In this episode of Whiteboard Friday, Tasmin dives into the world of psychology. She shares mental models to use in your content to better connect with your target audience, helping them make more informed purchase decisions.

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Welcome back to another Moz Whiteboard Friday. I'm Tasmin Lofthouse, a conversion copywriter and the founder of Fika Digital. Today, we're going to be diving into the world of psychology as I share some mental models you can use in your content to better connect with your target audience and help them make more informed purchase decisions.

If you're not a psychology geek like me, you might be wondering what a mental model is. In short, it's a term used in psychology that explains the way that people use various worldviews, concepts, and frameworks to make sense of the world around them. 

When we're using mental models, it typically looks something like we receive information into our brain, we process it using mental models, and then we act on it by making a decision, forming a belief, or doing something. 

Before I dive into the mental models we're going to be talking about today, I want to very quickly caveat this by saying when we're using psychology in content, this is not about manipulating people. We're not here trying to get people to do things they don't want to or buy products they're not interested in. We're simply using these to better understand human decision-making and help them make more informed purchase decisions when they're buying something. Okay, let's go.

First, we've got authority bias. Authority bias is the idea that we're much more likely to trust and believe information that comes from an authority expert. For example, if a police officer tells you to do something, you're a lot more likely to listen to them than if it's just a random person on the street. 

This can also apply to your content by making sure that when you write content, it is written by or supported by authority experts within your field. A great example of this is Healthline. So in their content, anytime they write for their blog, that piece of content is reviewed by a medical professional. If you're giving medical advice, it is pretty serious business, so it's great that they do this. This is a really good mental model to keep in mind if you are writing about YMYL topics where E-E-A-T is of especially high importance.

Up next, we have the familiarity principle. This just refers to the way that we are much more likely to prefer things that we're familiar with. In short, we like what we like. 

Familiarity principle can be used in your content by just making sure you use the words that your audience are already familiar with. So speak the way that they speak. Don't confuse them or overcomplicate things by using confusing jargon. 

You can also use the familiarity principle when introducing a new concept or product to your target audience. A great example of this in action is an ADHD app called Inflow, who use the line like Duolingo, but for ADHD, which is a great way of positioning their unknown product by putting it up against something you already know and like, such as Duolingo.

Up next, we have price anchoring. So price anchoring is a great mental model that has lots of different strengths to it. I really recommend you dive deeper into this one and explore it in more depth.

For now, we're going to just cover the basics of price anchoring. In price anchoring, as the name suggests, you're going to anchor the price of your product to the price of something that they already know. A price point alone doesn't tell people an awful lot, so they have to use different contexts and cues to understand if that price is worthwhile. We see price anchoring all the time in supermarkets where brands will say that their product is X times cheaper than the leading competitor.

Price anchoring is also commonly used in SaaS subscriptions, where they might compare the cost of a subscription to the cost of a cup of coffee. People buy coffee day in, day out, so if we're seeing a subscription compared to that, we're going to think it's pretty good value for money.

There is all kinds of ways that you can use price anchoring. You can play around with this in your headlines, in your sales landing pages, email copy, pricing pages, and CTA buttons just to name a few.

Up next, we've got the rule of three. The rule of three is the idea that things in a set of three are seen as a complete entity. There's just something about a set of three that just looks nice and complete.

You can use the rule of three in all kinds of ways in your content, whether that's in your headlines, bullet points, the way you structure your services, or the number of tiers you have in a pricing table. This is another great one to play around with.

An example of the rule of three would be the fire safety slogan to "Stop, drop and roll." It makes it really memorable and easy to follow. For a more advertising-related one, we have Mars' advertising slogan that "A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play." This is also a great example of rhyme as reason, which we'll explain again in a little bit more detail. 

Up next, we've got confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is the idea that we're much more likely to search for, favor, and believe things that align with our preexisting beliefs.

With confirmation bias, you can use this in your content by just researching your audience, getting to know the current situation they're in, getting to understand their current thoughts, beliefs, and experiences. Then create content that connects with those experiences. You can use this in all kinds of ways, from the way you structure your content to particular pieces of content that you write.

A great example of this is Design Academy. So what they did is they emailed their customers and asked them for their biggest design frustrations. They then used those answers to write copy that connected with their audience by putting their experiences front and center.

I really recommend playing around with confirmation bias and just taking the time to speak to your target audience so you can better support them. Another great example of this in action is just to use testimonials from people who are like your target audience. This will help them to see how your product can move them from their current situation to their dream situation.

Next, we've got rhyme as reason. Rhyme as reason is the idea that we're much more likely to believe something if it rhymes. It sounds really weird, but it's true. Research has shown that ads that rhyme are more likely to be seen as being memorable, original, trustworthy, and persuasive.

I recommend playing around with rhyme in your content. You can use rhyme by creating headlines that use rhyme, or you can just use it by adding more rhythm to your sentences, your content flow, and your structure. As mentioned earlier, a great example of rhyme as reason is Mars' "A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play" slogan.

Another example of this is the project management tool, Basecamp, who use the headline, "Not everything under the sun, just the stuff to get it done." Using this as the headline for their features page really emphasize the point of their product and help their audience see how it's going to help them.

Finally, we have the circle of competence. So the circle of competence is a term coined by Warren Buffett. The idea here is that you should stay within your circle of competence by only talking about the things that you really know. If you want to be known for e-commerce SEO, then make sure that that is what you talk about. Make that your bread and butter. 

You can use the circle of competence by creating laser-focused, fine-tuned content strategies and making sure you are the known expert for that topic. 

So that's seven mental models that you can use to create high-converting content that better resonates with your audience. However, this is literally just the tip of the iceberg. There are hundreds if not thousands of mental models out there, so I recommend you just go away and have fun adding more of these to your content, and let us know how you get on with it. Thanks for watching.