The psychology behind content: How to trigger your users’ behaviour

Welcome!
Giuseppe Caltabiano
HEAD OF CONTENT STRATEGY FOR EMEA & APAC
CONTENTLY
@giusec
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The psychology
behind content:
how to trigger
your users’
behaviour

The World’s Best Brands Use Contently
For strategy, editorial services, and premium, original content that works
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Content Strategy & Innovation Summit 2019
Me
Contently
“It might look counterintuitive, but success in content
strategy never starts with the strategy - it starts from
the context.”

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Psychology, Design, Content  
(the rise of the Hybrid Marketer)
Psychology
Content
Marketing
Design
(A very powerful)
Sweet Spot

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Today’s Agenda
Introduction Psychology Models Persuasion
An introduction to
Psychology for
Content Marketers
ELM and Fogg
Behavior Model
Cialdini’s
Principles of
Persuasion

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Introduction

Psychology, a deﬁnition
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Psychology: the study of human
behaviour in a given context
“

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What do you see?

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We humans project ourselves into so
much of what we see. This instinct is
guided by our primordial desire for
emotional connections with others.
We are hardwired to seek emotion in
human faces.
For this reason, photos of human
faces in a design can profoundly
inﬂuence an audience.
We’re looking for emotions
HumansObjects
Image with a
face saw
+160% CTR,
+290% CVR
vs. image
without face.
vs. +160% CTR

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Utilising dark patterns or tricking a user into doing
something they wouldn’t otherwise do is not persuasion.
It’s being an asshole
Victor S. Yocco. “Design for the Mind”
A word on Persuasion
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1. Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) (Petty, Caciocco)
2. Fogg Behavior Design model (E.J. Fogg)
3. Cialdini’s Persuasion Principles (Cialdini)
Three models

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Elaboration Likelihood Model

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Elaboration Likelihood Model
Means your audience cares
more about the message.
They’ll pay attention and
scrutinize quality and
strength of the argument.
Central Route
Happens on a more superﬁcial
level. Your audience will pay
less attention to the message
while being inﬂuenced by
secondary factors, such as
source credibility, visual appeal,
presentation, and enticements
like food, sex, and humour.
Peripheral Route

ELM in practice - Central Route
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ELM in practice - Peripheral Route
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Example of Central Route - Amazon
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Example of Peripheral Route - Amazon
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Example of Peripheral Route
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Example of Peripheral Route
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Motivation and Ability
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•What promotes central route processing and high elaboration?
•Researchers have explored 2 main factors: motivation and ability
•This leads to the next model: Fogg Behavior Model
“High Motivation and
Ability promotes Central
Route processing
High ABILITY to process
information
High MOTIVATION
Strong attitude toward
product or content
High ABILITY to process
information
Low ABILITY to process
information
Low MOTIVATION
Weak attitude toward product
or content
Central Route
Peripheral Route
Ability Motivation (Relevancy)Attention

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Fogg Behavior Model

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Fogg Behavior Model
Psychology TechnologyBehavior
Design

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• Fogg Behavior Model explains that 3 elements must come
together at the same time for a behaviour to occur:
motivation, ability and prompts (triggers)
• When a behavior does not occur, at least one of those three
elements is missing
Fogg Behavior Model
B = mat
Behavior = motivation x ability x trigger

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• When motivation is high, you can get people to
do hard things. But once it drops people will only
do easy things
• Status, Access, Power, Stuﬀ can help boosting
motivation
Motivation (relevancy)

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Motivation - Duolingo (status)

The psychology behind content - KPMG Marketing Training WeekContent Strategy & Innovation Summit 2019
Motivation: Vitality (stuﬀ)
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Motivation: AXA (stuﬀ)
30

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• In order to perform a target behavior, a person
must have the ability to do so
• There are two paths to increasing ability:
1. You can train people, giving them more skills
(ability) to do the target behavior
2. better path is to make the target behavior
easier to do (simplicity)
Make it easy for your audience to understand what
you oﬀer and how to receive it.
Ability (and Simplicity)
Simplicity increase Ability
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Ability (and Simplicity)
This leads to an important rule:  
If you must choose what to optimise
for, always choose ability over
motivation.
Become a master of simpliﬁcation,  
not motivation.
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Simplicity: Oscar
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Simplicity? Generali
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• The third element of the Fogg Behavior
Model is Triggers (also known as Prompts)
• Sometimes a Trigger can be external, like an
alarm sounding.
• Other times, the Trigger is internal and come
from our daily routine
Without a Trigger, the target
behaviour will not happen
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Triggers (Prompts)

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Triggers: Addison Lee Taxis

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Triggers: Amazon Fresh

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Triggers: Capgemini’s “Content Loop”

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Cialdini’s Principles of Persuasion

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• As Cialdini puts it, we’re in the age of information overload. We don’t have time
to process all of the information and then to make informed decisions
• This incapacity makes us look for signals (shortcuts)
• These signals that help us decide if we want to do something
Cialdini’s Principles of Persuasion
We use signals (shortcuts) to make fast and informed decisions
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Shortcuts
Reciprocity Authority
Social
Proof
Liking Scarcity
Status
Quo

Reciprocity - Freshbooks
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People generally feel
indebted to those who
do something for them
without asking for
anything in return.
The more you give to
your customers, the
more they’ll be willing
to give back to you.
“

Reciprocity - Basecamp
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Consistency & Status Quo - Blue Apron
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People generally prefer
status quo, even if they
say they’re open to new
ideas or ways of doing
things.
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Scarcity & Fear of Missing Out (FoMo) - Amazon
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When we fear that
something is scarce, we
feel compelled to act –
buying, stockpiling, or
experiencing that thing
before it’s gone.
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Scarcity & Fear of Missing Out (FoMo) - British Airways
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Improper use of the Scarcity principle…
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"Six online hotel booking sites will make major changes
to end misleading sales tactics and hidden charges after
an investigation. Expedia, Booking.com, Agoda,
Hotels.com, Ebookers and Trivago were subject to
scrutiny by the Competition and Markets Authority
(CMA), which intervened due to serious concerns about
hidden charges, pressure-selling tactics, misleading
discount claims and the order in which results appear on
the site pages.
Some sites were comparing a higher weekend room rate
with a weekday rate or comparing the price of a luxury
suite with a standard room; when highlighting that other
customers are looking at the same hotel as you, these
sites should make it clear they may be searching for
diﬀerent dates. The CMA also saw examples of some
sites strategically placing sold out hotels within search
results to put pressure on people to book more quickly.
Sites have now committed not to do this."
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Liking: PetsRelocations
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Based on the
straightforward principle
that we are easily
persuaded by people
who are like us, or
people we like.
Similarity boosts liking.
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Authority: Kaya
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Inﬂuencer marketing’s
principles are based on
the authority shortcut:
people will consume
your content and will
buy your services/
products, because you
have some degree of
knowledge and
authority.
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Social Proof: MarketingProfs
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We generally value
opinions and ideas from
people like us, and we
feel greater compulsion
to act when we see
others like us taking
action.
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Social Proof: CMI (Content Marketing Institute)
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Social Proof: FreshBooks
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How (and where) to use the
principles

Summary
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Ability
Motivation
Triggers
(Prompts)
Cialdini’s Shortcuts

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Purchase
Central Route
Processing
Scarcity
Status Quo
Consideration/Decision
Central Route
Processing
Reciprocity
Status Quo
Social Proof
Fogg
Behaviour
Model
Awareness
Central Route
Processing
Reciprocity
Authority
Social Proof
Fogg
Behaviour
Model
When you should use psychology principles

References
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Giuseppe Caltabiano
HEAD OF CONTENT STRATEGY FOR EMEA & APAC
CONTENTLY
@giusec

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New York, NY 10012
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