Email Marketing: 6 Psychological Hacks to Help Boost Revenues

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Email Marketing: 6 Psychological Hacks to Help Boost Revenues

Marketers today believe that customer relationships are their biggest asset.

Andrew Davis, a bestselling author, says that content builds relationships.

Your relationship with your customer is built on trust, and trust drives revenue. This shows that if your customers believe in you, then only they would be willing to respond to your marketing campaigns actively.

This is where email marketing comes in. Marketers who use email marketing effectively have reported an ROI of up to 119%, with 66% of consumers saying they have purchased due to emails that they received.

Of course, it’s also important how you collect email addresses. Because of their high conversion rates, exit-intent popups are always recommended. Just remember to keep your message consistent between your popups and your emails.

That way, you’ll be able to fulfill your customers’ wants and needs, stay on brand, and increase your sales consistently.

Believe it or not, this is achievable through psychology. Here are the six psychology hacks you can use to boost your open and click rates of the emails and improve your sales.

The Principle of Reciprocity

The human brain works in exciting ways.

In social psychology, the Principle of Reciprocity states that when you do someone a favor, they feel they must return it in some way or the other.

In the year 1974, a researcher named Philip Kunz experimented. He sent over 600 greeting cards to absolute strangers. Do you know what happened? 35% sent him a card back!

Now, the next logical question is how does this apply to email marketing and boosting revenues?

Well, the answer is simple.

Use emails to start campaigns where you give the customer a favor. For instance, please provide them with a voucher for a free product the next time they visit your store.

Send out 600 vouchers, and at least 35% will visit your store—maybe even more. Then, it’s up to you how you convince them to buy more while they are there.

Using the Principle of Reciprocity will help you build relationships based on customer delight—the delight and excitement come when they see that you care.

The fear of missing out (FOMO)

Have you ever felt the urge to buy something more than usual because of the “Limited time offer” sign? We all have!

That is another psychological influence at work. People are more attracted to an offering when they know the scarce stock is available.

A study conducted by Worchel, Lee, and Adewole about FOMO/ scarcity shows that two jars filled with similar cookies were shown to a group of students. They were asked to rate the desirability of the cookies in these jars.

Once eight cookies were removed from one of the jars, students said that the cookies in that respective jar were more valuable and desirable.

When implemented in real life, this study seems to work well. For example, almost 60% of millennials make reactive purchases because of the fear of missing out.

You can use this technique in your emails for marketing. For example, send emails either for a product that is available in a limited amount or the sale on that item is only for a limited time.

You can also focus on some special offer that says that if you buy within 24 or 48 hours, you can get the product at 50% off. Again, you are sure to experience a considerable spike in sales.

To give these emails a more personal touch, you can add the customer’s name within the email body. This way, many psychological factors will come together to motivate customers to come to you.

The appropriate use of colors

Psychologically, we have a fantastic relationship with colors. Many studies have shown that colors can influence our mood and habits.

Have you ever wondered why restaurants have yellow lighting? It’s because it enhances the feelings of hunger.

Blue is a soothing color that calms our minds, and so on. This human relationship with colors is a creative marketing hack.

To use this technique in your email marketing, you need to be careful and remember that the ultimate goal of an email is to get the user to click on the CTA.

This is why many experts recommend the use of complementary colors. For example, the call-to-action should be 180 degrees apart from the text color on an HSB (hue-saturation-brightness) palette used to select colors in image editing or graphics application which makes it stand out.

As a result, a user is more likely to click on it than on a monochromatic color scheme.

Taking it slowly: the foot-in-the-door technique

Next in line is the foot-in-the-door technique.

What this entails is that you ask for a small favor. Then, you bring up the bigger request after the other person has agreed to it.

While you want them to “open the door” so you can go in (the big request), you start by getting your “foot” in first (the small request), then your “hand,” “arm,” and so on.

This psychology hack was researched by Freedman and Fraser back in 1966. They called some housewives and asked them about their products to clean their homes. After a couple of days, they were again called and asked if 5 to 6 men came over to their place and inspected these products.

Women who participated in the first round were more likely to agree to this subsequent request.

You can apply this technique in email marketing in a variety of ways.

You can ask them to sign up for a newsletter by providing you with the email address, filling out a survey, or providing feedback.

These are the small things you can use to bring the customer closer.

Price Anchoring

This concept explains how people estimate the prices and value of products.

Placing two products that are alternatives to each other side-by-side and lowering the price of one shows that people are more inclined towards buying the cheap one as it seems like a good bet.

The execution of such a sale is based on the mere technique of price anchoring.

A study conducted by researchers Northcraft and Neale showed how price anchoring affects sales. They asked the research participants to estimate the value of a house. Pamphlets were also distributed among them with normal and exaggerated prices mentioned in them.

Looking at the inflated prices, the participants dramatically overestimated the cost of the house.

You can use this technique in email marketing. For example, you can show the old and new prices of a product together, or you can display the more expensive item in the newsletter first and then show the lower-priced product.

Your customer will be more likely to see the second item as the better deal.

Cut the number of choices.

In psychological terms, this is the ‘less is more technique. So stated that when you provide people with many alternatives, your customers become confused.

They would be more interested, but the confusion will reduce the purchase ratios since they’ll have to evaluate each option.

As a result, fewer options are more appropriate because the chance of getting sales is higher.

One study that ran an experiment using jam was put forward by researchers Iyengar and Lepper.

Their experiment showed one group of shoppers 24 different types of jams, while another group was shown only 6. The group established 24 other jams that initially showed interest, but only 3% of the group participants made an actual purchase.

On the other hand, the group that was shown six jams showed less interest initially, but 30% of them ended up buying jams.

This shows the power of fewer options. You can use this psychology hack to your benefit in email marketing by customizing the choices that you give to your customers.

Email is a primary means of niche targeting: customers feel special.

Using the ‘less is more approach, this attraction can motivate sales. While your product may have six variants, for instance, in emails, you can narrow it down to 3 based on what you know about the customer’s preferences.

The data to determine this is relatively easy to get. Customer analysis reports or previous sale patterns are most effective in this regard.

It may sound like a lot of work, but the rewards of the effort are equally impressive.

Wrapping up

Marketers worldwide agree that today, the customer is the hero of the story.

Businesses that follow this principle will prosper, but these customers are hard to attract. However, things become more accessible once a company understands the secret to attract and engaging customers.

This is achievable through psychology, and as you add layers of personal interaction, the relationships you build can last a long time.

In essence, psychology and email marketing are a lethal combination.

When you take advantage of that potent mix, you will see significant increases in your revenues and customer relationships.

Email Marketing: 6 Psychological Hacks to Help Boost Revenues

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