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Psychology Impacts Marketing In More Ways Than You Think

Here’s a look at some important psychological factors to keep in mind when crafting marketing and brand strategies.

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For example, purple has been widely associated with luxury and royalty, while green is considered “eco-friendly.” It’s important to keep these general concepts in mind as you design with color, but it’s more important that your brand’s color scheme fits your personality instead of general stereotypes. If you’re selling power tools to adult men, for example, you probably wouldn’t use a hot pink with a glitter palette as that opposes the general concept of “ruggedness”.

There is also additional research on color preference by gender, which found that men prefer bold colors while women like softer hues.

 

What Personality Types Say About Your Brand

According to a widely cited study, there are five different identifiable personality types when it comes to branding: ruggedness, competence, sophistication, excitement and sincerity. Regardless of what product or service you intend to sell, it more than likely fits into one of these basic categories that encompasses basic human needs.

If we take a look at one of psychology’s cornerstones, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, we see that there are the basic human needs —physiological, like eating and sleeping, then the need for safety — and above that is the social need for love and belonging, esteem, and then self-actualization.

Within this framework, you should be able to tell where your product fits on the pyramid. That should tell you how complicated or necessary the need is and how you can meet it. This can also help you link up with one of the above brand personality types: are you appealing to your audience’s need for excitement, or sophistication?

Your brand personality will appeal to the basic impulses of the human psyche: reason, desire, passion. It is essential to target these impulses accurately, although often the appeal may be subliminal using cute business names.

One study proved that when people were shown images of strong, well-known brands versus weaker, lesser-known brands, a network of cortical areas involving positive emotional processing were affected with the stronger brands, and it took less brain power to recognize and appreciate those brands.

Humans are creatures of habit and identifiable impulses, preferences and needs. Through consistency, persistence and patience — the building blocks of branding — you can connect to your target audience effectively for the long term.

 

This article has been edited and condensed.

Simon Crompton is an entrepreneur running several online businesses. Currently focusing on his marketing firm, Threecolors.blue, he is also a trained journalist sharing his knowledge via several internet blogs. In his spare time he’s an avid programmer and videographer. Connect with @PermanentStle on Twitter.

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