Fact is, marketing is by definition is psychology applied to business. Customers make purchase decisions based largely on the messages they receive. However, are our marketing efforts crafting that message carefully enough? What are the psychological and physiological factors that influence how we receive and retain a marketing message?
The following excerpt from "The Psychology of Marketing" covers the power and psychology of intrigue.
Human eyes don’t see everything at once; the mind fills in the gaps. We are unable to remember every explicit detail so our mind manufactures the details tying the notes our mind took at the time together. The human mind is an eight pound guessing machine, so what happens when it receives an incomplete marketing message? It goes to work trying to solve the puzzle.
Teaser campaigns play on our interest in solving the partial message. The key is to make that partial message so strange or provoking that the mind can almost make out the answer but never does until the campaign’s conclusion.
A similar take on the psychology of intrigue is the innovative or just plain weird. Nothing can make your message stand out, be remembered and even discussed more than a strange, incomplete message. The next time you’re in a good loud cocktail party shout these words just loud enough for those near you to hear: “I don’t know. It started with this friendly monkey and then it…” and then trail off. You’ll see, first hand, the power of intrigue.
Topics also covered in "The Psychology of Marketing" include:
- Humble Extravagance: Marketing to the 'Penny Wise & Pound Foolish'
- Reverse Psychology: Though often quoted, it’s rarely understood.
- Practice Makes Permanent: Reach, Frequency & Retention rates
- A Man Goes Into a Bar: The Retention Power of Humorous Ads
- I Heard About That: Public Relations in the Information Age
- Optical Delusions: How to break the rules of design for a reason.
- What's in it for me?: Incentive-based marketing
- What's in it for you?: Marketing to the modern skeptical consumer
"The Psychology of Marketing" is available for download after a short registration from our new website: http://www.justindowneymarketing.com/CFR/jdm_Registration.php?refer=psych.
2 comments:
Babel is the incorrect spelling in this usage. I'm not trying to be a smart alec, just helpful.
"Babble"
The Oxford Dictionary of Current English | Date: 2008
bab•ble / ˈbabəl/
• v. [intr.] talk rapidly and continuously in a foolish, excited, or incomprehensible way.
Nice catch. It's been an internal debate at JDM HQ over which version to use.
The counter-argument is that Psychologists are not "Speaking rapidly, foolishly, or in an incomprehensible way." Rather, each speaks their own language and few of them agree on anything, as was the case in the story of The Tower of Babel.
It's not a big deal to change it. Does anyone else want to weigh in?
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