Have you ever been to a mall and bought something you didn’t even want? What made you buy that product impulsively? You don’t have to blame yourself for being so impulsive and not thinking rationally. It’s because you got tricked by one of their marketing tricks.
These marketing tricks fool us subtly without us realizing it consciously. Psychology has now become a tool used by companies and marketers to play with their customer’s heads. We humans may vary physically but we react in quite a similar way to such psychological tricks.
Marketing Tricks
These are some psychological marketing tricks that we face most of the time,
The Urgency Trick
They set a deadline, create scarcity, and offer discounts. They make us believe that any deal is worth buying since it is for a short period or is in limited numbers. We think we will miss out on a good deal and tend to buy them impulsively. Only later, we get to see how the offer is still going on.
Social Proofing
Social proofing confirms customers not to worry about the product and buy them without any hesitation. We believe in third party’s opinion and get influenced. Verifying the number of people who used or liked it, indirectly makes us believe the product. “9 out of 10 people use Colgate” is one of the examples of social proofing.
The Pricing Trick
This is the most used trick. They make us believe that we are getting the product at the right price or even cheaper. A store might price a product at $99.99 instead of $100. There is not much price difference between these two prices but it tricks our mind to think $99.99 is cheaper. Even words play a powerful role when it comes to this trick. Adding “only” at the end of the price makes the customer believe that they are getting the product at a reasonable price. Using the decoy effect is also one of the types of pricing tricks.
From the photo: Since they want us to buy the large bucket they place a hideous option (decoy) to make the large bucket look more convincing and attractive to buy. We tend to fall for it every time we go to the theatre.
Contrast Principle Psychology
This principle states that when we see or experience similar things simultaneously we tend to compare them. For eg: If you visit a store, the shopkeeper is more likely to show you the expensive option first and then gradually a cheaper option. After comparing these two prices for the same product, we are more likely to buy the cheaper option for sure.
Guarantees/ Warranties
It is mostly used in products that are expensive to gain the trust of the customers. We double-think before buying an expensive product but when a product offers a warranty we buy them as we think the product is worth the money for the long term.
Now, the next time you go shopping make sure you don’t get played. Buy the product only if you want it necessarily. All the best!
