The presentation discusses the role of psychology in content marketing, focusing on how user behavior can be influenced through various psychological models such as the Elaboration Likelihood Model, Fogg Behavior Model, and Cialdini's principles of persuasion. It emphasizes the importance of emotional connections, motivation, ability, and triggers in encouraging desired behaviors. The speaker argues that optimizing for simplicity in user experience is more effective than solely trying to boost motivation.

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3. 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

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Psychology, Design, Content (the rise of the Hybrid
Marketer)
The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018
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
The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018

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Introduction

7. Psychology, a definition
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The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018
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
The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018
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
The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018
“

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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
The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018

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Elaboration Likelihood Model

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Elaboration Likelihood Model
The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018
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

14. ELM in practice - Central Route
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The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018

15. ELM in practice - Peripheral Route
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The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018

16. Example of Central Route - Amazon
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The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018

17. Example of Peripheral Route - Amazon
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The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018

18. Example of Peripheral Route
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The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018

19. Example of Peripheral Route
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The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018

20. Motivation and Ability
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The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018
• 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 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
Ability Motivation
“Motivation and Ability
promotes Central Route
processing

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Fogg Behavior Model

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Fogg Behavior Model
The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018
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 trigger
• When a behavior does not occur, at least one of those three
elements is missing
Fogg Behavior Model
The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018
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
The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018

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Motivation - Duolingo (status)
The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018

26. Motivation: Vitality (stuff)
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The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018

27. Motivation: AXA (stuff)
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The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018

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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)
The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July
2018
Simplicity increase Ability“

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Ability (and Simplicity)
The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018
This leads to an important rule: If you
must choose what to optimize for,
always choose ability over motivation.
Become a master of simplification, not
motivation.
“

30. Simplicity: Oscar
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The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018

31. Simplicity? Generali
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The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018

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• The third element of the Fogg Behavior
Model is Triggers
• Sometimes a Trigger can be external, like an
alarm sounding.
• Other times, the Trigger is internal and come
from our daily routine
Triggers
The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018
Without a Trigger, the target
behaviour will not happen
“

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Triggers: Addison Lee Taxis
The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018

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Triggers: Amazon Fresh
The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018

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Triggers: Capgemini Content Loop
The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018

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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 Model
The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018
Reciprocity Consistency Scarcity Social Proof
We use signals (shortcuts) to make fast
and informed decisions“

38. Reciprocity - Freshbooks
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The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018

39. Reciprocity - Basecamp
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The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018

40. Consistency & Status Quo - Blue Apron
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The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018

41. Scarcity & Fear of Missing Out (FoMo) - Amazon
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The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018

42. Scarcity & Fear of Missing Out (FoMo) - British Airways
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The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018

43. Social Proof: MarketingProfs
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The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018

44. Social Proof: CMI (Content Marketing Institute)
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The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018

45. Social Proof: FreshBooks
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The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018

46. Summary
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The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018
Ability
Motivation
Triggers
Shortcuts

47. References
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The psychology behind content - B2B Ignite 2018, London, 10 July 2018
Giuseppe Caltabiano
HEAD OF CONTENT STRATEGY FOR EMEA & APAC
CONTENTLY
@giusec

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New York, NY 10012
UK
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Shoreditch Mark Square
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London EC2A 4EG
UK
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