Psychological triggers.......... #61
- Adrian Dionisio - business737 owner
- Mar 16, 2022
- 7 min read
Updated: Apr 4, 2024
It is important for business owners to understand what drives people to take action.
How can you drive customers to make decisions? By implementing certain processes that act as psychological triggers.
15 of these psychological triggers exist. They trigger feelings of
Want
Need
Desire
The most successful businesses incorporate many of these 15 triggers into their marketing and advertising. You too can use these to drive customers to your business.
15 triggers to use in your marketing and advertising
1. Need to avoid pain
2. Desire to gain pleasure
3. Novelty
4 Explaining why they should do something
5. An emotional story
6. Simplifying the solution
7. Creating a Common Enemy
8. Using curiosity to inspire
9. Building Anticipation
10. Use Social Proof
11. Create Reference Points
12. Making people feel significant
13. Building a Community
14. Implementing Scarcity
15. Building Controversy
1. Need to avoid pain
Why do we avoid pain? It's a natural human tendency. Much of our lives is shaped around this instinct. We turn away from what hurts, and seek safety in what's pleasurable and familiar.
Pain signals potential harm. This is why it immediately attracts attention and motivates decisions and action.
What are you customer pain points? What are their problems? Solve their problems and your business will thrive - after all everyone wants to avoid problems and pain.
Negative Emotion Power Words
Beware – Urges a sense of caution.
Caution – Something to fear.
Risky – Implies there could be danger involved.
Avoid – Tells people to steer clear of something.
Costly – Tells people something is too expensive.
Heartbreaking – Implies something is devastating.
Hoax – Tells people something is a lie.
Untested – Says that something is not trustworthy.
Scary – Makes people think about a fearful feeling.
2. Desire to gain pleasure
This is the driving forces of all human behaviour. We are driven by the need and the desire to gain pleasure (and avoid pain).
Positive Emotion Power Words
Amazing – describing the level of greatness your product has appeals to people.
Easy – Nobody wants a complicated product; telling people how simple it is to use makes it appealing.
Inspiring – Tells your audience your product will evoke new insight.
Epic – Makes people feel the sense of adventure.
Confidential – A reassuring word that the customer is protected.
Imagine – A command that gets people thinking and more engaged.
Incredible – States the magnitude of greatness.
Powerful – States the strength of your brand.
You – Speaks to the customer on a personal level and avoids arbitrary speech.
3. Novelty
Exposure to something new and unfamiliar increases the release of dopamine in the brain. The "novelty effect" describes a positive effect that is entirely due to fact that there is a change or something new.
novel events are all more likely to be remembered than others
Many businesses tie in current events or celebrities that are currently on the top of people’s minds into their marketing. This creates triggers that make people remember their product / service / business.
Use the "novelty effect" to your advantage, your business will be thankful!
4. Explaining why they should do something
Our rational mind is always searching for meanings, even when there is no inherent meaning. We seek out explanations to understand everything we experience in life.
In the famous Xerox experiment by psychologist Ellen Langer, she found that people are willing to do more for you if you give them a reason, even if the reason is completely arbitrary.
People standing in line to use a photocopier were 34% more likely to let someone cut in front of them, even when their reason was as meaningless as “because I have to make some copies.”
Explain why your business is the best choice. Explain why they should choose you.
5. An emotional story
Story trigger emotions. 95% of cognition happens outside of our conscious brain and inside our subconscious, emotional brain.
Stories activates parts of the brain associated with sight, sound, taste, and movement. They make us feel an experience without directly experiencing it.
Transport people into the world of the story and light up their emotional brain. This is where we make our decision whether to buy or not. So that is where you as a business owner need to venture into.
Read about the power of narrative here. Use Disney's framework for storytelling (click here).
6. Simplifying the solution
People gravitate to the least demanding course of action. Effort is a cost, and the acquisition of skill is driven by the balance of benefits and costs. Laziness is said to be built deep into our nature.
Show them how your product makes it fool-proof to achieve the result they want - in the fastest time possible. Create an easy-to-follow framework for your audience to follow.
Deep down we know that achieving the result we want takes work, yet we still don’t want to do the work. So give your audience what they want, the easiest and simplest solution, on the front end and teach them what they need on the back end.
7. Creating a Common Enemy
Create a common enemy. Ally with your prospects against them. Get them fired up to invest in your products and services.
Every audience has a common enemy. They believe this enemy is the reason they are not getting the results they want.
Sociologist Georg Simmel argued that we create common enemies because it unites us with groups of people we believe to be like us.
It also allows us to create an explanation for why bad things happen in the world.
We always seek understanding. This is why we create enemies to ensure that the world makes sense again. Otherwise, why would bad things happen to good people?
8 Using curiosity to inspire
If there is a gap between what we know and what we want to know, we will take action to fill that gap. It is referred to as the Information Gap Theory.
Curiosity inspires action. It increases activity in the parts of the brain associated with pleasure. Triggering curiosity will ensure that your prospects open your emails, promote your content, and buy your products in order to fill the gap between the teaser you leave them with and the answer that lies beyond it.
9. Building Anticipation
Did you know that anticipation is a key stage in happiness? Having something to look forward to, bring happiness into your life well before the event actually takes place.
Create publicity for your products before they are released to get people excited about them. This will trigger pleasurable emotions that they will associate with your product and eventually buy them when your product is released.
Have multiple layers not just the pre release. Build it up!
10. Use Social Proof
Get people who are similar to the person you’re trying to persuade - to speak on your behalf. It’s much more effective than doing the persuading yourself!
We are social creatures. We look to others to determine what actions we should take. Show your prospects how much others are benefiting from your product so that they know it works. Use testimonials from your clients or show numbers of how many people use your products to let your audience know that your product produces results.
11. Create Reference Points
People focus on the advantage of one thing over another. This is how we generally estimate value. There is no internal value meter that tells us how much things are worth. We make judgments based on references from previous experiences.
You can create price juxtapositions and offer bargains sporadically to induce a previous reference that makes this new experience worthwhile. This will make people more likely to buy your products.
12. Making people Feel Significant
Make your customer feel important. Make them feel significant. This cannot be underestimated. Let them know you actually care about them. Make sure your prospects know how much they care about your customers.
Never underestimate customer care and support. Deep down we all want to feel important and significant, not just in our own eyes, in the eyes of our peers as well.
Excellent service makes your customers feel like you value them. It makes them more likely to buy from you, and keep on buying from you. Always provide the best customer support and experience as possible (read more).
There are many ways to make a person feel valued. However, people know when someone is faking concern. Nothing substitutes genuinely valuing the needs of your customers. Do that and they will love you for it.
13. Build a Community
We have an inherent need to be a part of a social community and to feel connected to others. It makes us feel;
Secure
Comfortable
It inspires us to take action
It inspires us to achieve our desired results
Can your business give the customer something to make them feel like they are now part of your community? This can build loyalty. Make your customers proud to be included in your group.
One way to build community is with a compelling vision. Apple did this with great success. People bought into it and still do to this day
“In everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo and thinking differently. We do this by making our products beautifully designed and simple to use. We just happen to make great computers. Do you want to buy one?”
Community is the very foundation of their entire business model. This is why Apple fans are so loyal to their community.
Build your community by creating a compelling why that drives your business forward and enrols people into your vision for the world. Do this and your tribe will promote your business without you even having to ask for it.
14. Implement Scarcity
The less there is of something, the more people consider it to be a highly valued commodity. In turn this means the more they will want to buy it.
Use scarcity in your marketing by eliminating any possibility of future abundance in the minds of your prospects. Either maintain the scarcity or gradually increase the level of abundance, without revealing it to your audience ahead of time.
Some other ways to use scarcity in your marketing are to put a countdown clock on your product page, create a limited number of products in a given time frame, or create a limited level of access.
15. Build Controversy
Too much controversy turns people away, but small amounts draw people in.
Mild controversy in your marketing engages your audience. It not only inspires curiosity, but it triggers anger as well. And anger is the most effective emotion in creating viral content.
Study the top stories at Digg or MSN.com and you’ll notice a pattern: the top stories all polarise people. Do not try to appeal to everyone. Instead, take a strong stance and polarise people. If you make it threaten people’s 3 Bs — behaviour, belief, or belongings — you get a huge virus-like dispersion Tim Ferris
Think about your audience and what their beliefs are. Challenge some of those beliefs or align with them to polarize the other side of the argument. Remember, avoid politics, race, and religion, but everything else is fair game.
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