Advertise more effectively by using customer psychology

Libby Margo in Content marketing on 15th of Jan 2019
Customer psychology in advertising

Customer psychology in advertising

Getting customers to pay attention to your ad has never been easy, especially since they are constantly exposed to endless streams of marketing messages from competing brands. And in today’s saturated digital landscape, marketers are faced with the challenge of vying for their customer’s attention across countless digital channels.

Customers are also becoming increasingly wary of being marketed to. According to a PwC Consumer Intelligence Series study, 71% of customers are unlikely to click on a mobile ad if they came across one. As a result, marketers have become more reluctant to use paid search marketing. Instead, they are shifting their focus towards organic search efforts to achieve high search engine rankings.

So, should you forget about using paid search marketing altogether? Well, no. In fact, paid searches can be used to your advantage if you understand the role that customer psychology plays in buyer behavior. Once you understand what your customers are thinking, you will be in a better position to create effective paid search campaigns that are more likely to attract and engage customers.

Understanding the psychology of customers

Effective advertising stirs up emotion within the customer. In other words, customers are more likely to respond favorably to a paid ad if it strikes a chord within them. A generic ad won’t cut it, but incorporating a unique voice and using emotion will go a long way to ensure your customer is attracted to your ad rather than your competitor’s. Being able to know how your customers are likely to feel, react or act based on past behaviors is beneficial to creating the right ad. An analytics platform such as Heap can help you with that.

1. Incorporate a unique voice

For a paid search ad to stand out, it must be different from all the others. This can be done by giving it a distinct voice, one is memorable and therefore more likely to evoke curiosity from your customer. A study by the University of Massachusetts found that ads with a humorous tone were more effective than ads adopting a more generic tone.

Some examples of humorous paid search ads include a Google ad for a gym that was full of puns (“Every body happy”) and witty one-liners from a food delivery service provider (“You love food — particularly the eating part”).

2. Use emotion

If an ad evokes an emotion within a customer, they are more likely to feel a connection with the message. They are also more likely to click on it to find out more about your brand. In order to evoke this emotional response (for example, joy or fear), you need to create it through your ad copy. A well-thought-out ad that stirs customer emotions is more likely to be effective.

Budweiser’s Clydesdale horse ads have played in a major role in driving their beer sales. Why? Animals are universally popular and for that reason, customers experience a wide range of positive emotions when seeing those majestic horses on screen. These positive connotations are responsible for influencing the customer decision making process.

Don’t forget the landing page!

So you got your customer to click on your paid search ad? Great!

Unfortunately, your work isn’t done yet.

The next step to maintain this emotional engagement throughout the entire sales funnel to convert the lead into a paying customer. Essentially, the ad and the page it links to (i.e. the landing page) must work in conjunction. Read more about landing page builders.

If your landing page doesn’t extend the warm fuzzy feeling that encouraged your customer to click on the ad in the first place, your customer will click the ‘close’ button. Autopilot’s simple website tracking code can help you monitor the effectiveness of your landing page while Google Ads Retargeting can retarget leads who didn’t convert on their first site visit.

An integrated marketing automation software like Autopilot can also help you manage the entire customer journey from start to finish.

Turning customer psychology into ROI

Based on what you now know about customer psychology, you are in a better position to speak to the heart of your customers in a genuine manner. By developing a unique voice and establishing emotional connections in your paid search ads, you are on your way to generating higher click-through rates. And if your landing page engages your customer, you are on the road to achieving a good ROI.

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