Whether you’re a data professional loading the CRM with high-quality first-party data, an innovative marketer crafting engaging campaigns, or a hotshot sales specialist making the revenue sheet sing, you’ll be tasked with driving sales and conversions.
And there’s plenty of tools and platforms to help you get the job done. From analytics dashboards to automated marketing reports, A/B tests to conversion metrics, it can be tough to gain actionable insights from the overwhelming amount of data and tools we’re now surrounded with.
Sadly, regardless of all these metrics and insight, the majority of consumers when seeing an ad, viewing a web page, or scrolling through a social timeline do nothing. No action, no clicks, no engagement.
What’s missing? Marketing psychology…
Be it delivering a coupon code to instill the feeling of reciprocity from potential customers, or highlighting stock levels to induce a healthy dose of urgency and FOMO (fear of missing out), consumers can be jolted into action by leveraging the right psychological marketing triggers.
75% of online consumers want more personalized content
So, what should marketers do to drive engagement?
Smart, skillful, and importantly honest marketers know how to tap into this ethically and respectfully, and engage consumers and encourage action.
Get inspired with ideas and tactics to harness the power of marketing psychology through interactive experiences. Activations that collect declared data, which in turn builds more direct relationships with consumers and ultimately helps you drive sales and conversions by better personalizing your marketing efforts.
1. Encourage Reciprocity
The principle of reciprocity is simple enough with marketing psychology. When someone gives you something, you feel compelled to return the favor. So brands that bestow digital coupon codes through interactive marketing experiences can leverage this trigger and increase sales.
2. Instill FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)
You’ll know this if you’ve ever hurriedly booked a flight because while browsing dates a message popped up saying “only 3 seats left at this price.” Here, not only are marketers instilling a dose of FOMO through expressing limits, but they’re also providing valuable customer service by being proactively transparent.
3. Drive Advocacy
Consumers are wary of five-star reviews, sleek product pics, and glowing testimonials. They do however trust referrals from their peers. So leveraging marketing psychology campaigns that generate earned content that can be seamlessly blended with owned content will garner the advocacy and trust you require.
See below how retail brand Muji used Instagram to promote their highly engaging contest #mujipen, where fans got to cast votes on the best user-generated content (UGC) referencing the brand in turn, drive advocacy levels.
4. Tell A Compelling Brand Story
Stating that your product is cheaper or better than the competition is a concept, perhaps a fact, but it’s not a brand story. By leveraging the power of user-generated content and proudly displaying it on your owned channels, you can not only craft a compelling brand story, but you maximize consumer trust and drive on-site engagement too.
5. Build Anticipation
Ever noticed the queues of people waving their cash outside the Apple store days before the latest iPhone is released? Apple is experts at building anticipation for any new product release. Reveal Campaigns let you tap into this sort of fever by slowly drip-feeding content in the lead up to any new product launch or content release.
6. Create A Community
Humans tend to have an inherent need to be a part of a social community and to feel connected to others. Milestone Goals, where consumers need to work together to earn a reward help create a community of fans who identify with each other as they share commonalities. One that drives your business forward and enrolls new consumers into your vision.
In the example below, Kraft Heinz wanted to help tackle hunger, boost brand affinity and build a community. To do so they launched a promotional hub that allowed consumers to work together to help drive meal donations with social actions.
7. Cause Controversy
The key to triggering a successful controversy is tactically creating one, not getting tangled up in one — akin to the clever Starbucks red cups campaign. Campaigns like Meme Generators can do just that for you, creating social buzz and rapidly spreading from peer-to-peer. Like rules at the dinner table, avoid the obvious taboo subjects.
8. Inspire Curiosity
Triggering curiosity in your prospects gets emails opened, social stories swiped, call-to-actions clicked and products purchased. You need to offer a little teaser and promise to solve a problem with marketing psychology. Just make sure the content matches the promise and steer clear of clickbait.
9. Leverage Novelty
We live in an era of instant gratification, where Gen Z demands one-click checkout and love at the swipe of a finger. They love novelty and quick fixes. So timely digital marketing campaigns that tap into cultural moments will help you drive engagement, sales, and first-party data collection.
10. Stay Hot Off The Press
Whatever is top of the news cycle, consumers are more drawn to it by nature than old news. Yearning for snow in the summer, then wishing for BBQ season in the winter. For marketers it’s about being the source of news, not just a passive commentator. So whatever day is about to pop up on the shared cultural calendar, whether mainstream or niche, expected or not, you need to quickly react and be relevant.
Request a demo of our Marigold Grow solution to discover how to truly harness the power of marketing psychology through interactive experiences to collect first-party data that builds more direct relationships with consumers and drive sales and conversions by better personalizing your digital marketing efforts.
