Marketing psychology FAQs: what is marketing psychology & why should marketers care?

Marketing psychology focuses on how customers behave when they decide to buy. It can help marketers predict customer behaviour. It can also allow brands to create more engaging content strategy.

Many big brands use marketing psychology, or neuromarketing research, to build connections with their audience and to market their businesses more effectively. Many successful marketers regularly use psychological principles to do their jobs.

Marketing psychology is useful for marketers, as it helps make campaigns more appealing to customers and make brands more persuasive. For example, social media in particular is oversaturated with marketing messages. Using marketing psychology can give marketers a faster track to reach their audience through social media content.

Marketing psychology helps brands and marketers understand why consumers make purchase decisions. It helps them shape the most effective marketing strategy to appeal to their audience.

There are many psychological biases (known as heuristics) that affect customer behaviour. Some of the most common are Confirmation Bias (we home in on information that confirms our existing beliefs and ignore information that contradicts them), Availability Bias (we rely on information that springs to mind quickly and easily, rather than looking for new ideas) and Anchoring (when we make decisions, we rely heavily on the first bit of information we come across).

The power of social proof means that we looks for cues in other people’s behaviour, so that we can make decisions more easily. Social proof is a very powerful heuristic for marketers. It means that we mainly tend to follow the wisdom of the crowd. So we are more likely to make decisions to buy if we see that others are doing so too. I have a free course on social proof and building business trust for marketers.

There are many effective marketing techniques based on psychology. Here are a few you could try. Using reviews and testimonials to activate social proof. Creating buying urgency by restricting supply of a product or service – this uses the principle of scarcity to motivate purchase. Price anchoring happens when a brand or business uses a high price point at the start of communications, in order to influence the customer’s perception of the value if the product or service.

Neuromarketing is a combination of neuroscience, psychology and marketing. Like marketing psychology, it also focuses on how the brain responds during buying decisions. You can learn more about neuromarketing and consumer behaviour in Harvard Business Review here.

Marketing psychology gives brands a better, more human, way of connecting with their audience and ideal customers. Of course, it can be used in unethical ways, in the hope of manipulating customer behaviour. However, it cannot make up for poor products or service. Marketers are responsible for using marketing psychology insights in an ethical way. Customers should also be aware of exercising their agency and autonomy in decision-making.

There are lots of courses on marketing psychology online, all at different price points. Some are free. This Udemy course on marketing psychology and consumer behaviour looks popular. This short course from Future Learn on Consumer Behaviour and Psychology gets decent reviews. And 42 courses has a great range of interesting courses on this topic.

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