Marketing Psychology

---
name: marketing-psychology
description: "Toolkit for making an AI-automation agency's message land with business owners: attention, perception, trust, desire and choice, distilled from 10 marketing-psychology books. Use when writing website or landing-page copy, designing LinkedIn content, building proof and credibility, handling a prospect who hesitates or stalls, deciding what to say before the pitch, pricing or framing an offer, or deciding which marketing orthodoxies to ignore as a small B2B service firm. Distills: Cialdini, Shotton, Barden, Heath, Berger, Sutherland, Martin & Marks, Sharp."
---

<!-- argument-hint: [topic, framework name, book number, or a situation you're in] -->

# Marketing Psychology: attention, perception, trust, desire, and customer choice
**Books**: 10 | **Generated**: 2026-10-06 | **Source**: distilled from the authors' published frameworks (no book text reproduced)

## How to Use This Skill
- **Without arguments** — load the core frameworks below
- **With a topic/situation** — e.g. `landing page`, `prospect says not now`, `pricing page`, `LinkedIn hook`; read the relevant book file(s) and playbook before answering
- **With a book number** — `book 07`; load that book file
- **Browse** — "what books do you have?" → show the Book Index

When a question goes beyond the Core Frameworks, READ the relevant `books/NN-*.md` and `playbooks.md` before answering. Do not answer from the summary alone.

## Core Frameworks & Mental Models

### Before the message: attention and framing
- **Pre-suasion / privileged moments** (Cialdini, 04) — what is focal just before the message is judged important and causal → Open every call and page with the *owner's* problem as a question or number, never with your company; use a self-description question ("the kind of owner who fixes it once?") to prime the identity your offer serves.
- **Autopilot / Pilot and signals** (Barden, 03) — buyers decode cues, not products; the fast system decides, the slow system justifies → Design first contact for autopilot (familiar, fluent, visually consistent); put ROI sheets and case detail *after* the yes, not in the headline.
- **Net value = Reward − Pain** (Barden, 03) — pain is price *plus* effort, risk, time, uncertainty → Prefer lowering behavioural cost (fixed fee, reversible pilot, you run it 30 days) over lowering price, because discounting also signals doubt.
- **Implicit goals** (Barden, 03) — security, enjoyment, excitement, adventure, autonomy, discipline → Operators mostly buy security and autonomy; sell "nothing gets missed, and it runs without you", not "cutting-edge AI".
- **Trigger-timed contact** (Shotton, 02; Berger, 06) — habits loosen at life events; mentions are prompted by recurring cues → Prospect at new-hire, new-system, new-premises moments; tie content to month-end and Monday.

### Making it stick: copy and content
- **SUCCESs** (Heath & Heath, 05) — Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, Stories; the enemy is the **Curse of Knowledge** → One core per page; every claim filmable; statistics at human scale ("one admin person"); one named client over a logo wall; Challenge-plot stories with your workflow as the hinge; ban "AI-powered/seamless/cutting-edge".
- **STEPPS** (Berger, 06) — Social Currency, Triggers, Emotion, Public, Practical Value, Stories → Each post: one repeatable surprising line, one trigger moment, high-arousal emotion (absurdity, relief), narrowly useful content for one segment; make client results public; Rule of 100 (pounds over 100, percent under).
- **Primacy, cocktail party, media context** (Shotton, 02) → Strongest number first; name the segment in line one; faster payoff on LinkedIn than in a case study.

### Trust, proof and the messenger
- **Credibility = expertise + trustworthiness** (Cialdini, 01; Martin & Marks, 09) → Have authority introduced by a third party; demonstrate competence by doing a slice of the work live; state a real limitation early and recommend against yourself once per sale.
- **Hard vs soft messengers** (Martin & Marks, 09) — status traits (socio-economic position, competence, dominance, attractiveness) vs connection traits (warmth, vulnerability, trustworthiness, charisma) → Base pair for B2B is competence + trustworthiness; add dominance (decisive "do this first") only when the owner is anxious; vulnerability only after wins (pratfall effect, 02).
- **Similar, positive, concentrated proof** (Cialdini, 01; Berger, 07) → Proof from firms of the same size and sector; never "most SMEs haven't adopted..." (negative social proof); for strong resistance stack three independent proofs in one week.
- **Costly signalling** (Sutherland, 08) — credibility rises with how expensive the claim is to fake → Guarantee the setup fee, hand-build the free audit, name the engineer; cheap talk is discounted to zero.

### Removing resistance
- **REDUCE** (Berger, 07) — Reactance, Endowment, Distance, Uncertainty, Corroborating Evidence; change happens by removing barriers, not pushing → Diagnose the barrier before replying. Reactance: menu of 2–3, ask don't tell, restate their view. Endowment: cost of inaction in £/month, cumulative. Distance: shrink to one workflow; switch the field to a goal they already hold. Uncertainty: pilot, fixed fee, old process intact, cancel monthly. Evidence: three similar proofs. More arguments make reactance worse.
- **The 7 principles** (Cialdini, 01) — reciprocity, commitment/consistency, social proof, liking, authority, scarcity, unity → Push levers; use *after* barriers are down. Give a specific diagnostic first; get small stated commitments; real capacity-based scarcity only; ask for *advice* on your offer to create unity; show premium tier first (contrast).
- **Psycho-logic and reframing** (Sutherland, 08) → When the logical pitch fails, test its opposite; fix the anxiety around the metric (dashboard, check-ins, kill-switch) rather than only the metric; run the **doorman check** before automating a human step (what else was that person quietly doing?); name the programme.

### Growth system for a small B2B firm
- **Mental and physical availability** (Sharp, 10) → Map 6–10 buying situations ("new ops hire asks for the process") and attach the brand to each as a recurring theme; booking link and public pricing everywhere; reply fast.
- **Distinctive assets, consistency, light buyers, double jeopardy** (Sharp, 10) → Fix one colour, diagram style, face and sign-off for years; reach the whole serviceable segment continuously, not only "ideal" firms; expect lower loyalty while small. **Does not transfer**: "differentiation barely matters" and "loyalty doesn't drive growth"; in a considered £-thousands purchase with 10–30 clients, mechanism, fit (03, 07) and retention matter.
- **Test before you believe** (Shotton, 02; Sutherland, 08) → Claimed preferences are unreliable; A/B hooks, prices and names on 50 prospects each.

## Book Index
| # | Book | Author | Best for | File |
|---|------|--------|----------|------|
| 01 | Influence (New and Expanded) | Robert B. Cialdini | the 7 compliance principles; social proof, authority, real scarcity, unity | [books/01-influence.md](books/01-influence.md) |
| 02 | The Choice Factory | Richard Shotton | 25 biases with tests; pricing, timing, pratfall, negative social proof | [books/02-the-choice-factory.md](books/02-the-choice-factory.md) |
| 03 | Decoded | Phil Barden | autopilot/pilot, net value, implicit goals, signals, framing | [books/03-decoded.md](books/03-decoded.md) |
| 04 | Pre-Suasion | Robert Cialdini | what to say before the pitch; attention, openers, priming | [books/04-pre-suasion.md](books/04-pre-suasion.md) |
| 05 | Made to Stick | Chip Heath, Dan Heath | SUCCESs; concrete, credible copy; curse of knowledge | [books/05-made-to-stick.md](books/05-made-to-stick.md) |
| 06 | Contagious | Jonah Berger | STEPPS; word of mouth, triggers, shareable content | [books/06-contagious.md](books/06-contagious.md) |
| 07 | The Catalyst | Jonah Berger | REDUCE; why prospects hesitate and how to remove the barrier | [books/07-the-catalyst.md](books/07-the-catalyst.md) |
| 08 | Alchemy | Rory Sutherland | psycho-logic, costly signalling, reframing, doorman fallacy | [books/08-alchemy.md](books/08-alchemy.md) |
| 09 | Messengers | Stephen Martin, Joseph Marks | hard vs soft messenger traits; who gets listened to | [books/09-messengers.md](books/09-messengers.md) |
| 10 | How Brands Grow | Byron Sharp | mental/physical availability, distinctive assets; which orthodoxies to drop | [books/10-how-brands-grow.md](books/10-how-brands-grow.md) |

## Situation Index
- **Writing the homepage / landing page** → books 05, 03, 04, 10; playbook "Homepage and landing-page message"
- **LinkedIn content system or a single post hook** → books 06, 05, 10, 04; playbook "LinkedIn content system"
- **Prospect hesitates: "not now", "not sure it'll work here"** → books 07, 03, 09; playbook "Objection and hesitation handling"
- **Prospect argues with every point** → book 07 (Reactance), 04 (ask, don't tell); playbook "Objection and hesitation handling"
- **What to say in the first 3 minutes of a call** → books 04, 01, 09; playbook "Discovery call"
- **Building proof and credibility with no big logos** → books 05 (Sinatra Test, anti-authorities), 07 (Corroborating Evidence), 09, 01; playbook "Homepage" step 4
- **Competitor is cheaper** → books 08, 03, 02; playbook "Proposal and pricing"
- **Writing the proposal / pricing page** → books 02, 01, 03, 08, 07; playbook "Proposal and pricing"
- **Designing or naming a new offer** → books 03, 08, 07, 05; playbook "Offer design and naming"
- **Client quietly reverting an automation** → book 08 (doorman fallacy), 03
- **Deciding who to target and how often to post** → book 10, 02; playbook "LinkedIn content system"
- **Tempted to rebrand or refresh the look** → book 10
- **Which messenger persona for this prospect** → book 09; cheatsheet tree
- **Whether to use scarcity / deadlines** → books 01, 07 (only after barriers are down)
- **Copy sounds like jargon** → book 05 (curse of knowledge), 02; cheatsheet "Tells"
- **Prospecting timing** → books 02 (habit, life events), 06 (Triggers), 07 (burn the ships)
- **Which marketing orthodoxies don't apply to a small B2B firm** → book 10 section "Where the orthodoxy does and doesn't transfer"

## Supporting Files
- [playbooks.md](playbooks.md) — step-by-step workflows for real tasks (start here for "how do I…")
- [cheatsheet.md](cheatsheet.md) — decision rules and thresholds on one page
- [patterns.md](patterns.md) — every technique, deduplicated across books
- [glossary.md](glossary.md) — terms with book references

## Scope & Limits
Distilled from the frameworks these books are known for, not from the book text. Where books disagree, the book files say so (differentiation: 10 vs 03/07; push vs remove: 01 vs 07; logic vs testing: 08 vs 02/10). Treat proprietary sales-research claims as practitioner evidence, not replicated science. Combine with the sibling skills: human-psychology, human-behavior, marketing-psychology, sales-psychology, copywriting, offer-creation, client-eagerness-playbook.

**To apply these methods to your real pipeline**, use the workflow skills: `setup` (workspace), `lead-magnets`, `outreach`, `deals`, `pitch`. They cite this skill's book files as their method library.