FIGARODIGITAL.CO.UK
ESSAYS
nyone who’s been near a digital marketing conference recently will be fully familiar with rule number one in the online marketers’ manual: know your customers. Easy to say, of
course. But since customers are also human beings, consumer behaviour is subject to a vast range of infl uences and impulses. Some of those are broadly predictable. Others may appear wildly random. Web psychologist Nathalie Nahai is the author of the book Webs of Infl uence: The Psychology of Online Persuasion, which helps businesses understand behaviour online by applying the principles of psychology, neuroscience and behavioural economics. A frequent speaker at industry events, she also works directly with brands and agencies as a consultant and trainer and runs her own weekly podcast. “I’m interested in how the online
environment affects our behaviour and actions,” she says. “If you’re looking at a website, what psychological principles are employed in the design, copy and user experience? What principles are being employed to encourage people to take certain actions?”
NUDGE THEORY The interface between marketing and psychology, of course, goes back to the birth of both disciplines. Back in the 1950s Vance Packard’s bestseller The Hidden Persuaders presented a proudly sceptical account of the methods employed by Mad Men-era advertisers to infl uence consumers. Here in the digitised 21st century we’re highly aware of when our buttons are being pushed and integrity is an integral part of effective online marketing. “I’m a massive advocate for the ethical use of persuasion principles,” says Nahai. “And the way you judge whether something is ethical or not is to ask yourself: does this create an
Marketing in Mind
Web Psychologist Nathalie Nahai is the author of the book Webs of Influence: The Psychology of Online Persuasion. Figaro Digital caught up with her to chat about ethics, web design, psychographic profiling
and whether there’s a ‘buy’ button in the brain
48 issue 21 july 2014
outcome that’s mutually benefi cial to my customers and to myself? The work I do involves understanding better the motivations behind online actions and how those can be infl uenced or nudged for mutual benefi t.”
Nahai divides her book into three sections. The fi rst focuses on targeting. The second explores persuasive communication techniques and examines the relationship between cultural specifi city and aesthetic judgement. (In the UK, for example, orange connotes cheapness, but in the Netherlands it’s the national colour.) The third section explains how to deploy some of those techniques ethically. So how can marketers apply psychological insight in their day-to-day work?
ANALYSE THIS
“With big data and analytics you can get quite a clear picture of who your customers are and how they’re segmented, but it’s much less obvious what the psychography of those audiences is.” Psychographic insight, explains Nahai, is the study of the various, interwoven factors that make us who and what we are: our values, opinions, social attitudes and cultural inclinations. “Take 18-25 year old females working
in PR, for example.” she says. “You know they’re accessing your website on a number of devices, which browsers they’re using and so on, and you can make certain inferences from that. What you might not know is the degree to which they’re conscientious, open, extrovert, agreeable or neurotic, which are the classic fi ve big personality traits.” That psychographic information, which can be gathered through quizzes, questionnaires, surveys and other tools, provides powerful insight into consumers’ motivations. “Then you need to refl ect those preferences and communicate
ARTICLE JON FORTGANG
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