The consumer buying journey has only 5 basic steps, but the consumer psychology at each stage is very complex. Sometimes good products or cheap prices can still be defeated by psychological rules and biases that lie deep within the consumer’s perception. Therefore, today’s article will help you clarify each psychological development of consumers on the buying journey and how brands can take advantage of and overcome the barriers of those psychological rules, speeding up the buying process!
Phase 1: Problem Identification
The origin of every buying decision is a need – a reason to buy. To form a need, the first step in the consumer’s buying journey is that they must realize that there is a problem that needs to be solved. These can be basic problems such as hunger, thirst, sleepiness, etc. or larger desires such as the desire to express themselves and the desire to own a new product. When these factors are activated, the consumer’s buying process officially begins.
Problem awareness can be created from internal factors such as: Emotions, physiological state of the body, … and stimulated by external factors such as reading an article, seeing a targeted advertisement, … However, not in all cases do customers perceive the problem, sometimes the brand needs to have some psychological measures to “Trigger” them.
What can brands do to increase their problem recognition and stimulate customer demand?
- Stimulate customers’ imagination about how they will have the product in their lives: Consumers do not always see problems in their lives, so they may find your product quite redundant in their daily lives. For example, you sell a health supplement product, anti-stroke, but customers feel that they are healthy and have no reason to “anti-stroke”. To solve this, the brand needs to show customers what changes will happen when they use the product, imagine what their life will be like with or without the product. In the above example: The brand can give warnings about stroke, without the product, how high can the customer’s risk of stroke increase?
- FOMO: The fear of missing out creates a need to buy a product even when the user does not really need that product. This psychology is stimulated quite easily through limiting the “opportunity” to buy. For example, short-term promotions, special limited collections, out-of-stock information, etc. make consumers feel that if they do not buy the product now, they will not be able to buy the product again.
- Use social proof: When consumers feel that everyone around them is using a certain solution or product, they will tend to develop similar needs to the community. Therefore, promote information and images of other customers using the brand’s products on the media channels that customers often visit.
Phase 2: Information Gathering
In the second stage of the customer journey, consumers have identified a problem and are looking for solutions to solve their problem. This is the time when brands need to appear to provide information about products and solutions to customers. And especially how to attract customers and make them want to read the information that the brand provides.
In the process of finding information about a product or solution, consumers can use many forms such as reading articles, reading news, searching on Google, following the brand’s communication channels or referring to review channels on social networks. That is the reason why brands always have to make efforts to communicate on multiple channels, helping customers find information most conveniently.
However, in the process of finding information, users also encounter psychological barriers. They easily feel discouraged because they feel that finding information is too difficult and lead to the intention to give up. As a result, no matter how attractive the brand’s content is, how good the product’s functionality is, it is still ineffective because it cannot reach customers. Tools such as SEO keyword optimization, Targeted advertising, etc. only help information reach customers faster, but do not really help them overcome this psychological barrier. And brands cannot cut important information to make it easier for consumers to absorb.
So, what the brand needs to do here is to change the customer’s “feeling” about their information search journey! This will motivate customers to learn about the brand’s products and services.
Use “easier” language
In particular, the way of writing information is one of the very important notes in this stage, just changing a few words can help the brand break down the psychological barriers of users. Use the words “easy”, “simple” or “enough” in the sentence, then your customers will feel that what you want them to do is not too difficult. In addition, the brand should let customers know exactly how long it will take to do that job.
For example:
- When you want customers to move to the product trial section using AR and VR technology, instead of saying “Click to see the actual lipstick color” or replace it with “It only takes 5 seconds for you to experience the actual lipstick color”.
- Or if you are an application that provides flight booking services, instead of saying “Please fill in your information to see suitable flights”, change it to a more attractive sentence “It only takes 5 seconds to fill in simple information, let us find the best flight for you”.
On the other hand, words like “must,” “can’t,” “won’t,” “must,” and “don’t” can create negative feelings in customers and should be eliminated from sentences. For example, instead of saying “we don’t have that item in stock,” say “that item will be back in stock in just two weeks.”
Even the choice of font can change the way users access information. With the same content, fonts that are too complex and have too many strokes will make it more difficult for users to absorb information.
Break up your information, making the flow of information more structured
Structure your information and let your customers know exactly how many steps it will take to complete the process. This will keep them from feeling confused and frustrated.
Similarly, when presenting content, writers should also break the content into short paragraphs to make it easier for readers to absorb. In addition, a smart way to attract readers is to tell them about the structure right in the title “5 tips to” or “4 ways to” will make it easier for readers to click.
Phase 3: Evaluating Options – The Main Phase
In step 3 of the buying process, consumers will start comparing you and other similar products and services on the market. In terms of logical thinking, the cheaper product or the product with the best performance will win. However, logic is not the only factor, in the comparison process consumers are also affected by their psychological biases.
Therefore, brands can change customers’ perceptions, motivating them to choose your product by increasing the perceived “value” of the product. Perceived value is what customers assign to your product through their contact with the brand, it is not the actual value that the product brings. To increase perceived value, brands have measures such as:
- Social Proof: Reviews from other consumers are always the most important evidence that your product is of high value. A restaurant on Shopee with only 4.5 points but +999 reviews will attract users and make them trust more than a restaurant with 4.9 points but only +10 reviews. So add content related to ratings and reviews from previous users to your communication channels such as website or social media.
- Take advantage of the “Labor Illusion” mentality: Consumers tend to think that when a brand puts more effort into a product, it means the product will be more valuable. Therefore, one of the very simple ways to increase the value of a product is to show the entire process by which you created the product: How did you source the raw materials? How did you build the factory? Was the recruitment of workers strict? Long working hours?… The more of these factors, the higher the value of the product in the eyes of customers.
- Leveraging Endowment Psychology: The psychological effect of ownership can also be used in this stage. This psychology is used by many brands to make customers feel a sense of virtual ownership and motivate them to buy to own the actual product. This tactic has been specifically analyzed by Marketing AI through a number of case studies from the IKEA and Converse brands here. Brands can stimulate this psychological effect through a number of tricks such as: Creating a lifelike product trial experience, Stimulating customers’ imagination when using the product or Allowing them to participate in the product creation process, etc.
- “Reciprocity” Psychology: Reciprocity creates a bond that makes consumers feel that they have received a benefit from the brand and need to repay the brand’s kindness. Therefore, many brands have used this psychology to sway customers’ choice towards you instead of your competitors. Learn more about how to exploit the “Reciprocity” psychological effect here.
Phase 4: Purchase & Payment
Even though customers have decided to choose your product, when it comes to purchasing, there will still be psychological barriers that can stop the purchasing process right here. For example, they suddenly feel sad when having to spend a sum of money that they regret, or they hesitate more while waiting for your website to load data, etc. Therefore, the first thing to ensure the purchasing process and take place smoothly is that the user experience needs to be optimized, from the checkout process to the shopping cart.
Brands also need to pay attention to the following psychological phenomena:
- Boosting the Endowment Effect: At this stage, brands can also use the endowment effect again to reinforce customers’ desire to recommend the product.
- Using the Anchoring Effect: Even though they have decided to buy your product, the price is still a factor that makes consumers hesitate and can cancel the purchase decision. Therefore, brands can use the anchoring effect to conquer users at this stage. For example, the brand can launch a product with an initial price of 200,000 but then give users exclusive discount codes or suddenly launch a discount program down to only 150,000. Customers will feel like they are getting a bargain and are strongly attracted to the product. Discover more about the Anchoring Effect here.
- Reducing Payment Pain: No matter how much the amount is, users can still experience payment pain to reduce this pain can be implemented some very simple approaches such as using cashless payment, prepaid postpaid payment, bundled payment, available subscription payment, auto-renewal,… Learn more about how to reduce consumer payment pain here.
- Zeigarnik Effect: People tend to feel uncomfortable when they have not completed something. Therefore, brands can take advantage of this psychological effect to urge users to complete the checkout process, by dividing the purchase process into stages and allowing users to track progress bars. A simple example is dividing steps such as filling in personal information, filling in payment information, etc. into a progress bar on the website, to encourage users to learn more about the product. Learn more about the Zeigarnik effect here.
- Eliminate Idleness Aversion : Limit the idle waiting time of customers such as waiting for the website to load, waiting for staff to prepare to pack the product, etc. to avoid forming the psychological effect of Idleness Aversion. Some tips to eliminate this psychology are: Adding games while customers wait, advertising other products, letting customers track progress, etc.
Phase 4: After Purchase
The consumer experience does not stop at the moment of purchase. After purchasing, the brand needs to make customers feel satisfied with their decision, thereby creating conditions for them to come back to buy the next time. One of the most frightening psychology in this stage is buyer’s remorse. After purchasing, they often ask questions such as: Was my decision really right? Is the product worth the money? … this reduces their experience with the product.
Therefore, brands need to anticipate these situations and provide customers with product experiences that make them feel more satisfied with their decision. Some psychological measures that can be exploited during this stage are:
- Continue to promote social proof: Continue to reinforce customer confidence after purchasing the product by promoting reviews from other customers. Make them feel that others around them are also using the same product as them and are satisfied.
- Building a community: People always have social needs. Therefore, brands can build a community of product users. From there, create a social space for users to participate in exchanges and discussions during the process of using the product.
- For Saas products, brands should also pay attention to the Goal Gradient Effect: This is a psychological effect that makes people feel happier when they achieve a certain goal or achievement. In the process of using SaaS products and services such as online courses, online design tools, etc., brands can take advantage of this effect to encourage users to use more. By being able to divide the usage process into stages, small goals and give customers gifts such as discount codes, exclusive vouchers after they complete a certain goal.
Conclusion:
The consumer’s buying journey always goes through 5 main stages, including: Problem identification, information collection, comparison between options, purchase decision and post-purchase experience. At each of these stages, consumers will have different psychological states and be governed by different psychological laws. Even when making a purchase decision, complex psychology can still make them stop right at the payment gate. Therefore, the consumer’s buying journey is also a psychological battle in which brands need to understand each psychological law of customers. Hopefully, the above basic psychology has helped you better understand the thinking of customers and have an effective strategy to conquer them at each stage.
Reference: Collection
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