5 Ways to Influence Consumer Choices with Marketing Psychology

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When you consider how to turn ordinary advertising into outstanding advertising, you need to focus on helping your consumers make the right choices. Through messaging, marketing and advertising, the best businesses and organization do not hesitate to use effective strategies. These innovative ways also influence consumer perceptions and decision making. Five of the most useful strategies include using color, exploring emotion, applying aesthetics, repositioning the composition and advertising. Used individually or in conjunction with each other, the five strategies will raise productivity levels and allow you to review marketing psychology for the benefit of the consumer, the number-one business priority.

Using Color

One of the most essential ways to change consumers’ choices is by using color in advertising. If you want to spruce up a marketing campaign, try adding splashes of color to your advertising. Most people don’t buy for logical reasons. They will purchase from you based on their emotional reactions to your use of color. Yet, don’t fall prey to old adages that say color in marketing translates to the same feelings for everyone. The fact of the matter is that color perception is different for all of us because it depends on personal experiences. This is particularly important when you are developing a branding technique that coordinates with color associations. For instance, the color red is often compared to feelings of boldness and excitement. Also, the psychology of color usage in marketing shows an impact on consumers attitudes, which puts focus on gender differences. Knowing these factors will help you to make your marketing a success as it drives consumers to make individual choices.

Exploring Emotion

Like using color, marketers can manipulate emotional images to make ads more effective. In advertising, there are typically six universal emotions—happiness, anger, disgust, sadness, fear and surprise. Psychological studies have shown that emotionally driven events tend to help people form powerful memories that are associated with the universal emotions. An ad can cause the consumer to feel one or more of the universal emotions and react to his or her thoughts or rational decisions.

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For instance, an ad that illustrates the dangers of smoking could surprise or make the consumer angry, depending on your business or organization’s use of arousal. Since most studies have shown that high-level arousal tends to create the most memorable experiences in consumers. Thus, businesses and organizations today need to have a clear-cut plan for emotional analysis in advertising for achieving business goals.

Applying Aesthetics

You should apply aesthetics in advertising by relying on imagery, like form, composition and texture. By doing this, you can channel all the fundamental aspects of psychology in marketing. Capturing the attention of the consumer, aesthetics focuses on the form and the content of an ad whether it be digital or print. Businesses and organizations that concentrate on stylized advertising imagery realize the importance of artistic expression. So, marketing campaigns that apply aesthetics have a better chance of popularity and success because they appeal to consumers’ thoughts and feelings. As the most aesthetic category is beauty, your consumers should see the sublime, the glow, the harmony and the idyllic in your advertising imagery, and this positive reaction connects to color use and emotional analysis. Applying aesthetics allows you to create images that are attractive to draw consumers to your products and services.

Repositioning the Competition

Another way to influence consumer choices with marketing psychology is to develop a strategy for repositioning your company’s competition. Although this method often receives negative reviews, it has the potential to build the reputation of your organization. Marketers can focus on repositioning their brands. Afterwards, they can reposition their competitors. This can be done by shedding some positive light on the marketers’ organization, which creates a blight on the competition. The results are perception adjustments that improve the overall effect of your brand.

Advertising Subliminally

When messages pass below normal perceptual limits, they are called subliminal. Businesses and organizations often engage in what is known as subliminal perception. One example of this technique is to induce people to watch holiday ads to shop more frequently for gifts.

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Another example is how restaurants use background noise, such as music, to affect the menu choices of customers. Look at popular logos, like Baskin and Robbins. They are designed to trigger consumer emotions. The Baskin and Robbins logo, which says “BR” in pink and blue and doubles as the number 31, is an optical illusion. It visually treats consumers who see “BR,” 31, or both images at once. Since 1953, the company has offered 31 ice cream flavors—one flavor for each day of the month. Their trendy logo and its hidden meaning serves up a hit with ice cream lovers. Thus, savvy marketers can leverage their logos, influencing what their consumers feel about products and services. Considered as a psychology of influence, subliminal advertising gives marketers the power to change and disrupt consumers’ thinking.

Concluding Points

Lastly, your consumers will recognize your organization’s brand, respect your work and praise your reputation. Consumers are your number-one priority, and finding ways to attract their attention is essential. From the psychology of color to subliminal images, there are five powerful options to leveraging consumer perceptions. You can count on using these ways for influencing consumers while planning a marketing campaign. Each way is effective and will support your advertising goals. So, take your branding techniques seriously as you put more focus on what your consumers experience and how they make choices to boost your business.

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