Customer psychology

Consumer behavior is the study of individuals and businesses and how they select products or services. The purpose of studying consumer behavior is to better understand consumer psychology. Moreover, motivations that go into selling your business to prospective clients.

When you understand your consumers, you are able to gear all aspects of your business towards fitting your consumer’s needs. Therefore, being able to adapt marketing campaigns, sales pitches and customer support responses.

When you really understand your consumer, you can even start proactively anticipating. For instance; what do they need to make the decision that you want them to make. This would mean more sales and better retention for your business.

Consumer psychology covers a range of topics, including:

• how consumers choose between different products, services, and brands
• consumer behavior research – shopping in-store or online
• the influencing aspects of marketing campaigns, such as wording, design, placement, and timing

At Hello Bar, understanding consumer psychology is essential for success. Pop-ups may seem like the smallest aspect of marketing. However, they are the perfect playing ground for gaining insight into customer behavior. Why? Because they are simple and easily tested.

Let’s dive into our biggest consumer psychology takeaways. These are from more than a decade of testing lead generation campaigns at Hello Bar, a Neil Patel company.

Consumer psychology takeaways

Takeaway #1: Don’t ignore the small stuff. The tiniest details can trigger consumer behaviors.

Even the smallest detail within a marketing campaign, sales pitch, or support message can send a message to your audience.

The background color of a website page or graphic may not seem important. However, it can be crucial when it comes to perfecting your customer’s interaction with the graphic.

For example, we used Hello Bar’s A/B testing feature to test the exact same pop-up with just one change: the background color.

When the results came back, Option B converted significantly better than the version with the white background. The difference in conversions was 3.6% just from the background color alone!

The takeaway? Color matters. And so do other details. We’ve seen similar results from changes as small as adding an exclamation point or capitalizing a letter.

Simply adjust the color of a button, re-word a message, or add in an emoji. With these you can completely change how your consumer interprets your brand. Thus, the related behaviors he/she will take.

Takeaway #2: Consumers are always asking What’s in it for me?

As the representative of a business, you are always motivated by results your business will see from your actions or perhaps your next performance review.

But if you want to make your efforts count, stop focusing on what’s in it for you and instead think about what’s in it for your customer. (Spoiler alert: this is the underlying secret to all of consumer psychology).

When evaluating whether or not to use your product or even interact with your business, your consumers are likely thinking:

1. What’s in it for me?

2. What will I get from using this product or service?

3. What option will give me the most for the money and time that I’m investing in this practice?

Your customer needs to see a clear and compelling benefit from using your services or products.

At Hello Bar, many of our community members use pop-ups. For instance; to collect the email address or phone number from visitors to their website. Most consumers are not keen to distribute their personal information and open their inboxes.

In order to get people to convert on a pop-up and submit their information as a lead, we have to consider what value will this person get in exchange for handing over their email address.

That’s where lead magnets come in. They introduce valuable resources, such as in-depth guides, limited release eBooks, and custom discounts to add some skin to the game.

Our customer behavior research shows the following benefits from quality, value-laden lead magnets:

• Guides – conversion rates between 1-3%.
• Coupons lead to conversions between 5-10%.
• Interactive offers, such as the chance to win a gift card, lead to conversions between 15-30%.

To stay on track, keep asking yourself, what value will this consumer walk away with? If you can’t answer that question, your consumer won’t be interested.

Takeaway #3: Use scarcity as a trigger. It works – big time.

The more scarce the resource, the more consumers tend to seek it out. Just like our predecessors before us, foraging for the best food in the forest, today’s consumers are foraging for the best deals out there. There’s a certain rush that comes with finding a good offer. This is especially when they get to feel lucky for finding it or, even better, winning/earning it.

Want to drive your consumers into action? Grab their attention with a scarce offer that’s only available for a certain period of time or a certain number of people. You’ll be sure to entice them and trigger the consumer behavior you are looking for.

Ever wonder how eBay grew to be the online marketplace that it is today? It was through the use of countdown timers and bidding wars – triggers that play on this same sense of urgency and scarcity.

Final takeaways to better your business with consumer behavior

We’ve learned a number of important items through testing pop-ups. Such as; the importance of small details, valuable offers, and added urgency. But, the most important advice (when it comes to consumer psychology) is that each business has a totally unique audience. Each audience is comprised of totally unique individuals.

What triggers one firm’s visitors into buying like madmen might cause the customers of another business to go running for the hills.

Consumer psychology always comes back to testing and conversations. To optimize your business and processes for maximum consumer happiness, A/B test any message you put out there. Whether you’re A/B testing pop-ups, support templates, or email subject lines. You will eventually find the “what” in “what works best”.

Want to know more? Then, check out an in-depth article about Customer service theory.

Discover on your own

To find the “why” behind consumer behavior, the next step is talking to the consumer directly. That’s where LiveAgent and your customer support team comes in. Test out everything you learn in our academy right inside of LiveAgent.