In today’s fast-paced environment, digital marketing practices have considerably shifted, becoming a field that is far beyond traditional practices. It evolved into dynamic discipline more than ever. Expanded access to the internet, particularly to social media has created not only a competitive advantage for companies but also a challenge to overcome. It is now vital for businesses to have a distinguished voice over their competitors and to generate resonating marketing campaigns to their target. That is how consumer psychology comes into play, marketers often leverage this area of psychology to understand the human mind to create outstanding campaigns.
Why Does Consumer Psychology Matter?
Consumer psychology refers to the study of how people make their decisions and judgments regarding products or services offered by companies. Additionally, researchers in this area also concentrate on what sticks in consumers’ minds among the myriad of stimuli they encounter and how those memories predict their further decisions (Posavac et al., 2012). There are some key concepts of consumer psychology that are applied in digital marketing campaigns.
- Memory Span and Attention: As consumers process a vast number of advertisements on a daily basis, capturing their attention is challenging. Consumers’ preexisting knowledge might be one of the determining factors of attention. However, consumers’ attention to an advertisement does not guarantee that it will be processed and transferred to the memory and predict future decisions. That is why memory is a significant tenet for this area (Posavac et al., 2012).
- Motivation: This term means tension aroused by the inconsistency between the present state and needs and desires that consumers are drawn to improve (Posavac et al., 2012). The factors that influence consumer motivations remain prominent online. In the realm of social networking sites, multiple consumer motives driving online behavior have been uncovered, helping marketers to navigate their campaigns (Zhang and Mao, 2016).
- Information processing: This area delves into mechanisms related to how information is used in decision-making, the level of information processed, and the way of processing. Studies in this field have shed light on important developments like the construction of recommendation systems that improve consumer selection. To illustrate, research shows that consumers prefer verbal information for hedonism-oriented products, while they favor static data for more practical products (Maciejovsky & Budescu, 2013).
- Personal Traits: One of the most persistent outcomes of the effect of personal traits on judgments is that consumers reflect more favorable responses (cognitive, emotional, and behavioral) to marketing messages, complying with their personality. To illustrate, research demonstrated click-through and conversation rates grow considerably if the advertising campaigns match Facebook users personality traits measured through their likes on the platforms. Marketers have been employing these insights for a long time for their objectives (Matz & Netzer, 2017).
- Consumer Neuropsychology: Studies in determining how brain activity directs consumer behavior, generally by identifying brain regions that regulate diverse forms of information processing. Various techniques are utilized, like fMRI, EEG, and eye-tracking, to identify latent consumer behavior. Through detecting factors like brain function and emotional reactions, businesses can generate more targeted and efficient digital campaigns and designs of products.
Takeaways
Consumer psychology has a considerable impact on digital marketing, facilitating companies to grab consumers’ attention and motivation, predict purchasing behavior, and much more. The implementation of consumer psychology provides unprecedented opportunities for gaining insights and creating resonating digital campaigns for consumers in this competitive marketplace.
References
Maciejovsky, B., & Budescu, D. V. (2013). Verbal and numerical consumer recommendations: Switching between recommendation formats leads to preference inconsistencies. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 19(2), 143–157. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0033298
Matz, S. C., & Netzer, O. (2017). Using big data as a window into consumers’ psychology. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 18, 7–12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2017.05.009
Posavac, S. S., Kardes, F. R., & Hoeffler, S. (2012). Consumer psychology. Encyclopedia of Human Behavior, 589–595. https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-375000-6.00107-5 Zhang, J., & Mao, E. (2016). From Online Motivations to Ad Clicks and to Behavioral Intentions: An Empirical Study of Consumer Response to Social Media Advertising. Psychology & Marketing, 33(3), 155–164. doi:10.1002/mar.20862
