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Cognitive biases have always played a significant role in marketing strategies. Marketing professionals utilize these systemic errors that occur unconsciously in people’s minds that influence their decision-making capabilities. They have always been used to the advantage of businesses to convince and convert the audiences. Some examples of these marketing strategies are:

• Using testimonials to create the bandwagon effect.

• The use of heuristic examples to explain case studies and tell the story of a brand.

• Turning the in-group favoritism on social media to the advantage of the company.

There are almost 200 types of cognitive biases that exist and can be used for marketing strategies. But we often fail to realize that some of these biases can also be a disadvantage for the brand. They can influence strategic decisions and hinder the creativity behind the content. Therefore marketing professionals must be mindful of these cognitive biases. They must make conscious efforts to mitigate them while creating content and formulating a marketing strategy. 

But why is it that some biases can be useful for the content marketing of a business? Cognitive biases are formed by the mind to protect it from excessive work that can cause fatigue. That is why some prejudices can prove detrimental to the importance of content marketing for businesses. The biases can get divided into four groups. 

Excessive Information

The human brain has always been lazy to accept new information. You might have noticed that your consumers often respond to changes in your business negatively. That is why we use humor or pictures on our content to make it appealing to the customers. But even then, consumers might get disinterested and act negatively towards your content. So keep these biases in mind while considering how much information you should provide. Some of the cognitive biases that you must consider while formulating your content marketing strategies are:

• People tend to notice flaws in others, but not in themselves. So if your content points out the flaws in them, it can create a negative image for your brand.

• Customers would often disagree with information that contradicts their beliefs. But they still always agree with the ones that concur with their existing opinions. Therefore your content should affirm their present beliefs. If you provide new ideas, make sure that you support it with adequate evidence.

• The human mind often looks for unique information that we can relate to. However, if that information is not relatable to us, we tend to discard it, so create simple content that most people can understand.

Stereotyping

It is natural for people to categorize others into stereotypes. But at the same time, this common bias is often criticized and penalized. So if your content gets misread as stereotyping, it can prove detrimental for your brand. There are a few factors to consider while creating marketing content to ensure that it resonates with the majority of your target market. It should work with different groups of people. You can also provide examples of authentic stories that have been provided by people of certain groups. 

Extent of knowledge

It is common for marketing professionals to assume that the customers know as much about the data as they do. Including jargon and complex data in your content is not always essential. People tend to relate new information with their past knowledge and try to simplify them to suit their perception. Therefore create content that is easy to understand and self-explanatory. If you need to include technical data, explain with examples that people can understand easily. 

Authority

People tend to trust new information that has been confirmed by an expert. Various groups of people consider different types of authority. Marketing professionals would deem the words of a well-known CEO as authoritative. Lifestyle followers would affirm with the words of a celebrity or an influencer with a larger number of followers. Blog posts that have been attested by an authority tend to have more viewership. So if you are introducing new information in your content, ensure that it gets supported with the words of an authoritative figure.

Need to Retain Information

Most of our cognitive biases are formed because the human brain is lazy. Most readers will filter your content based on what they need to remember from it. They will tend to carry the information that they feel is relevant to their lives. That is why search engines always list the articles that start with “steps to” or “how to” on the top. Most people know that they do not need to retain a lot of information because they can always look it up online. Therefore precise content that has been structured properly often tends to gather more audiences.

So as you can see, cognitive biases can not only work in your favor, it can work against you as well. That’s why you should keep them in mind to create content that is of high quality and yet have a positive user experience. So make sure that your content team uses them to maximize the target audience for your product or service.