Questionable Marketing Tricks

 
About a month ago, we wrote about how to avoid being scammed. Here, we examine other questionable marketing tricks for consumers to beware.

 

Smart Consumers Should  Be Wary of Questionable Marketing Tricks

For this post, we turn to two sources citing questionable marketing tricks:

• Visual Capitalist, 29 Psychological Tricks To Make You Buy More
• Outbound.net, 22 Marketing Tricks & Ploys Most Customers Don’t Probably Know That They Are Falling For

 

Psychological Tricks to Make You Buy More

As Carmen Ang reports for Visual Capitalist:

Ever suffered from buyer’s remorse? You’re not alone. According to a recent survey, only 5% of people say they  never felt guilty about buying something. At some point in our lives, that means the majority of us regretted a purchase.

But consumers aren’t necessarily only to blame for impulse buys. After all, we constantly get bombarded with advertisements. As well as marketing tactics specifically tailored to try and get us to spend more money.

The following infographic by TitleMax explains 29 different questionable marketing tricks that marketers use to try to get consumers to buy more.

 

Questionable Marketing Tricks and Ploys

Justin Miller offers these  observations for Outbound.net:

To succeed in this competitive environment, marketers  invented ways, tricks, and ploys that attract most of the consumers. We describe these tricks and ploys as sophisticated selling techniques and or clever traps. Salespeople use them to ensnare customers or shoppers.

Miller highlights 22 such tricks. Next, we note 5 of them. To read fuller descriptions of all 22 of them, click here. 

1. 1. 1. By Creating a Sense Of Scarcity — Whether online or in stores, we will meet claims such as “hurry up while the stock lasts.” Such lines create a sense of scarcity. That invokes fear of missing out. [Even with plenty of products available.]
      2. By Creating a Sense of Urgency —  Just like scarcity, creating a sense of urgency represents another common ploy. It works because it invokes the ‘Fear of Missing out’ (FOMO) on a certain product within a limited time. Thus, you might see “this offer expires in a weeks time.” Or “10 minutes to claim this offer.”
      3. Through the Cunning Layout of Products — With this practice, hyper-advertised popular trademarks occupy middle shelves. The top shelves are reserved for less-popular brands. Bottom shelves typically contain virtually unknown brands. Sometimes, bottom shelves include children’s products like toys.
      4. Buying One & Getting One Free Trick (BOGO) — During “buy one and get one free” promotions, the product purchased usually offers an inflated price. And the price of the first product is worth the price of the two if sold separately at their normal price.
      5. Anthropomorphism — This refers to the tendency of investing in creatures and things with human characteristics and qualities. Some companies and brands use animal mascots for their packaging design and brand promotion. They tend to get most of the customers who tend to empathize with characters in movies.