Understanding the psychology of sales for handmade businesses is so important for the success of your shop. Whether you’re on Etsy, Shopify, or any another e-commerce platform, you’ll want to make sure you understand the buying process. . If you want to be a successful seller, you must create quality products and learn the psychology behind sales. What moves a customer to purchase from you? Let’s discuss the best sales psychology tips to implement into your handmade business.
What is Sales Psychology?
Sales psychology is the process that studies the psyche of your target audience. This is done in order to sell your products and maximize your profits. It helps you to find ways to market your customer’s current needs instead of convincing them to buy your products. There are a lot of circumstances behind the decision-making process when someone buys a product. These circumstances rely heavily on the customer’s emotions, which is why understanding the psychology of sales for handmade businesses is so crucial to understand.
Understanding your customer’s needs and relating to them is the goal of every good sales process. People want to be understood, and they are always looking for brands that can relate they feel relate to them. If you achieve this, you are already increasing the probability of making a sale and gaining a loyal customer. Once you understand these sales psychology tips, you can integrate them into your business routine.
The psychology in selling involves focusing on customers’ emotional needs, instead of highlighting a product’s value. Putting yourself in a customer’s shoes helps manage your sales pitch. Learning these psychological attitudes can be the missing part of your marketing efforts.
How Does the Brain Buy?
Technical information is processed by an area of the brain called the neocortex. This area gathers and processes information, but it has very little influence on decision-making. The decision-making area of the brain lies in the region called the limbic system; one of the oldest parts of our brain, which controls our emotions. You may believe that your brain makes decisions through logic. When, in fact, your buying decisions are significantly driven by the emotional area of your brain.
This is why understanding the psychology of sales for handmade businesses can help you see what your customers are looking for. Plus, learn what are they considering when making a purchase. Once they make the purchase they feel good and happy, but then these emotions are followed by logic. This is when you must mention the pricing, benefits, and specifics of your product. If the customer is liking what they are reading or listening to, this means that they are trusting in you. They expect you now to deliver to them exactly what you are promising.
As business owners, we must learn exactly what the psychological reason of our audience is for their particular product interest. We must fully grasp this concept to maximize our advertising and targeting efforts by using these sales psychology tips.
How does one discover what the main psychological reason for purchase is?
Try to identify the following:
- What are your purchase drivers?
- Which cognitive biases might be at play?
- What are the barriers for your message getting through?
- What emotions are likely to be associated with your product?
The Principles of Sales Psychology
Dr. Robert Cialdini breaks down six key principles of understanding the psychology of sales for handmade businessess. He states that each of these principles goes deep into a person’s psychological responses during a sales setting.
Let’s further breakdown these six principles and how to apply them:
1. Reciprocity
The idea behind this principle is simple. Essentially, the person at the receiving end of a purchase will feel like they ought to return the favor. This is in exchange for the value you have offered them. Using the principle of reciprocity in your sales strategy is an excellent way to sell more to your customers.
With this principle, you will need to be conscious and switch up your strategy at some point. Keep in mind that you can recycle old ideas. Continue to keep offering or doing the same thing over and over again.
For example, if you sell soaps you could offer 10% off when subscribing to your email list the first time. You can simply follow that up with a set of thank you emails. Then a special offer on their second purchase. These little gifts prompts and the feeling of what they’ll be missing out on if they don’t use any of the things you offer, will together serve to build a bond that is critical to forming customer loyalty.
When trying to create a strategy based on reciprocity, always try to think through what you can include within your pitches. This is to give your customers something proactively. It should fit in naturally and come across as an enhancement of your overall experience. Only then will it both benefit you and your customer.
2. Commitment and Consistency
This principle revolves around the theory that people like to be consistent with the things they have done or said. Once a person makes a certain decision, he or she or they often sticks to it. This is whether that happens to be an intelligent choice or not.
You can apply this principle by nudging your customer or prospect to take a certain standpoint for some sort of assurance. This gently encourages them to follow the path crafted by you.
For example, you can ask your leads questions that they will answer with a “yes”. Try to make a connection between the question and what you’re selling. When you get potential customers to say yes, they become much more likely to say yes when it comes to the buying decision.
This can be a more subtle approach that can provide value in return rather than simply influencing the prospect’s state of mind. After all, the best marketing is when customers can’t identify it as an attempt at marketing your product. Show your customers and prospects how your product can add value or solve a problem that they currently have in their life. The result of implementing this in your marketing is to encourage repeat purchases.
3. Social Proof
Social proof states that people will look to the behaviors and actions of others to determine their own, especially when they are uncertain. They’re looking out for social proof by all means to back up the decision they are about to make, or heavily considering.
You can easily leverage this principle by showing reviews of your products, testimonials or any messages and comments that you have on your social media channels. In this way, your existing customers sell for you and their actions speak for your business. Let’s not forget the basics of marketing. Word of mouth is always your best tool.
A large percentage of buyers rely on recommendations from friends and family members before making a purchase. A great marketing strategy to use can be influencer marketing. The influencer or social media presence you choose will be using your product in a certain way and selling it in a subtle way that your target will feel the need to buy it. When customers see testimonials from people similar to themselves, they’ll know you’re a good fit for their needs.
4. Authority
The principle of authority asserts that we are more likely to be persuaded or convinced by a person who we believe holds more knowledge or power than we do. This simply means that customers are more likely to be persuaded to complete a certain action if the request seems to be coming from a source that is seen as credible. This is one of the best and most common sales strategies.
For example, if you’re planning to have influencers and social media presences talk about your brand and products, you can’t choose just anyone for the collaboration. You need to see if their followers align with your own target audience, and if they also have any knowledge about similar products to yours. A social media influencer or a YouTuber who talks about your products or services will cast a wider net for your business than you can cast on your own.
Another excellent way to implement this principle is for you to become the expert. This should be easy, as you are already the one that knows everything about your brand and products. You can make this happen by creating a blog, videos, guides, opinion posts, product reviews, podcasts, interviews, etc. The principle of authority can easily help you close more deals or establish a client base faster. Try to educate your audience, and share your knowledge and experience to boost engagement and win their trust.
5. Liking
The principle of liking suggests that we are far more likely to comply with requests made by people we have a liking towards. Therefore, customers have a higher probability of purchasing something recommended by people who are close to them or the ones that they admire.
The factors that play into this idea of “liking” someone can be understood by the following characteristics: physical attractiveness, intelligence, trustworthiness, similarities in terms of interests, opinions, being complimented for something, having common goals, conditioning, and association.
A good way to apply liking to your marketing is to make your website functional, minimally designed, and easy to navigate so people can have a natural experience with it. This also allows them to be able to understand everything about your products and brand without confusion of difficulty.
Remember that your customers like to feel that you can understand the problems they are facing. Therefore, you should really consider how you can relate to them to create a sense of similarity.
6. Scarcity
The principle of scarcity proactively outlines the assumption that your customers are always going to want more of what is less. Psychologists note that when an offering is perceived to be scarce, buyers want it more. As a result, buyers are willing to pay more for products or services that aren’t seen in abundance or easily obtainable.
Have you seen an advertisement stating something like limited quantities, limited time offer, only a few items left in stock, etc? If so, then it likely made you feel a sense of urgency, as you feel there won’t be replenishment inventory. Thus, resulting you to have a more accelerated decision to buy.
When trying to persuade customers using this principle, it isn’t simply enough to educate people about the benefits that come alongside the use of your product. You’ll also have to point out what’s so different about your offering and create offers around it to grab your customers’ attention.
How Can a Handmade Business Use the Psychology of Sales?
One of the biggest mistakes that we tend to do as handmade business owners, is to focus our marketing on the product and features, but not include the subconscious side of our customer’s decision-making process. A.KA., the understanding the psychology of sales for handmade businesses. Think about the best advertising that you’ve experienced that has resonated with you. Most of these memorable advertising experiences use a human-centered approach. The advertisement tells a story and will always find a way to connect with your emotions.
There is still a valuable place for sharing the features of your products, but your customers also need to have an emotional response.
Think like a buyer. Find out what it would be like to buy from you. Why should they buy your products, and what do you do to help them? Are you telling your customers a story and letting them get to know you and your business?
Understanding how the psychology of sales fits into your profits and marketing strategy is the perfect way to build a human connection with your customers. This is one of the most common sales strategies for success.
By understanding the psychology of sales for handmade businesses, you can give your business a competitive advantage in sales. The more you study your buyers and their behaviors, the more you’re going to be able to give them what they need, how they need it, and when they need it. In the end, giving buyers what they need is the only way you can move towards an influx of profits and loyal, return customers.
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