Marketing Psychology

Marketing Psychology

Applied behavioral science for marketing — identifying which psychological principles apply to specific challenges and showing exactly how to implement them. The skill diagnoses behavioral barriers, prescribes 2-3 relevant principles from a catalog of 70+ mental models, and turns them into concrete, testable changes to landing pages, pricing, email, copy, and ads.

Core Capabilities

• Behavioral diagnosis — map the decision journey, identify barriers (cognitive load, choice paralysis, trust deficit, friction), and prescribe matching principles
• Mental model catalog — 70+ principles across buyer psychology, persuasion/influence, pricing, design/UX, and growth
• Application by challenge — principle-by-principle playbooks for landing pages, pricing pages, email, churn reduction, and ad creative
• Pricing & conversion frameworks — three-tier/decoy pricing design, the trust cascade, the micro-commitment ladder
• Copy techniques — loss vs. gain framing, specificity bias, future pacing
• Ethical application — the persuasion/manipulation line, anti-dark-pattern boundaries, A/B testing discipline

When to Use

• A page, pricing tier, email, or ad is underperforming and you need a behavioral root-cause diagnosis
• You are designing or optimizing a pricing page (anchoring, decoy, charm pricing, tier structure)
• You want to apply psychology to copy or campaign creative with specific, testable changes
• You need to audit existing assets for missing persuasion principles or dark patterns

Quick Start

Diagnose Why Something Is Not Converting

• Identify the desired behavior (click, buy, share, return)
• Identify the current friction (too many choices, unclear value, no urgency)
• Map the visitor's emotional state (excited, skeptical, confused, impatient)
• Match to applicable principles from references/mental-models.md
• Implement 2-3 principle-based changes with specific execution

Apply Psychology to a Marketing Asset

• Select the asset (landing page, pricing page, email, ad)
• Review the applicable psychology in references/application-playbooks.md
• Choose 3-5 principles to apply
• Implement each with the specific technique described
• Measure the impact through A/B testing

References

Load the reference that matches the task — keep this file lean and pull detail on demand:

• references/mental-models.md — full catalog of 70+ principles (buyer psychology, persuasion, pricing, design/UX, growth) with definitions and marketing applications. Read when matching a barrier to the principle that addresses it.
• references/application-playbooks.md — behavioral diagnosis workflows, principle-by-challenge tables (landing pages, pricing, email, churn, ads), pricing framework, trust cascade, micro-commitment ladder, and copy techniques. Read when diagnosing a problem or applying psychology to an asset.
• references/ethics-and-quality.md — ethical guidelines (persuasion vs. manipulation), best practices, troubleshooting table, and success criteria. Read when judging whether a technique is ethical or hardening an implementation.

Python Automation Tools

• scripts/persuasion_auditor.py — audits copy for Cialdini's 7 principles plus behavioral economics techniques; flags what's applied and what's missing.
• scripts/cognitive_bias_checker.py — identifies cognitive biases leveraged (or missed) in copy, pricing pages, and landing pages.
• scripts/pricing_psychology_analyzer.py — analyzes pricing page structure for anchoring, decoy effect, charm pricing, framing, and tier design.

python scripts/persuasion_auditor.py page.html
python scripts/cognitive_bias_checker.py pricing_page.html --json
python scripts/pricing_psychology_analyzer.py pricing.json

Scope & Limitations

In Scope: Behavioral psychology principles applied to marketing, conversion optimization, pricing strategy, copy improvement, campaign design. 70+ mental models with implementation guides.

Out of Scope: Academic psychology research, clinical applications, UX research methodology (use product-team), A/B test statistical analysis tools, consumer psychology outside marketing context.

Limitations: Psychology provides hypotheses, not certainties. All changes must be A/B tested. What works for consumer SaaS may not work for enterprise. Cultural context matters significantly. Principles should be applied ethically — persuasion that helps customers make good decisions, not manipulation.

Integration Points

• Copywriting — Apply psychological principles when writing page copy (headlines, CTAs, objection handling).
• Landing Page Generator — Use psychology to guide page structure and section ordering.
• Paid Ads — Apply ad-specific psychology (mere exposure, contrast effect, curiosity gap) to creative.
• Pricing — Apply pricing psychology (anchoring, decoy, charm pricing) to pricing page design.
• Copy Editing — Use the Heightened Emotion sweep to apply psychology during editorial review.
• Marketing Context — Understanding customer psychology informs positioning and messaging strategy.