The captivation of a cliffhanger that makes you want to keep reading a novel or watching a movie. Or the allure of bright colors that convince you to enter a store. Psychological triggers such as these captivate users’ attention and drive interaction.

By applying the principles of behavioral psychology, businesses can improve the quality of customer interactions and drive increased brand loyalty using content.

In this article, we’ll provide actionable insights to transform your content into a magnet for user engagement and interaction. We’ll also show you how to strategically employ psychological principles to craft content that resonates deeply with your audience.

Understanding User Behavior

Customer buying and engagement behavior refers to how and why consumers engage with a brand and eventually purchase their products. Sometimes, consumers make purchases based on emotions and can be impulsive when buying something from a business. Brand
advertisements can also influence them, with 41% of respondents indicating that holiday ads determine when and where they purchase gifts.

However, other factors that impact user behavior must be considered, including personal factors like lifestyle, age, income, personality, habits, and routines; social factors such as culture and social class; and situational factors such as location and occasions. For example, customers may only make purchases for specific occasions such as birthday parties, Valentine’s Day, weddings, or Christmas.

Understanding how these factors can influence decision-making enables marketers to adjust content to be more appealing to different audiences and customer demographics.

The Role of Customer Psychology

While circumstantial factors play a significant role in user behavior, businesses must also consider the role of customer psychology, i.e., the perceptions, values, and beliefs that impact buying behavior.

Before a potential customer makes a decision, they weigh the pros and cons and lean toward the option that will provide the most satisfaction. What constitutes a pro and a con is based on inherent biases influenced by underlying values and beliefs.

For example, suppose a customer has routinely had a positive experience with a business, but on one occasion, the company makes a mistake. In that case, they may be inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt and return due to the positive relationship that has already been established. However, if they visit another brand for the first time and have a bad experience, they are less likely to return, given that their first impression of the brand was negative.

Additionally, brands can use customers’ underlying values and beliefs to influence their buying decisions. Data shows that 64% of customers want to know the environmental impact of a product when they buy something. As such, a product touted as being eco-friendly will be well received by customers who strive to reduce their carbon footprint.

When combined with a story about how purchasing a particular product can help reduce suffering for groups of animals or people in underserved regions, a brand could turn its eco-friendly product into a movement that serves more than just its immediate customers.

The Elements of Engaging Content

With customer behavior impacted by so many factors, brands must be able to blend science and marketing when creating engaging content that can lead to purchases. Content categorized as engaging should follow at least one of the following elements.

Visual Appeal

While written content will always have its place, compelling visuals can help capture attention and keep customers engaged. Images and infographics are some of the most common visual elements used to capture customer attention, but visual appeal also extends to the colors used and how content is designed or presented.

For example, black is often associated with sophistication and elegance, which is why many fashion brands use it on their logos. By that same token, blue is associated with calmness and reliability, which is why many companies favor it in their content. When it comes to design, consistent and simplistic designs tend to be more appealing to customers.

Storytelling

Storytelling and building narratives are other key elements that can be used to create engaging content. When brands tell positive or emotional stories, they can evoke emotions in customers that encourage them to take action. Stories help businesses be more memorable and can help them stand out from the crowd.

Even if a company sells the same product as ten other brands, if the story they tell is memorable and consistently present in the content they create, it will lead to customers associating the brand with that story, enabling them to foster a feeling of trust and improve brand loyalty.

Interactivity

Interactive content creates a dynamic user experience that enables customers to engage with a brand in unique ways. Clickable buttons that allow users to navigate from one page on a website or app to another, forms, quizzes, and various animations used correctly can keep customers entertained and coming back for more.

A common way of doing this is by incorporating gamification into content. Social media platforms provide this through intrinsic motivation and reward users with participation as they interact with peers. Enterprise companies can include forms and quizzes, chatbots, and interactive product demos to deliver a similar engaging experience to their customers.

Personalization

Businesses can build a connection when they provide their customers with personalized content tailored to their unique needs and interests. By using data and insights from previous customer interactions, companies have the tools to deliver personalized experiences. Such personalized content can lead to increased engagement as customers believe that the brand truly understands who they are and what they’re looking for.

The Impact of Cognitive Load

As marketers strive to appeal to customer emotions and implement psychological triggers into content, they must also consider cognitive load or the amount of information customers can process at any given time.

If something is too complex, it can be difficult to process, which leads to reduced engagement, whereas when brands err on the side of simplicity, it can drive the increased engagement and revenue results they’re looking for.

Businesses must consider that while visually appealing content, stories, gamification, and interactivity can encourage engagement, too much can turn customers away. Instead, marketers should ensure that they focus on the most relevant information, don’t offer too many options, use clear communication, and offer streamlined and user-friendly navigation to reduce cognitive load and maintain positive engagement.

Techniques to Improve User Engagement When Designing Content

Given the number of factors that can influence engagement, businesses have multiple options if they want to create content that resonates with their target customers. They can implement one or several of the following techniques to improve user engagement.

1. Use the right color combinations

The right color combinations can evoke emotions and make customers associate certain colors with your brands. For example, enterprises in sectors such as financial services may favor blue or green due to the calmness and serenity they convey.

On the other hand, colors like red and yellow can build excitement and may be suited to innovative tech companies. Using the right combinations can provide a brand identity that customers will remember.

2. Create a feeling of FOMO

Customers hate to miss out on opportunities and leveraging FOMO (fear of missing out) with content that creates a sense of urgency can keep customers engaged and encourage quick action.

Ecommerce stores are typically the brands to use this technique when selling products, such as the first 100 customers receiving a special item, but limited time access to a private community or industry report could provide a similar response for enterprise companies in other industries.

3. Leverage gamification

Gamification and interactive elements spur customers into action and can help keep them engaged over a prolonged period. For example, many software companies offer Slack or Discord groups where developers can communicate, troubleshoot, and learn more about the product. Gamifying these communities and encouraging participation with badges and rewards can increase brand loyalty and turn community members into advocates.

4. Focus on first impressions with the halo effect

First impressions matter. When you get them wrong, it can dig a negative hole that’s difficult to get out of; however, when you get it right, it can create a sort of halo effect for the brand. A sleek design or trustworthy report as a first impression of a brand can lead to the kind of loyalty that sees customers return every time they need something new. Conversely, a negative first impression might leave a stain that doesn’t go away.

5. Include social proof

Social proof in the form of customer success stories, reviews, and testimonials provides the credibility new customers often seek. Many customers conduct their own research when looking for a product or service, but getting a referral from a colleague they trust and having real-world evidence can see a customer engage with one brand over another.

6. Use white space

Simplicity is a critical aspect of any landing page or user interface and can significantly impact the user experience. Effectively using white space, the empty space around design elements on a page can reduce complexity and make a page feel less cluttered. This reduces the cognitive load customers have to deal with and can make them more engaged.

7. Clear and concise messaging

Another element of simplicity is ensuring that any messaging used in content is clear and concise. This ensures that customers aren’t overwhelmed by information and can make the most informed decisions when considering products and services.

8. Prioritize speed and performance for digital experiences

Customers can sometimes take fast-loading digital experiences for granted. Many of them expect and have grown accustomed to modern websites loading quickly. As such, if a website or app loads slowly, it can lead to customers becoming frustrated and choosing to spend their money elsewhere.

Implementing SEO techniques that improve PageSpeed scores and leveraging a modern CMS or DXP that supports fast-loading content can make a difference for businesses regarding performance.

Get Help Designing Interactive Content Experiences

Driving customer engagement requires businesses to make content visually appealing to customers. They must also leverage storytelling as well as implement interactivity and personalization.

Content Bloom offers extensive UI/UX design and content management expertise to help enterprises build and execute a content strategy that drives engagement. We also provide the technology expertise so that businesses can help create these experiences and maximize the speed and performance elements that matter to customers.

To start designing the interactive content experiences that push your customer to action.