Understand Your Consumers: Using Psychological Triggers To Market Businesses

July 7, 2023 | Digital Marketing

As a business owner, you don’t need to hold a PhD in consumer psychology to understand your customers. But by employing a bit of consumer psychology in our marketing strategies can make a whole lot of difference to your business.

Why do “they” want to buy my product?

Why did “they” decide against making a purchase?

It’s important to understand what makes “them” (our customers) take that plunge into buying our product/service.

Over the years, several business owners have realized that knowing the customer is directly proportional to an increase in sales numbers. They’ve also realized that using psychological triggers to market their products drew consumers in, and helped create positive associations  with the brand.

The whole point of imparting such a perspective is to help you go beyond the impersonal relationship that every business owner shares with his/her customers in order to build their business. Sometimes, it’s hard to look at your customers as people when the closest association you have with them is the numbers they represent on a spreadsheet. “It’s easy to forget that your consumers are real people in the other side of the computer screen,” writes Neil Patel. He adds, in addition to meeting targets, business owners must understand their ideal customer, and that’s why it is important to put some time aside to understand your consumers, their needs, and the associations they will have with your brand.

Before we go any further, what is consumer psychology anyway?

According to VeryWell, “Consumer Psychology is a speciality area that studies how our thoughts and beliefs, feels and perceptions influence how people buy and relate to goods and services.”

There is nothing more to expound on! Your target market needs to be studied meticulously and understood in terms of their buying behaviour and purchase decisions, period. There are several factors out there that affect a consumer’s decisions. It can be anyone or anything, anywhere that could make or break the appeal of your brand, product or service to a consumer. Close friends and family, thought-leaders, media, online reviews, cultural influences, etc., a consumer is always bombarded with many such factors.

Where Marketing Meets Psychology
To begin with, it would be best to identify your current marketing strategies with these two perspectives that involves consumer psychology to realize where you stand: rational marketing and emotional marketing.

Your campaigns follow the rational marketing perspective when they promote and translate the utility or the usefulness of the product. It stresses on the features or benefits of the product/service to persuade consumers that their problem will be solved. Take a look at one of Nescafe’s oldest advertisements. The ad copy is not what we’re used to as per present day ads, but it points out the best features of Nescafe’s coffee to get the attention of consumers.

(Source)

In 2015, Apple’s ‘Shot on iPhone’ campaign was an innovative one that boasted of the smart device’s camera. They crowdsourced a huge number of photos taken on an iPhone and used them for their advertisements; they ended up gathering photos from 77 people in 24 countries that appeared in their ads. According to Cult of Mac, several ordinary people who were not professional photographers, or those with a large social media following were chosen to be a part of this campaign. Apple tactfully engaged its customers to endorse the iPhone’s camera feature which turned out to receive much acclaim.


(Source)


On the other hand, if your campaigns represent the emotional perspective, they are making strong personal and emotional associations with your product/service amongst your audience. Aside from consumer products and services, public service advertisements (PSAs) are perfect examples of campaigns that use the emotional appeal. In November, 2012, Metro Trains in Melbourne, Australia came up with the Dumb Ways to Die campaign. It imparted rail safety in a quirky and humorous way as opposed to the otherwise stern message of safety around trains. According to an article from Advertising Age, Metro didn’t want “the typical gloom-and-doom public-service ad, which would be a turnoff for people.”

(Source)

One of the biggest marketing strategies to sweep the world with the emotional appeal this year was State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) and McCann New York’s the Fearless Girl: a statue of a young girl defiantly facing Wall Street’s Charging Bull. This addition to Wall Street was installed on the day before International Women’s Day this year to celebrate SSgA’s “Gender Diversity Index” fund that invests in large U.S. based companies that have achieved a good level of gender diversity across senior leadership in their sector. This received a lot of acclaim for the message it gave out. Wendy Clark, CEO of DDB –  the communications group, said that the statue transcends geography, language and culture. “For us, while it is a girl, it elegantly captures women’s journeys and our path the empowerment. And it also encapsulates our hopes and our ambitions for every little girl in the world,” she added.

(Source)

This is not a rule that expects your campaigns to be black or white. You can incorporate marketing techniques that provide both rational and emotional messages. In fact, most campaigns in the present day are as such. Adopting a mixture of these practices or using psychological triggers in marketing will influence customers to make good purchase decisions.

In 1943, Abraham Maslow published a paper titled “Theory of Human Motivation” in the Psychological Review which brought forth a concept that had a great influence on understanding consumer psychology that still exists today. He called it the ‘Hierarchy of Needs.’ According to Maslow’s theory, there are six different types of needs (illustrated in the form of a pyramid) that humans want satisfied, and the sixth (top-most) part of the pyramid is what they aim for. The following psychological triggers based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs that you’d need to consider before you create your marketing strategy.

(Source)

  1. Fear of Scarcity

    This trigger is based on the the base of Maslow’s pyramid which represents the primal needs of human beings. This includes physiological needs that need to be catered to with food, shelter, and even the need for sex. The idea is that if the primal needs are fulfilled, consumers will experience the corresponding pleasure and satisfaction from it.

    But logically, not all products and services can make direct associations with food, shelter or sex. But through the years, advertisements have been tailored to be suggestive of one of these needs. Brands like Axe and Levi’s have built their ad campaigns with innuendos to get their consumers’ attention.
    (Source)
  2. Belonging

    Consumers believe that they have to be a part of something. They want to identify themselves as part of a bigger group or a family. This is something that business owners use to help consumers make positive associations with their products and services. Look at Dove’s ‘Real Beauty’ campaign. For over 12 years, they have been trying to build their brand by empowering women from all over the world to believe that they are beautiful despite the kind of stereotypes that advertisements use. This leads many consumers to believe that in association with a brand such as Dove, they needn’t stick to any unrealistic beauty norms that are usually promoted.

    As a business owner, you need to make sure that your brand connects people, makes them feel like they are part of a community. Like Dove, you can try to associate your brand with a cause that furthers the consumer experience to something larger than purchasing the product. For example, something as simple as asking your customers to buy a cookie for a dollar that will be contributed towards a social cause will instill in them a sense of helping society through their consumerism.
    (Source)
  3. Safety

    When a consumer has their basic needs taken care of, they’re looking for ways to secure the source of that satisfaction. Emotionally, people want to make sure they are not at a risk. This kind of a sentiment could be associated with a consumer’s family, health, wealth, career, etc. As a business owner, you’re job is to assure your target audience that your product/service can evoke a sense of safety in a relevant way. It is vital to gain your customer’s trust in this stage. Educate them about their fears by appealing to their emotions, and rationalize these fears and apprehensions with the usage of your product or services.

    The luxury car brand, Mercedes-Benz came out with a very interesting bunch of print advertisements that illustrate this trigger. They tried to instill a sense of fear and responsibility in customers so that they return to the Mercedes-Benz service center for any further servicing as opposed to going to a local mechanic shop. These ads have elements in them that give you a sense of caution.

    (You can view the rest of the advertisements here.)
    (Source)
  4. Esteem

    After coming a long way up Maslow’s pyramid, people want to be recognized and accepted in their social circles. They want their peers to respect them. This is where your product and service will provide them with the boost in self-esteem they desire, that it will make them stand out among their peers. At this point, people are willing to expend towards the the best possible option. Make sure that your business is a well reputed venture as it will add value to your proposition.  In this year’s American football Super Bowl, Airbnb came up with a thirty second video commercial that gave out a message that everyone was accepted as they were, regardless for race, religion or colour. According to USA Today, the ad is focuses on communicating this message to refugees and immigrants who are moving into the USA. Airbnb is planning on providing them with temporary housing facilities for the next five years. The ad ends with the hashtag “#weaccept.”

5. Personal Growth 


People are always looking for ways to grow, and after a certain level of accomplishment. Maslow’s hierarchy implies that everyone goes through an introspective phase where they want to better versions of themselves. As a business owner, you can look at this as a marketing opportunity. Think of ways you can use to help your customer grow, appeal to your customer’s self-actualization needs. Take a look at Porsche’s ‘Above It All’ campaign that was running in 2015. Porsche’s Cayenne Turbo S is associated with a feeling of individuality that encourages consumers to “make a statement” for themselves with the car.


(Source)

Marketing a business these days demands much more than a cleverly designed website and a local SEO strategy that is on-point. Using these psychological triggers, you can build your brand’s reputation and draw in more clients.

Although, a word to the wise! Make sure you draw the line where you need to. You want to study the consumers’ thought processes, their needs, wants and their purchase journeys to build your campaign to get their attention. As most advertisements and campaigns go, you don’t want them to feel exploited. It might seem like a thin line, but always keep in mind that you’ll need to make ethical choices while marketing your products. The goal is to build long-lasting relationships with customers who trust you and refer more customers to your business in the long run.

Share Your Thoughts

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Read more articles

Want to stay on top of the latest search trends?

Get top insights and news from our search experts.

Loading

Try Rankwatch Today For FREE !

Start Your FREE 14 Days Trial

25,000+ Active customers in 25 countries use RankWatch as their primary SEO software