As competition increases and marketing budgets get tighter, it has become critical that brands are able to persuade and influence customers into taking desirable actions. This applies to eCommerce subscriptions as well.
It is essential to map consumer behavior in subscriptions and thoughtfully build marketing strategies, if brands want to stay competitive.
Integrating psychology into your subscription marketing strategies can increase effectiveness in various ways.
In this blog, we look at 8 psychological concepts that can be integrated into your subscription marketing strategies, to drive success.
8 psychological concepts for subscription marketing strategies
Today, most marketers spend more time on understanding why and how their customers behave and take actions. Marketing is a lot about influencing, persuading, and driving desired actions by customers.
For subscription businesses, too, it is important to focus on customer behavioral science and psychology. In this section, we discuss 8 such psychological concepts that help influence subscribers and drive habit formation in eCommerce.
1. Commitment bias
Typically, subscriptions are for a long duration. When customers sign up, they know they’re getting into a long-term association. So, when customers sign up for subscriptions, they prefer to stay consistent with their decision. Their initial decision has a psychological effect.
Ecommerce brands can play with this commitment bias when planning their subscription models. For instance, unless there’s a major problem, customers would tend to continue with their subscriptions.
Brands can utilize this commitment bias in their favor by doing the following and influence consumer behavior in subscriptions:
- Encourage customers to sign up for subscriptions
- Offer the flexibility to unsubscribe at any point, making their decision to join easy
- Offer a free trial of the subscription plan, encouraging them to subscriber
- Offer discount on the first month’s subscription fee
- Offer unique incentives to subscribe
- Promise valuable perks and benefits, such as free gifts for long-term subscribers
- Make the subscription plans valuable and irresistible making subscribers want to continue with their decision to subscribe
2. Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)
Gaining rewards is important for customers but more important than that is to avoid losses. This is where the psychology of fear of missing out comes in. When subscribers think that something may not be available for long, they feel more motivated to act on it.
For example, say you’ve launched a limited edition curated box and want the boxes to be sold-out fast. You could use FOMO techniques to encourage customers to buy them. Here are some ways to use FOMO for your Shopify subscriptions:
- Limited time offers: Discounts and deals for a limited time to create urgency. This pricing psychology could be on subscription renewal fees or subscription boxes
- Low stock alerts: Tell people a product is running out of stock to create a sense of scarcity and encourage them to add it in their subscription boxes
- Social proof: Show reviews, ratings, and testimonials of products to show people that others have bought and loved the products
- Abandoned cart reminders: Send reminders to customers who leave actions incomplete
Example
3. Instant gratification and dopamine triggers
Another way to influence consumer behavior in subscriptions is to use the psychology of instant gratification. In other words, use dopamine triggers to encourage customers to take actions.
In today’s competitive world, brands are trying to attract and engage customers by promising the moon. Apart from tangible perks, customers also find gratification in aspects such as convenience, knowledgeable help, and helpful customer support.
Let’s look at some ways to create a sense of instant gratification for customers:
- Offer instant discounts or perks, such as fast shipping, vouchers, etc.
- Personalize customers’ unboxing experience
- Create flash sales on subscription boxes
- Include a surprise gift in the subscription box
- Quick delivery: 41% of shoppers expect a 24-hour delivery
- Provide friendly and efficient customer service, adding a sense of satisfaction and good customer experience
4. The endowment effect
People have a tendency to value products they own. For instance, if they own a red sweater from brand X, they value it more even if it is expensive or common. That’s because they own it and hence, they feel it is good and valuable.
Here, there’s an endowment effect at play. This psychology can work well for subscriptions as subscribers are associated with brands for a long term.
For instance, subscribers would value your subscription more than your competitors because they themselves are a part of it. This could lead them to refer or recommend your subscription plans to their friends.
Now let’s learn a few ways to use the endowment effect psychology for subscriptions:
- Offer free subscription renewals for the first month and auto charge from the second month onward
- Incorporate build-your-own-box model in your subscription
- Create a sense of ownership for customers, to justify the value of the subscription box
- Use pricing psychology tactics on subscription boxes
Here’s an illustration that explains the endowment effect psychology:
5. Social proof and herd mentality
Did you know a three or four-star rating can drop customers’ trust levels to 67%, while a five star rating can increase trust level to 95%? That’s how much reviews, testimonials, and user-generated content helps.
Sharing social proof, reviews, and ratings is not just a simple marketing tactic; it is a strategy that influences customer psychology. Here’s how you can use this psychological tactic for your influencing customers and habit formation in eCommerce:
- Share subscribers’ experience on different channels to increase credibility
- Include referral programs to encourage existing subscribers to refer friends; this helps increase your sign-ups
- Share user-generated content by subscribers, on social media, your website, or app
- Run special marketing campaigns to share subscriber reviews, videos, etc.
6. Personalization and the desire for uniqueness
We humans are drawn to experiences and information that seems more relevant to us, our interests, and needs. Personalization in marketing helps tap into this psychological principle and drive consumer behavior in subscriptions.
When subscribers experience a higher level of personalization, the value of the subscriptions increases as the products and services are more relevant to their needs.
Moreover, personalization also increases the sense of uniqueness. When subscribers receive an offer or a product that’s different from what others have received, they feel more unique and exclusive.
Here’s how you can use the psychology of personalization in subscriptions for the success of your eCommerce subscriptions:
- Personalized recommendations of new products and services for subscriptions
- Offer exclusive perks and benefits for long-term subscribers
- Create deeper engagement via AI-driven personalization
- Personalize content and communication for subscribers
- Offer personalized subscription boxes based on customers’ interests and needs
Here’s an example of a personalization in subscription of a cosmetics business, where the brand gets subscribers to answer a detailed questionnaire to personalize their subscription box.
7. The scarcity principle
It’s a common feeling we all go through – when something is scarce, rare, or limited, we want it more. Rather, we get into a mode of loss aversion. Loss aversion in marketing is a common psychological framework used by eCommerce brands.
Why does this psychological strategy work? Scarcity increases the perceived value, the fear of missing out drives urgency and action, and limited time and quantities help reduce procrastination.
Here’s how you can use the scarcity principle to influence consumer behavior in subscriptions.
- Create limited-time offers for subscribers
- Create subscriber-exclusive offers and deals to encourage non subscribers to sign up
- Include tactics such as count-down timers and display the quantity left, for example, ‘Only 1 left’
- Create limited-edition premium subscription boxes; for example, limited edition wine subscription
8. The peak-end rule
When customers have a bad experience with a brand, they easily move on to the next best brand. One negative experience is enough for customers to make a decision to leave a brand.
This is something that is related to the peak-end rule psychology. People evaluate their eCommerce shopping experience based on their peak experience. For instance, an intensely good experience or a very bad experience impacts the overall perception or experience of customers.
So, how can this psychological rule be applied to and influence consumer behavior in subscriptions?
- Create memorable unboxing experiences for subscriptions
- Offer surprise gifts or surprise products in your subscription boxes
- Organize exclusive events for subscribers
- Take personalization to the next level for subscribers with one-on-one interactions to cater to individual needs
Also read: Key Components Of A Subscription Management System
How to use psychology to influence consumer behavior in subscriptions for Shopify stores?
In this blog, we discussed 8 effective psychological concepts that can help your Shopify subscription business attract and engage customers, and increase conversions.
However, to plan and execute these psychological marketing strategies, you will require a comprehensive Shopify subscription app to help you with repetitive tasks and to integrate tactics within your subscription system.
Appstle Subscriptions App is one of the most used apps by Shopify and Shopify Plus merchants. The app has a comprehensive set of features and capabilities that make it easy for brands to run and manage subscriptions.
Explore Appstle Subscriptions and install it on your Shopify store.
