7 Psychology Tricks to Get Inside Your Customers’ Heads

By Rick Riddle

Human behavior doesn’t vary much. This is why marketers have been using psychology as a tool for getting customers on board, creating loyalty, and ultimately making sales.

To see this in action, all you have to do is pay attention to print ads, TV commercials, even billboards. You’ll quickly see evidence that the principles of psychology are being applied. Marketers use psychology because it works.

You can also apply these techniques to your social media marketing efforts. All it takes is finding the right tricks to use. Here are seven to get you started:

1. Give Them Gifts

Give your audience gifts, and they will feel obligated to reciprocate. Think about that. If you're given a gift, aren’t the first two thoughts that come into your mind, (1) Say thank you, and (2) I have to do something for this person in return.

The gifts that you offer don’t need to be extravagant or expensive either. Here are a few examples of attractive gifts that are easy to give and will encourage your audience to convert:

• A discount on a first order in return for subscribing to an email list
• A 14-day extension on a trial offer in return for liking and sharing a social media post
• An inexpensive gift item included in an order
• A free e-book or white paper for scheduling a sales call
• Access to content via email before that content is released on social media for joining an email list

2. Build Trust With an Appealing Profile Photo

Yes, looks do matter. You already know that it’s important to have an appealing profile photo, but do you know what that entails? In general, people are attracted to smiling faces as opposed to serious faces. They also prefer a background that is a bit darker.

Obviously, if you are the representative of your brand, your profile photo should be a picture of you. However, if you tend to stay behind the scenes, and you are a man, you might consider using a photo of a female employee or representative. Pictures of women's faces tend to create feelings of choice.

3. Don’t Give People Too Many Choices

If you give people too many choices, they can become overwhelmed. Decision-making is a stressful process and that can have a negative impact on a person's mood; the result can be that your potential customer bounces before they make a purchase.

Instead, create a limited number of options that you offer to your customers. In fact, there may be cases where offering only a single choice is the best thing to do.

4. Become an Expert

Before consumers make purchases, they seek out the advice and opinions of people they feel they can trust. This might mean going to review websites to read people's opinions about the products and services; it might also mean going to consumer advocacy websites to find research and studies that have been conducted. It can be frustrating to see potential customers going to other sources for information and opinions about your products and services, rather than listening to what you have to say.

Fortunately, you can combat this. You just have to do the work required to get your audience to see you as an expert in your industry as opposed to a salesperson hawking your products. This is something that you can accomplish by posting lots of thought leadership content, how-to posts, and other content that positions you as an expert in your niche.

5. Add Emotion to the Equation

Odds are, if you log into Facebook today, you will see at least one video or meme that tugs at your heartstrings or that makes you feel passionate about something. This is because touching, emotional content has an impact. It’s engaging, and people tend to like and share these kinds of posts.

Does this mean that sharing the latest story of triumph over adversity will ensure that you increase your website traffic or that sales will go up? No, it doesn’t. However, what it should do is make it clear the importance of making an emotional impact with your content.

6. Be a Regular Presence

Become familiar to your audience and you will become more attractive and more trustworthy. The movie Rudy is widely regarded as one of the most inspirational films of all times. Rudy was a young man who dreamed of playing football at Notre Dame. Unfortunately, he wasn’t particularly well suited for playing college football, but he kept showing up. He was at games, he was at practices, and eventually he earned the respect of coaches and players, and was put in the game.

Rudy became present, then he became familiar; after that, he became respected. You can do the same thing with your audience by producing great content on a consistent basis.

7. Make Social Media Users Feel as if They Belong

Social media marketing is all about building relationships. Your goal is to create an online social circle that encompasses all of the social media platforms that you use, to get people to want to become a part of that circle, and then make them feel valued when they arrive.

This begins with simple steps such as shooting someone a message thanking them when they follow you on Twitter or responding to comments on Facebook. You can even take this a step further by seeking out followers who are giving you a lot of engagement, and reaching out to them by liking and sharing their content. Not only can this trick boost brand loyalty, you might even manage to create a brand ambassador or two.