safety needs of your customers

“It’s Finger Lickin' good” is a perfect yet promising slogan of KFC which made people crave it and come for more. They serve as a very good example of why gaining the trust of customers is important in marketing and for putting out efforts to keep up the promise.

?As we all know, marketing is about convincing customers to invest in your product and/or services and this is why psychology plays a crucial role in the process. Many marketing ideas fail due to a lack of understanding of basic human needs or how people react to certain actions they encounter. This is why it is important to look at marketing from a psychological point of view. To sum up, knowing well about your customers' psychology will help you derive tactics to gain their attention towards your product.