7 Psychological Factors in Marketing

Psychological factors play a large role in the consumer buying process and can heavily influence why a customer makes a purchase. There are many psychological factors that target different aspects of the buying process. Understanding psychological factors in marketing can help businesses tailor their marketing efforts to consumers and can help influence them to make a purchase. In this article, we discuss the importance of these factors and the seven factors marketers use to influence consumer behaviour and increase sales.

Understanding the factors that influence the customer buying process is key to understanding why consumers choose to make purchases. Consumer's emotions, desires, and motivations drive them to spend their money and make purchases and marketers can use these factors to influence their buying patterns. Psychological factors may cause consumers to make or forgo purchases, connect with a brand, or choose which company they want to support. The greater the understanding a marketing professional has of its target customers, the more tailored their marketing efforts can be towards that group of consumers. 

For example, products that are environmentally sustainable and marketed as eco-friendly may influence a customer purchasing hiking gear, as hikers typically spend more time outdoors and in nature than the average consumer does. They may react positively to marketing efforts that highlight their appreciation of nature. Understanding the desires, motivations, and emotions of different consumers can help businesses create campaigns that appeal to these demographics, saving them time and money when launching marketing efforts.

There are various psychological factors that influence consumer behaviour on a day-to-day basis. Sometimes, these factors work in tandem to drive consumer purchasing and engagement decisions. Developing an understanding of how these psychological factors function may enable you to more easily meet your consumers' needs and effectively market the promise to do so. Here are seven psychological factors that influence consumer behaviour to consider as you purposefully design your marketing materials:

Motivation, or an individual's innate drive to satisfy a particular need, is an important psychological factor to consider in marketing toward your consumers. Each consumer is unique in what motivates their purchasing decision, which can make using it in marketing efforts difficult. An individual can set a specific goal on how they can satisfy their need and take action to do so. For a consumer to commit to a purchasing decision, the purchase is required to meet a need that the consumer has identified. 

Brands can market products to solve consumer problems, which motivates consumers to act upon them. Common marketing tactics start by identifying a problem that the consumer may not be aware they are experiencing and then follow by providing a solution to the problem, prompting the consumer to take action and make a purchase. For example, fashion brands can start marketing campaigns by highlighting that older clothes are no longer in style, prompting the consumer to refresh their wardrobe and make new purchases.

Humans naturally display a desire to learn, and this includes learning about the products and services they are purchasing. We can define learning as introducing new information which changes an individual's behaviour from previous experiences and is highly relevant to understanding consumer behaviour. While the concept of learning comprises both experiential and non-experiential learning, marketing professionals are primarily concerned with non-experiential learning. Experiential learning is the practice of learning through physically involved experiences, while non-experiential learning is the practice of learning through observation and investigation.

Marketers can use non-experiential learning through influential and word-of-mouth marketing. Potential consumers can learn about products and services based on the experiences of others. This form of marketing is highly effective as consumers typically value the experiences of those around more so than they value information provided directly by a business. Companies can present a wide scope of information about their products and services through customer reviews, case studies, informational leaflets and more to help improve the non-experiential learning experience of their consumers.

Reinforcement is a subset of learning whereby the consumer has their thoughts and opinions validated through rewards or punishment. Reinforcement can be highly relevant to marketing professionals, as consumers often return to brands loyally when their experiences positively reinforce the information they learned about products. Conversely, if a consumer learns information about a product that is negatively reinforced through their experiences, they may never return to a brand again. For businesses looking to invest in customer loyalty, understanding how reinforcement influences the buying pattern of customers can be beneficial. 

For example, a customer may learn from marketing campaigns that a particular skincare line produces youthful and glowing skin. When they purchase and try the product, they notice these changes to their skin. This may motivate them to make repeat purchases in the future and they may tell their friends and family about the skin care line, which can cause more people making purchases of the product line. This type of purchasing change can be highly lucrative for businesses and can account for much of their sales. 

Socialization, or the process by which individuals develop knowledge and beliefs, is a psychological factor that combines learning and social engagement. We often socialize individuals to learn specific normalized behaviours that can change throughout their lifetime. In most cases, individuals learn these behaviours directly from socialization agents, or other people who consciously or unconsciously teach the learned about behavioural patterns and cognitive reasoning processes. These agents can include parents, peers, teachers, friends, politicians, and other leaders. 

Socialization can influence the consumer behaviour process, as it can normalize certain buying behaviour and customer engagement. The concept of trends results from socialization, as mass groups of consumers influence others to purchase similar goods. For example, if social agents identify a specific style of jackets as trendy, brands who create products that are similar in style to the trend may see an increase in sales. Marketing professionals that design campaigns around current and predicted trends can see improved engagement and purchases. 

Modelling, or an individual's imitation of a social agent's behaviour, is a psychological factor that is built off of the foundation of socialization. Through the process of socialization, individuals come to conclusions about specific social norms, expectations and opinions about behaviour. In most cases, socialized individuals seek to align their own behaviour to meet these norms and expectations through emulating the standard set by others—this is modelling. 

This applies to the field of marketing, as businesses can use high-profile influencers to influence those who follow them. For example, a sneaker company may partner with a professional basketball player to promote their shoes. Loyal fans of the player, as well as those interested in the sport, may model the players' behaviour and purchase the shoes themselves. Besides this, if an individual's friends, teammates, family members, coaches or other acquaintances wear the sneakers and normalize such behaviour, the individual may choose to buy and wear the sneakers themselves. 

Perception, or what an individual thinks or understands about a product, can influence everything from how a consumer interacts with a brand to whether or not they make a purchase. As everyone holds different perceptions, it can be difficult for marketing professionals to use this factor in their marketing efforts. Perception is the factor that leads two consumers with the same need to purchase two different products to satisfy that need. It's helpful to understand the three processes which lead to differences in perception:

Selective attention: Selective attention is the process by which individuals only pay attention to information that is immediately useful to them or to people they know.

Selective distortion: Selective distortion is the process by which individuals perceive information in a biased way that reinforces their existing thoughts, beliefs, and experiences.

Selective retention: Selective retention is the process by which individuals more frequently remember information that would be useful to them and forget extraneous, non-pertinent information.

Attitudes and beliefs shape many aspects of human behaviour, including the buying and purchasing patterns they make. Attitudes, or an individual's consistent views of something, are the beliefs, pre-conceived views that individuals have established about something, interact with, and emotional feelings. Each consumer has a set of attitudes and beliefs that influence the products and services they purchase. If a consumer holds a negative set of beliefs about a specific brand or product, they likely may not make purchases and can even discourage others from purchasing that good as well. 

For example, if a consumer lives in a family that only purchases one brand of vehicle, they may hold the belief that other brands of vehicles are less superior in value, reliability, or longevity. When they go to purchase their first vehicle, it may influence them to purchase one of that same brand as they hold the brief that it is superior to others.