I want to tell you the story of how I fell in love with marketing psychology.
Like most relationships, I hadn’t seen this one coming. My background in journalism kept me focused solely on learning the ins and outs of news writing; any mention of the human brain sent me for a tailspin, and marketing seemed like a foreign concept.
But life has a funny way of teaching you just how little you know about your future path, or in my case, how much you have known all along. Simply being a consumer was enough for me to resonate with the marketing psychology ideas I’ve heard experts mention in our conversations.
There’s always something new to learn
Prior to starting a career in marketing psychology, dining at a restaurant or shopping at a mall had never been anything more than a series of transactions. There was no need for me to think of it as anything else; as far as I knew, brands were supplying me with daily necessities, and I was contributing to the economy.
That all changed pretty quickly when I learned about social proof, the first psychology concept that caught my eye.
Known by consumer psychologists as the idea that humans base their decisions on the behavior of others, social proof is most often associated with reviews and testimonials, customer referrals, real-time conversion notifications and more. All were strategies I’d seen shopping in stores and online; I knew how each tactic had moved me to make a purchase or support a brand, and I was blown away that buying decisions I thought were fully based on a specific need were influenced by psychology principles.
I never realized just how much of myself took the passenger seat to human psychology. So many of my favorite purchases made their way into my heart through concepts like social proof, and yet, I spent very little time thinking about how often I’d emotionally invested in finding the “right” products or brands. I hadn’t truly grasped how a great review could leave me feeling confident in the decision to make a purchase or how a nice beauty product could save me from getting down during my morning routine. For me, moments like these were filled with temporary appreciation, but for my brain, they were confirmation that a brand and its services could be trusted.
The more I talked to consumer psychologists or read related blog posts, the more I learned that marketing psychology impacted every aspect of my shopping habits, even the ones I chalked up to poor time management. Sure, a brand got extra brownie points if they clearly laid how their products could help me or if they made those products easy to find on their website, but didn’t that just mean I was lazy?
Thanks to marketing psychology, I can blame my leisurely movements on my human tendencies. Wanting things to come easily isn’t bad, it’s natural. I didn’t value simple checkout processes or products that went above and beyond the call of duty because I had no drive, but because the ease made for a better experience.
Each month that I’ve worked in marketing psychology has provided me with the opportunity to learn more about myself. Who am I as a shopper? What compels me to make decisions?
Consider this my thank you to marketing psychology for teaching me so much about a side of consumerism that I never knew existed. I can’t wait to find out even more.
