The Big Five:
How to Use Personality Psychology
to Improve Your Marketing
Your business is nothing without effective marketing strategies. Marketing, while often seen as mostly numbers and data, actually must consider human behavior and personality in order to be effective and grow your business.
When you think about human behaviors and personality traits, you can better market your product or service and touch on the emotions of your customer base to make more sales.
How does a business go about using personality psychology in their marketing strategy? It starts with the Big Five.
What is the Big Five?
The Big Five is a personality model that has been thoroughly studied by psychologists and marketing specialists. It consists of five major personality traits that your customer base may have.
To remember the five personalities, you can use the acronym OCEAN.
Openness to Experience
- This personality trait can give insight to how creative and curious a person is.
- Those who are curious are usually more creative and don’t like routines.
- The opposite of this trait is more cautious and analytical.
Conscientiousness
- This personality trait can give insight to how organized someone is and what their work ethic is like.
- Those who are organized and efficient are self-disciplined, dependable, and would rather plan things than do them on a whim.
- The opposite of this trait and more easy-going and enjoy spontaneity and live a carefree lifestyle.
Extraversion
- This personality trait can give insight to how enthusiastic and social a person is.
- Those who are energetic and more outgoing tend to have a positive outlook and enjoy being around and interacting with people through conversation.
- The opposite of this trait is being more reserved and enjoying spending time alone. These people are often seen as independent and stay quiet in a group setting.
Agreeableness
- This personality trait can give insight to how friendly and kind a person is.
- Those who are compassionate and friendly are usually seen as trustworthy, even-tempered, and usually cooperate well with others.
- The opposite of this trait is being more analytical and enjoying competition with others. They are more analytical and more concerned with themselves than others.
Neuroticism
- This personality trait can give insight to how calm and relaxed a person is.
- Those who are confident and tranquil are more likely to be calm and are not easily upset. They don’t react to things emotionally and tend to have a more positive outlook.
- The opposite for this trait is more nervous and sensitive to emotions. They react emotionally to situations and are more likely to experience stress.
How to Use Personality Models in Your Marketing
Once you’re aware of the types of personalities you are marketing your product or service to, you can create effective marketing and advertising campaigns that speak to these traits and grab your audience’s interest.
One example is when marketing to an audience that has high scores in Neuroticism, your marketing should cater towards making them feel safe and secure with your product or service.
There are unlimited options and techniques you can use when planning your marketing strategy around the Big Five. Once you implement them, you’ll see just how effective they can be.
