How the Psychology of Liking Can Increase Sales
Understanding the principle of liking and knowing how to use it in your marketing and on your website can give you an unfair advantage over the competition.
Loss aversion refers to the tendency of people to strongly prefer avoiding losses to acquiring gains. Studies show that loss aversion is twice as powerful psychologically as the acquisition of something. Just the idea of a loss is enough to create a strong reaction. Loss aversion is a powerful motivator in all aspects of life, including consumer behavior.
You’re familiar with loss aversion marketing tactics whether you realize it or not. They’re everywhere.
'Only 3 left in stock! Order now!'
'Available while supplies last.'
'Flash Sale! Today Only!'
'Don’t miss out on this awesome deal!'
We are invited, pressured and cajoled to purchase using the fear of loss every single day. These hard-sell pressure tactics create what marketers call 'urgency.'
And, while these urgency tactics may sometimes be obnoxious, they work. Urgency plays directly to our desire to avoid loss. Your marketing efforts should take these fear of loss tactics into account when planning their overall strategy.
Loss aversion can also help your business keep existing customers.
Fear of loss has a way of immobilizing people. As the old saying goes, 'A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.' We want to hold on to what we know, even if there may be something better waiting for us.
And, why do we stick with what we know? Because it’s also possible that what’s waiting for us is worse than what we already have.
People work hard to get what they have. And once we’ve got something, we hate to let it go. This is true whether the thing we have is actually ours or if we just think of it as ours.
At the end of the day, despite our best intentions, all people really do subconsciously think that they are the center of the universe. And, why not? We spend our entire lives seeing the world through the lens of our own experience. We are the centers of our own little universes.
What that means is that when we see things happen to other people, we subconsciously imagine that happening to ourselves as well. So, if we see someone holding an item we think looks cool, we imagine ourselves in that role, too. Couple this feeling of ownership with the fear of loss and it creates a powerful hook into our brains.
There are many important principles, theories, and concepts used in marketing psychology. These include:
You can research each of these principles, plus dozens of other key principles of marketing psychology, via the links below.
Choose from 30+ categories, complete a project brief, and pick a package that fits your budget.
Collaborate with dozens of creatives, give feedback and score, and get revised custom designs.
Work with the winner to finalize your favorite design and get print/web-ready files and full IP rights.
Not into crowds?
Pick a creative and work 1-to-1
There’s a strong link connecting marketing and psychology. In order to build proper connections with customers and prospects, marketers must understand how people behave and what motivates them to make purchasing decisions. Most consumer behavior scientists and economists agree that people do not make decisions in a vacuum.
There are many psychological factors that influence consumer behavior. Four of the most important factors are motivation, perception, learning, and the consumer's belief system.
Marketing psychologists study consumers and how different factors such as age, education, personal habits, personal beliefs, and others factors, lead consumers to make purchasing decisions.
Psychographics is the qualitative methodology of studying consumers based on psychological characteristics and traits. These include values, desires, goals, interests, and lifestyle choices. The goal of psychographics is to understand peoples' emotions and values so that a business can market more effectively.
The four types of market segmentation include: demographic, geographic, psychographic, and behavioral.
Behavioral characteristics in marketing include a customer's age, gender, income, location, and occupation. These characteristics frequently correlate to behavioral data and the aggregated data can often be used to derive certain conclusions about other segmentation data.
Understanding the principle of liking and knowing how to use it in your marketing and on your website can give you an unfair advantage over the competition.
Reciprocity is a powerful psychological principle that can help you to grow your business faster.
Here’s how you can level the playing field and get an advantage for your business, using scarcity marketing techniques.
The best way to earn the loyalty of customers and prospects is to make them commit to something.
What makes emotional marketing powerful and how you can use emotional marketing to increase sales.
Here’s what you need to know about loss aversion and 10 proven loss aversion marketing tactics that can help amplify your marketing efforts.
The anchoring effect can work for you or against you. It’s one of the most important effects in cognitive psychology.
How fonts, shapes, lines, colors, and composition can affect how a logo can influence purchasing decisions.
By understanding the emotions, human behaviors, and people’s motivations, you can significantly impact the success of the products you design and sell.
Neuroscience can help you to make better marketing decisions and can help you to improve your marketing strategy.
Knowing how to get people to respond favorably to your packaging design will help you sell more products.
7 fundamentals of marketing psychology that you can implement today to help your business succeed.
Our award-winning dedicated customer support team has a 99% satisfaction rating, and can help by phone, mail and chat.
We're happy only when you are.
Our support team is always ready to help you with a free, no obligation design consultation.