---
title: "Practical Tips: 6 Useful Consumer Psychology Insights"
description: "This article discusses whether consumers are foolish, arguing that marketing is essentially a psychological game with consumers. It outlines six psychological traits that marketers can leverage: price sensitivity, appearance, urgency, practicality, social proof, and the love of spectacle, providing practical strategies for each."
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published: "2015-01-04"
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# Practical Tips: 6 Useful Consumer Psychology Insights

> This article discusses whether consumers are foolish, arguing that marketing is essentially a psychological game with consumers. It outlines six psychological traits that marketers can leverage: price sensitivity, appearance, urgency, practicality, social proof, and the love of spectacle, providing practical strategies for each.

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Are consumers really fools? This needs to be viewed from two sides. Sometimes they are unbelievably foolish, and other times they are shrewd beyond measure. Fools are the happiest people in the world, but there aren't that many fools; it's just that their intelligence goes dormant at certain times. When it goes dormant depends entirely on the consumer's psychology. That's why we've invented various marketing strategies, and the essence of marketing is a psychological game with consumers. What psychological traits do consumers typically exhibit that we can leverage?

**1. Low Price Covers All Flaws**
Currently, after the price drop of the Smartisan T1, its ads are everywhere in subways and elevators, shifting from sentiment to sales appeal, with the 3000 yuan pricing strategy weakening.

In this era, not just for phones, but for any product, the last line of defense against consumer resistance is price. In fact, the general consumer chooses products based on price. So "low price covers all flaws" is the most basic rule. Because of this, even ugly clothes get worn, bad restaurants get patrons, and wilted vegetables get bought.

The world needs perfectionists, but not that many. Every category has a "suitable price point" for high, middle, and low-end consumers. Try to control costs to position your product at a suitable price point, which increases the likelihood of trial purchases when a new product launches.

Of course, while keeping costs within a reasonable range, also ensure the core value of the product addresses the core pain point. Have one outstanding differentiator, and let other aspects be mediocre. If there's no outstanding differentiator, then support the overall performance with multiple values. It's because of this contradiction that concepts like "small packaging," "fast fashion," "small batches," "supply chain," and "pre-sale" are flourishing.

Before the internet thinking era, few Chinese health liquor brands were profitable. Jing Jiu, which reduced quantity and price to sell small bottles, is one example. Because the cost of trial consumption decreased, sales increased, consumption habits formed, and the bargaining power of manufacturers and retailers increased, creating a virtuous cycle. Behind Xiaomi's "sense of participation" also lies its low pricing. So, when there's no established market base, pricing factors are more important than positioning strategy.

**2. Good Looks Add Points**
In this appearance-obsessed era, as technology barriers weaken and product functions become similar, it's hard to make major breakthroughs in core pain points. The importance of product appearance (or interface) design is increasingly prominent.

A product goes from nothing to something, from bones to skin. When it faces the market, the first thing consumers see is the skin. If it doesn't look good, it might be eliminated in the first round of comparison. This is especially true for categories without functional differences.

If the price is reasonable and it looks good, consumers become more tolerant. If the category function is also decent, then it's basically a done deal. However, in the wave of internet thinking, it's not easy to make basic technology compromise to the ultimate experience. Truly thinking and executing "from outside to inside" is even rarer. And disruption comes from this kind of reverse thinking and action.

When we observe consumer behavior in supermarkets, it's easy to see: when choosing daily necessities like shampoo, with similar price, function, and capacity, most consumers base their choice on appearance.

**3. The Urgent Matters Most**
There's a saying: "Help the urgent, not the poor." This applies to products too. Focus on urgent pain points. The more urgent the pain point your product solves, the more eager consumers are to buy. In such cases, consumers become simple, less picky, and lower demands naturally facilitate sales.

"The present" is the most important time concept in Buddhism. The most important thing for people is the present (the present refers to the interval from now to the next moment, such as the period from product development to launch). Grasping the present is the most real. If you develop a product obsessed with solving future problems, you'll need long-term market cultivation to make consumers aware of the problem and then value your product. That's time-consuming and laborious.

The author once did strategy for a women's brand, reordering over ten product function claims by urgency of need. Whitening and moisturizing were placed secondary, while urgent issues like spot removal and wrinkle reduction were prioritized. Although whitening is also a strong need, spot removal and wrinkle reduction are more urgent. Whitening can wait, but spot removal and wrinkle reduction cannot. The more urgent the need, the weaker the consumer resistance, and the easier it is to close a sale.

**4. Never Leave Practicality**
The term "bige" (style) has been elevated to a pedestal in the internet commerce era, but the author believes that no matter how high the style, if it's not grounded, it won't work. Except for a few categories, most products without practical value, no matter how stylish, won't become mainstream.

The core value of a product must be based on practicality (if spiritual needs are primary, satisfying strong spiritual needs is also practical). Solving 100 peripheral problems is not as good as solving one core problem.

A clear example in this regard is women's clothing.

Some women's clothing brands have huge sales, but we rarely see people wearing them on the street. Because the design deviates from practicality, consumers buy them and put them in the closet, with no suitable occasion to wear them or matching shoes and bags. They can only look at them. Such brands can achieve annual sales of hundreds of millions or even billions. But they struggle to compete with practical brands and easily hit a ceiling.

**5. Respect the Power of Public Opinion**
The general public is blindly conformist, seeking a little individuality within the crowd, but actually has no independent opinion. All tendencies are based on social consensus. The vast majority conform to social opinion, a minority rebel against it, and a very few influence it.

To disrupt an industry, you must lead the conversation. People will abandon aesthetics to conform to prevailing social opinion.

To guide public opinion, advertising and PR are equally important. Especially in an era where online media dominates social discourse, we see that brands on the pedestal have strong PR strategies and execution. The biggest difference between advertising and PR is: negative advertising can still produce positive value, while negative PR can produce negative value. In other words, bad advertising won't kill a brand, even if the ad is more annoying than Brain Gold or Hengyuanxiang; but bad PR can kill a brand, no matter how much is spent or how aggressive the PR is.

The saying "the best word-of-mouth comes from good products" is not wrong, but it's definitely not achieved solely by good products.

**6. People Love a Spectacle**
In social marketing that aims to do more with less, the majority are onlookers, and the minority are participants. Communication relies mainly on onlookers, while sales rely mainly on participants. To get participants to pay, we first need to attract onlookers. It seems complex, but in summary: first, create a buzz. A buzz creates more possibilities and increases engagement.

There are many dimensions to a buzz, such as being in an inherently lively industry, engaging with lively media, or making your marketing lively.

Without special channels, the possibility of making a fortune quietly is minimal. High-profile marketing, triggered by curiosity from the buzz, leads to onlookers and word-of-mouth. Consumer resistance to familiar products will also diminish.

Consumer psychology drives behavior. Finding the right price point, valuing appearance design, solving immediate problems, not abandoning practicality, running advertising and PR in parallel, and making marketing lively are all basic strategies to weaken consumer psychological defenses. If you solidly implement these six points, consumers will be "fools."

Daonong recently opened a public account specifically about how traditional enterprises can do WeChat marketing well. If you're interested, you can follow it. Search for the WeChat ID above or scan the QR code below to follow.

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