Design and Psychology: the Biases You Can Immediately Exploit in Your Emails

Let's take a look at how cognitive biases actually work and how you can use them to design more effective emails: Hick's Law: The more options you give users, the more likely you are to lose them. Users want to act quickly and avoid long and tedious processes. Put this psychological principle into practice when designing your menus or a form to fill out: they should be nimble, short, with an easy to hover order and familiar elements. Confirmation bias: People interpret and recall information by confirming their ideas and beliefs. You can exploit this bias if your brand is associated with quality standards recognized by your target audience. All you have to do is uphold that belief, reinforcing your brand identity as a leader in every email. A practical example? Apple's communication strategy continually reinforces the idea of ​​being the brand par excellence in the technology sector. Priming:

The user's response can be influenced by visual or verbal cues, activating known associations just before introducing another stimulus. A practical example of the use of this bias in email design: travel brands insert images of a dream trip to influence user perception and drive them to a positive response. Another application is the use of the same color for the proposed offer and your call to action. Social proof: People look for confirmation of their actions E-Commerce Photo Editing Service in the choices of their peers. This cognitive shortcut can also be used to create a more effective design for your emails: display a badge with the number of people who have already purchased the product you offer, indicate the most popular packages of your offer or add a box with testimonials mentioning their positive experience with your brand. Rarity: offer offers limited in time, spots or features. This is a widely used principle of marketing psychology which, on the one hand, appeals to human instinct to avoid losses and, on the other hand, emphasizes the quality of what is proposed.

In practice: insert a countdown until the end of the offer in your email, or a text indicating the units still available above a banner that links to the purchase page of a product. Familiarity: Your prospects are looking for familiar elements that they have already experienced. That's why it's important to work on brand identity and recognition in the communications you send. Include recurring and identifying elements in your email templates, such as using your brand colors and images consistent with your style. Senses: Engaging the senses helps create an emotional connection with your database subscribers. Insert elements that appeal to the five senses - sight, touch, smell, hearing and taste - into your emails using images, gifs and videos that recall the sensory world .