Marketing Psychology and Mental Models

Problem It Addresses

Marketing teams often hit “we have the features, but conversion, pricing, and trust underperform.” This skill treats purchase behavior as a set of explainable mechanisms: why a user does not click, why a price feels weak, and why a promotion can train customers to wait for discounts.

How It Works

If .claude/product-marketing-context.md exists, it uses that context before selecting mental models. The working path is: identify the behavior goal → explain the psychological principle → apply it to the marketing decision → set ethical limits. It covers strategic models such as first principles, Pareto principle, and constraints, as well as decision mechanisms like anchoring, loss aversion, default effect, and choice overload. A typical diagnosis for low conversion may point to Hick's Law, activation energy, or BJ Fogg checks rather than generic copywriting.

Boundaries and Caveats

Useful for growth, pricing, landing pages, onboarding, and copy diagnosis, especially when an engineering team needs to discuss why a tactic works. It does not replace user research, A/B testing, or legal compliance review. Scarcity, defaults, and social proof should be used only when factual and not used for manipulative pressure.