With the increasing number of new websites and applications, it is becoming increasingly difficult to attract attention, interest potential customers and retain them.

However, what can place your website convincingly ahead of the competition is a carefully developed strategy that relies on a still underutilized tool - digital psychology.

What is digital psychology?

Understanding the psychological aspects of consumer behavior and their application to digital platforms are becoming increasingly important for business success.

Digital Psychology combines digital marketing with behavioral economics and psychology to uncover how our minds work and what drives us when we interact with digital content.

It provides us with valuable insight into how online consumers respond to products and services, helping us better understand their needs and preferences.

Application of digital psychology

We live in a world full of numbers and statistics. With tools such as Google Analytics is easier than ever for us to track WHAT our clients do. However, digital psychology is revealing WHY doing it.

Digital psychology explains why your customers behave the way they do. It aims to identify the best way to communicate your message and direct users to the desired path. At the same time, it indicates how to make that path as interesting, convincing and efficient as possible.

Digital psychology helps optimize digital marketing strategies where raw numbers cannot. This deeper level of understanding lends itself to multiple fields in the online world.

Digital psychology is not a single tactic, but a whole way of thinking that complements your marketing with a strategic vision. Marketers must take consumer psychology into account, already at the planning stage.

Why is digital psychology important?

Digital psychologists look at the way users browse the internet. They consider how much content website visitors consume, how they interact with the information, and at what times they purchase products/services.

This helps businesses like yours better position themselves in the digital ecosystem.

Marketers constantly strive to attract customers' attention and influence their behavior. The best way to make it happen is to find out exactly what customers want and how you can deliver it to them.

In order to achieve this, it is necessary for businesses to understand the psychological factors that influence consumer decisions. This topic has been thoroughly researched in physical stores. However, the online world is a story in itself.

While we could argue that face-to-face interactions are more impactful, there are tactics we can use online to be just as persuasive, if not more so.

Imagine this: you visit a car dealership and look around without obligation. After 30 seconds, a pushy salesman approaches you, aggressively interrogates you and pressures you to buy.

We have all been in such a situation.

And 9 times out of 10, it will TURN us off the purchase. "Hard sell" is an outdated tactic.

Preparation, warm-up and soft persuasion are key. Essentially, actions that help customers make decisions.

Encouraging customers to make their own decisions in their own time (ie helping the customer make the desired choice) is far more effective than shoving our products in their face.

Good marketer understands consumer emotions and uses them to form a connection between the consumer and your product/service. To understand a customer's emotions, you need to know the psychology behind their behavior. Thus, it will be much easier to come up with a marketing strategy that will bring the desired results.

By understanding consumer psychology, marketers can predict and influence consumer behavior through their digital marketing strategies. Couple consumer psychology with digital marketing and there you have it; digital psychology. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow!

Digital psychology can help you to:

• understand why your customer buys products/services
• increase conversion rates
• reduce the likelihood of rapid site abandonment
• increase your average earnings per transaction
• retain current customers
• increase the chance of repeat purchase

Digital psychology and cognitive bias

Often, consumer behavior and decision-making is based on heuristics. These are subconscious, quick decisions that your mind comes up with without consulting the rational, logical part of your brain (conscious mind).

Heuristics are mental shortcuts we rely on to save time and effort by avoiding thinking in detail about future steps or options.

Although they often make day-to-day decision making much easier, heuristics can also lead to errors in judgment.

Sometimes relying on these shortcuts can lead to irrational behavior or hasty decisions driven by emotions. These errors in reasoning are known as cognitive biases and are hardwired into our brains.

Exists over 100 of the most common mistakes of this type. Wise marketers know that harnessing these cognitive biases can have huge benefits in the digital marketing industry.

5 areas of digital marketing psychology

Given that there are over 100 cognitive biases, based on each of them we can derive several psychological tactics that achieve results in digital marketing. Here we highlight a few that have proven to be particularly effective.

It is important to combine multiple principles of psychology within marketing to achieve your goals.

1. Scarcity (the modern version of "just a little more and gone")

If you're not familiar with this psychological tactic, you've probably been living in a cave for the past ten years. Scarcity it creates a sense of urgency, which in turn increases consumers' desire to buy something as soon as possible, so as not to miss the opportunity.

Scarcity is especially effective for e-commerce companies because you can put 'low stock' or 'high demand' labels on your site.

Even service companies can take advantage of scarcity tactics. For example, they can apply short-term discounts or a limited number of consultation appointments.

Research shows four main ways you can harness the power of scarcity tactics:

• Small amount: 'only 1 place left' 'only 10 in stock' 'limited supply' increases the feeling that you have to buy something urgently before the stock runs out.
• Limited time: 'discount in the next 24h' increases the urgency to buy before the end of that time period.
• High demand: '1,437 sold today' – highlights popularity and increases likelihood of purchase.
• A unique opportunity: 'members only' 'unique discount code' 'VIP access' - makes individuals privileged to be offered such an offer.

Booking.com is genius when it comes to scarcity tactics…

'Only 1 left on our website' encourages a rush for your customers to order the product before someone else buys it. It also positions the company as trustworthy, reliable, reputable, safe and popular – satisfying the human need for social proof.

2. The decoy effect in digital marketing

This cognitive bias underlies many pricing strategy models. As the name "bait" suggests, it's a ploy to encourage customers to make an informed decision.

The decoy effect refers to the introduction of a third price to make one of the two more attractive. It has been used for a long time even outside the Internet.

Which popcorn would you buy?

Large popcorn is twice as expensive as small, and if there were only these two options, the price difference would be clearly excessive. However, with the introduction of the middle option, which is closer in price to the more expensive one, people most often think: "Large popcorn is only 30 dinars." more expensive than the average, but you get a lot more. The small ones are much cheaper than the others, so they are probably very small. It's the most profitable for me to take the big ones."

In the digital world, you will often come across e.g. to the Basic, Standard and Pro subscriptions, which work according to this same principle. If there are only Basic and Pro subscriptions, the customer may have trouble justifying paying twice as much for the Pro subscription.

When you introduce the middle ie. A standard subscription, suddenly a Pro subscription seems like a great choice!

This three-price model is an extremely effective digital psychology strategy. It actually has the power to encourage customers to choose exactly the option you always wanted them to opt for.

3. Fear of loss

This phenomenon refers to the human tendency to be more upset about losing something than we would be happy to gain something. In other words, the fear of loss far outweighs the pleasure of gain.

Think about it: surely you would be happy if you got 100,000 dinars now, but it would hurt you much more if you lost 100,000 dinars.

You can take advantage of this psychological phenomenon in the way you position your product or service. For example, many SaaS companies (eg Monday, HubSpot…) offer free trials as a way to prepare a new customer.

Free trial of the product involves very little commitment from the consumer, with no risk. Or so they think...

The loss occurs when their free period expires! During the free trial period, they build a subconscious emotional connection, ie. the habit of relying on the given services.

During that period, it was less stressful for them, many things were made easier for them, they were more efficient in their daily tasks... All thanks to the software or platform.

The consumer is willing to pay for access because it avoids a much larger loss associated with the inability to continue using the software/platform.

SaaS vendors know that free trials are the best way to get long-term subscriptions. This is because once a prospect becomes an actual customer, there are also opportunities to upgrade within the platform.

E-commerce stores with tangible products can also exploit this cognitive bias. One New York brand does it perfectly. It is a seller of perfumes and scented candles snif.co

Perfume shopping experience like never before! Free samples arrive at your door, along with full-size perfumes.

Don't like the smell? Send your perfume bottle back. You like it? Keep the perfume and pay for it.

Digital psychology related to this? Losing a bottle of perfume.

Once it's in your hand, it's much harder to get it back. Great tactic!

There's also an element of effort - it's a lot more effort to return a product than to simply keep it, even if you don't really like it.

4. Reciprocity as a psychological technique

Giving and receiving. It is the natural balance of human life. When we get something for free, we feel indebted to that person or organization, which means we want to give something back.

Reciprocity happens in our daily lives.

Have you ever invited someone to their birthday just because they invited you? Have you ever bought a Christmas present for someone because they bought one for you? It is a feeling of obligation to do something for someone who has done something for you.

In a consumer society, this is a powerful tool. Gifts build relationships and loyalty, preparing the gift recipient to become a consumer later.

It is not only effective in attracting new clients, but can facilitate long-term relationships with existing ones. Reciprocity is a fantastic way to build brand loyalty.

Consider these 5 basic pillars of reciprocity:

• Make customers feel special and unique - include personalization in communication with him.
• Give customers a valuable gift that improves their lives - don't give away useless things, target the problems of your customers.
• Suggest ways customers could give back - if the gift is a discount, it is understood that they need to buy something in order to get it.
• Be the first to give - don't wait for a request for more information, provide a free download.
• Don't let the circle close – keep giving until they convert! An outstanding opportunity for email marketing.

5. Social proof in digital marketing

One surefire way to use digital psychology is to show social proof about your product or service. Studies show that 92% online consumers read at least one product review before making a purchase decision, with most shoppers reading between 1 and 6 reviews before committing to a decision.

We humans like to follow the masses. A few positive reviews of a product or service make us much more inclined to try it ourselves.

There are several ways you can display social proof:

• User reviews
• Total number of subscribers
• Total number of shares via networks
• The successes of your users
• Third Party Certificates
• Safety markings
• Client logos

A great example of a company that uses reviews as social proof is AliExpress. But it actively encourages its customers to leave reviews, rewarding them with various discounts, thereby increasing the likelihood of attracting new customers who rely on the opinions of people who have tried the product.

If you are already ordering goods from the other side of the world and have to wait a month for them, you would rather order products where you see positive comments and photos taken by previous customers, right?

Digital psychology and user experience

The ultimate goal of any marketing tactic is to offer an unforgettable customer experience that extends the customer's life cycle.

The use of the above principles aims to subliminally guide the mind of your customers, without excessive or explicit pressure. Remember the pushy salesman with an aggressive approach that we want to get away from!

When effectively combined, the principles of digital psychology will make a total revolution in optimizing conversions for the benefit of your business.

Adapted from: beyond.agency