Priming: The Invisible Hand Guiding Your Customer’s Next Click

What Is Priming and Why Should Growth Marketers Care?

Priming is a psychological effect where exposure to one stimulus influences how someone responds to another. In marketing, priming subtly shapes customer perceptions, decisions, and behaviours—often without them realising it.

When used strategically, priming can significantly boost your marketing results by nudging customers towards desired actions, such as clicking a link, signing up for a newsletter, or making a purchase.

How Priming Works in Marketing

Priming works by activating specific associations in your customer's mind, influencing their subsequent decisions. Here are three common types of priming marketers use:

• Visual Priming: Using images, colours, or design elements to trigger specific emotions or associations. For example, green often primes customers to associate your brand with sustainability or health.

• Semantic Priming: Using particular words or phrases to activate related concepts. Words like "luxury" or "premium" prime customers to expect higher quality and justify higher prices.

• Contextual Priming: Presenting information in a specific context to influence perception. For instance, placing your product next to higher-priced alternatives primes customers to perceive it as better value.

Real-World Examples of Priming in Action

Here are practical examples of priming techniques marketers regularly use:

• Pricing Anchors: Displaying a higher-priced product first primes customers to perceive subsequent lower-priced options as better value. (Learn more about anchoring.)

• Social Proof: Highlighting customer testimonials or reviews primes potential buyers to trust your brand and feel confident in their purchase decision.

• Scarcity and Urgency: Messaging such as "limited stock" or "offer ends soon" primes customers to act quickly to avoid missing out. (Explore the psychology behind this in our article on loss aversion.)

How to Use Priming to Improve Your Growth Marketing Results

To effectively leverage priming in your growth marketing strategy, follow these practical steps:

Understand Your Audience's Mindset

Identify the emotions, values, and associations that resonate most strongly with your target audience. Use customer research, surveys, and analytics to pinpoint these insights.

Align Priming Techniques with Clear Goals

Clearly define the actions you want customers to take. Then, strategically select priming techniques that directly support these goals. For example, if your goal is to increase sign-ups, prime visitors with social proof highlighting satisfied users.

Test and Optimise Your Priming Techniques

Priming is most effective when continuously tested and refined. Run controlled experiments to measure the impact of different priming methods on your conversion rates and customer behaviour. (Check out our guide on marketing experimentation.)

How Growth Method Helps You Leverage Priming Effectively

Priming is powerful, but to use it effectively, you need a structured approach to experimentation and analysis. Growth Method is the only work management platform built specifically for growth marketers, helping you systematically test, measure, and optimise your priming strategies.

Here's how Growth Method supports your priming efforts:

• Ideation: Our intuitive ideation system ensures your priming ideas align with your growth goals. Ideas are automatically categorised, shared with your team, and follow hypothesis best practices, keeping everyone informed and collaborative.

• Experimentation: Growth Method guides your experiments through clear stages—building, live, analysing, and complete—enforcing best practices and increasing your experiment velocity. This structured approach ensures you quickly learn which priming techniques resonate best with your audience.

• Reporting: Easily demonstrate the impact of your priming strategies with professional, detailed reports. Growth Method integrates seamlessly with analytics platforms like Google Analytics, Amplitude, and MixPanel, giving you clear insights into how priming influences customer behaviour and conversions.

"We are on-track to deliver a 43% increase in inbound leads this year. There is no doubt the adoption of Growth Method is the primary driver behind these results." Laura Perrott, Colt Technology Services

Priming Is a Powerful Tool for Growth Marketers

Priming is an essential psychological principle growth marketers can leverage to subtly guide customer behaviour and improve marketing outcomes. By understanding your audience, aligning priming techniques with clear goals, and systematically testing and optimising your approach, you can significantly enhance your marketing effectiveness.

Growth Method simplifies this process, providing everything you need to run effective priming experiments and clearly demonstrate their impact. Ready to see how Growth Method can help you leverage priming to drive growth? Book a call today.