marketing-psychology

---
name: marketing-psychology
description: Use when applying behavioral-science principles to a marketing decision so the agent can pick the right mental model and turn it into a concrete, ethical implementation.
source: https://github.com/coreyhaines31/marketingskills/tree/main/skills/marketing-psychology
generated: 2026-05-25T04:08:26.452Z
category: concept
audience: marketing
---

## When to use

- Stuck on why a page or campaign isn't converting and you suspect a psychology issue, not a copy issue
- Designing pricing, scarcity, social proof, or framing without leaning on anti-patterns that feel manipulative
- Explaining customer behavior to a team that wants 'why people buy' grounded in a mental model, not a guess
- Reviewing a marketing plan for cognitive-bias misuse before it ships

## Key concepts

### Mental models as thinking tools

Models like First Principles, Jobs To Be Done, Circle of Competence are decision aids, not labels. The skill helps pick which model fits, then translates it into a marketing move.

### First Principles vs competitor copying

Instead of 'do what competitors do,' ask why a tactic exists and what root problem it solves. Often the better marketing is a tactic competitors haven't even tried.

### Jobs To Be Done

Customers don't buy products; they hire them to do a job. Frame copy around the outcome ('a hole in the wall') rather than the feature ('this drill spec sheet').

### Anchoring, scarcity, social proof, loss aversion

Classic levers, each with a precise application pattern and an ethical guardrail in the skill. Bad applications backfire and damage trust.

### Ethical implementation

Every model comes with an honesty test: does this help the buyer make a better decision, or trick them into a worse one? The skill refuses dark-pattern framings.

## API reference

```
npx skills add https://github.com/coreyhaines31/marketingskills --skill marketing-psychology
```

Install the marketing-psychology skill.

```
npx skills add https://github.com/coreyhaines31/marketingskills --skill marketing-psychology
```

## Gotchas

- Don't pick a mental model first and force a fit; start with the marketing problem and ask which model applies
- Scarcity and urgency only work when they're true; fake countdown timers train customers to ignore them
- Anchoring needs a reference price; on a page with no anchor, the same number reads as either cheap or expensive
- Social proof from the wrong segment hurts; a $20/mo plan endorsed by enterprise customers makes prosumers feel out of place
- Behavioral models live downstream of segmentation; if you don't know who you're persuading, no model will save the copy

---
Generated by SkillMake from https://github.com/coreyhaines31/marketingskills/tree/main/skills/marketing-psychology on 2026-05-25T04:08:26.452Z.
Verify against source before relying on details.

File: ~/.claude/skills/marketing-psychology/SKILL.md