5 ways to use psychology in your online marketing (II)
We’ve covered the first two in the previous article, and now we’re going to go over the other three psychological principles and techniques you can use in your online communication.
The Scarcity principle
Basically, it refers to a limitation placed on a product or service in order to increase likelihood of desired responses by putting mental pressure on the customer. The limitation ca be related to anything that creates a sense of urgency and activates the fear of “missing out” in an audience.
How you can use this in online marketing:
Sky is the limit for placing limitations! (See what I did there?)
Through your web copy, icons or even a countdown clock, you can create a sense of urgency and emphasize, among others, aspects such as:
- the rarity of your products, services or offers
- the short time frame in which they are available
- the constantly decreasing number or remaining items in a store or seats at an event
This a very effective technique that marketers have used since, maybe, the dawn of marketing, both in online and offline communication.
The Information Overload Elusion
Basically, you increase the likelihood of responses and customers taking action in a certain direction or another by presenting information in a way that is easily “digestible” for the customer. Information overload leads to something known as “analysis paralysis”, where the multitude of options stops customers in their tracks, they end up choosing none of the options and taking no action.
How you can use this in online marketing:
There are various ways in which you can reduce the information overload effect:
- The most obvious is to give fewer options. This doesn’t mean you should stop selling certain products, it means you should present fewer of these on a single screen, in a newsletter, in a banner ad or social media post for example.
- You can also use lists with many filters so your customers end up analyzing only those products that they’re actually interested in.
- Try “chunking” products into categories. This is related to using filters during the search phase, but it also involves things like using icons to symbolize those categories and promoting the whole category at once, not every product separately.
Large lists may attract more attention and people, but they also extend the decision-making process, which, in turn, leads to fewer conversions. So, especially for companies with many products or types of products, an ideal balance must be found through research and testing.
The Repetition principle
Basically, as odd as it may sound, repetition favors many types of positive responses, such as: increased linking towards a message, image or product, memorability, credibility and many more.
People, in general, prefer things that seem familiar to them, and the more familiar something is, the more they believe it. Familiarity can be achieved by prior and/or repeated exposure or, in other words, repetition.
How you can use this in online marketing:
It’s pretty simple, isn’t it? Communication consistency – use the same messages and ideas across multiple channels and a sufficient number of times on each of them. You don’t have to repeat exactly the same thing in the exact same manner. Rephrase, add on new elements, refresh it! However, keep a constant tone and don’t stray too far from your brand positioning.
Want to learn more about how repetition can help your online and offline communication? For starters, you can check out concepts such as the Illusion-of-truth effect and especially the Mere-exposure effect.
Merry Marketing to y’all!
Yours, dedicated,
Alina Andreica
