The Psychology of Email Marketing: Using Operant Conditioning to Keep Customers Comming Back
Though this article is more technical than typical Quiet Nonsense blog posts, QN values the synthesis of science and marketing to create effective strategies for our clients.
As such, the following sections serve to communicate applied psychology as it relates to digital marketing, and as a window into how QN integrates an understanding of consumer behavior into its marketing ethos.
Operant Conditioning
Operant conditioning is a process of learning that utilizes positive and negative reinforcement or punishment to modify voluntary behavior.
Although operant conditioning can be intentionally used to shape behavior, much of how we behave naturally results from learning guided by operant principles.
This view of psychology is referred to as behaviorism, a field of psychology revolutionized by B.F. Skinner and Edward Thorndike.
Though behaviorism dominated psychology for much of the 20th century, it also influenced marketing and is relevant to modern marketing strategy.
Types of Reinforcement
Operant conditioning utilizes a series of rewards and punishments to shape behavior through desired and undesired consequences.
Reinforcement can be broken down into positive and negative reinforcement, whereas punishment can be broken down into positive and negative punishment.
Positive reinforcement increases the probability of a behavior being performed by providing a rewarding stimulus after that desired behavior occurs.
Negative reinforcement increases the probability of a behavior by removing an undesired stimulus.
Positive punishment decreases the likelihood of a behavior occurring by providing an unwanted stimulus.
Negative punishment decreases the likelihood of a behavior occurring by removing a desired stimulus.
Applying Operant Conditioning to Email Marketing Strategy
Email marketing is more than just fishing for attention. An appropriate email marketing strategy utilizes concepts of behaviorism to increase customer engagement.
Though strategies involving negative reinforcement and positive and negative punishment are less likely to hold usefulness in email endeavors, positive reinforcement is a valuable option.
One strategy commonly used in email marketing is the reward of discounts and promotional merchandise.
This strategy may be used to build an email list by enticing website visitors to provide their email contact in return for a small discount on products or services. Once the customer has provided their email and has received the special offer, they are more likely to apply that discount to their next purchase.
However, this practice is only the tip of the iceberg of email marketing strategies.
Schedules of Reinforcement
The next step will involve customer engagement and continued positive reinforcement using a reinforcement schedule, or how often a reinforcing stimulus will be delivered to the customer.
Operant conditioning may involve several different schedules of reinforcement, consisting of continuous and intermittent reinforcement.
Continuous reinforcement schedules imply that a reinforcing stimulus is provided after each behavior.
For example, after every purchase a customer makes, they are rewarded by an email with a discount code, thus reinforcing the behavior of shopping at that particular store.
Those considering this reinforcement schedule will have to figure frequent discounts into their operations cost to ensure maximum profit. Nevertheless, if the customer frequently purchases a particular type of product or service, they are more likely to select the business that continuiously rewards their shopping behavior.
Discount point systems commonly used by fuel and grocery retailers illustrate how the principle of continuous reinforcement functions to develop a network of repeat customers, as the customers are continuously reinforced by reward points acquired after each purchase.
Intermittent reinforcement relies heavily on the timing of reinforcement and the frequency of the behavior one wishes to reinforce. That is, intermittent reinforcement occurs by providing a reinforcer after a measure of time has elapsed following the behavior.
For example, a customer receives an email offering a free T-shirt three days after making a purchase.
On the other hand, intermittent reinforcement may also occur when a behavior is rewarded (reinforced) after a set amount of times in which that behavior occurs.
For example, a customer receives an email offering a free T-shirt after making three individual transactions for products or services.
As one might assume, intermittent schedules of reinforcement are more complicated than their continuous counterpart. However, one must further reduce these intermittent schedules to include fixed, variable, interval, and ratio schedules of reinforcement.
Fixed and Variable Intermittent Reinforcement Schedules
A fixed reinforcement schedule is predictable.
For example, a customer receives an email containing a special offer after every three purchases. Another example illustrating a fixed schedule is when a customer receives a special offer email one week after each purchase.
Conversely, variable reinforcement schedules are unpredictable, and reinforcement is provided after an approximate or average amount of behavioral occurrences or time.
One may further understand these examples by examining the relevance of interval and ratio schedules as they relate to the principles of operant conditioning in digital marketing.
Interval and Ratio Intermittent Reinforcement Schedules
One can further reduce intermittent reinforcement schedules to interval and ratio schedules.
An interval reinforcement implies that a certain amount of time must elapse before a reinforcer is granted. However, one should note that behaviors occurring within an allotted interval do not affect the moment a reinforcer is given within that time frame.
Conversely, a ratio schedule depends on a sum of behavioral responses, i.e., the number of reactions performed by a subject or research participant (a consumer, in the context of marketing).
This principle of behaviorism assumes that the quicker a consumer performs a behavior, the sooner the reinforcers of that behavior will be granted. In contrast, the slower a consumer performs a behavior, the slower the reinforcer will be granted.
However, this principle only applies after a set number of behavioral responses have been performed by the subject or consumer under the parameters of a stated reinforcement schedule.
Considering the complexity of intermittent reinforcement schedules, one might be inclined to believe that these principles can be further elaborated upon. Indeed, combinations of fixed and variable reinforcement schedules often present as fixed ratio and variable ratio reinforcement schedules.
A fixed ratio reinforcement schedule involves granting reinforcement after a subject or customer performs an exact quantity of behavioral responses.
For example, a customer is provided a rewarding discount after opening exactly three newsletters. In this case, one might send out three promotional emails in succession, with the last email containing a newsletter with a discount code.
Over time, the consumer learns how many responses are needed to receive a reward, resulting in a post-reinforcement pause from immediately opening emails after receiving the reinforcing reward.
In laboratory conditions using rodents, the result of this protocol is referred to as a break-and-run response pattern, in which subjects pause before quickly responding to the following reinforcing variable. However, fixed ratio reinforcement also applies to human behavior, and humans are consumers targeted by marketing.
Variable Ratio reinforcement schedules are very unpredictable.
A good example of how variable ratio schedules apply to human behavior is illustrated by slot machines, which reinforce gambling behavior by paying off just enough times to keep the gambler playing.
In the context of marketing, the consumer is motivated to engage under the superstitious assumption that the following promotional email might result in a reward. This strategy might involve providing the consumer with infrequent or random reinforcers of a significant value.
Fixed Interval schedules of reinforcement grant rewards after a particular measure of time has elapsed.
For example, a consumer visits an online retailer and receives a remarkable reinforcer after interacting with the website for five minutes. However, no matter what, the reward will not appear to the consumer until that measure of time has passed.
This concept might apply less to email marketing and more to website engagement.
Modern advertising often utilizes fixed interval schedules on video media platforms to accomplish their marketing goals.
As such, a media consumer may engage with a 60-second commercial at the beginning of a video, a behavior reinforced by the reward of watching their favorite content creator share off-the-wall conspiracy theories. When the next 60-second advertisement occurs, the media consumer repetes such behavior, further reinforced by the succeeding rewarding content.
Variable interval reinforcement schedules are unpredictable regarding the time that must elapse before a reinforcer is granted.
The consumer has no idea how much time will pass between reinforcers. As a result, subjects or consumers exhibit moderate behavioral responses to these randomized time intervals, exhibiting behavioral persistence over long periods. This schedule of reinforcement results in an averaged interval of reinforcement in which rewards are granted with inconsistency.
To illustrate how this concept applies to marketing, one might continuously send out promotional emails on a randomized schedule, periodically rewarding the consumer with a discount code.
In theory, consumers are more likely to consistently open such promotional emails, as they have learned to anticipate periodic rewards.
Quiet Nonsense and Marketing Psychology
Digital marketing involves many strategies, of which email marketing is one tool used to generate business. However, clever marketing strategies leverage the applied behavioral sciences across various marketing and media products.
Quiet Nonsense works to maximize the efficacy of marketing strategies by providing clients with services that capture the minds and attention of those roaming the modern digital ecosphere.