19 added, 404 removed. Audit A to A.
---
name: suede-marketing-psychology
description: "Suede-affiliated ethical application of behavioral science to marketing decisions, including framing, anchoring, social proof, loss aversion, choice architecture, and friction. Use when the user needs a named psychological model, an evidence-aware application, and a testable hypothesis. NOT FOR: clinical or mental-health advice, deceptive dark patterns, page implementation (use suede-site-alchemy), or pricing design (use suede-pricing)."
metadata:
version: 2.0.0
---
# Suede Ethical Marketing Psychology
Suede applies behavioral models as ethical, testable hypotheses—not as universal explanations or permission to manipulate. Identify the relevant mechanism, state its evidence limits, translate it into a specific marketing application, and define how the user can measure whether it helped.
## How to Use This Skill
- **Check for product marketing context first:**
- If `.agents/product-marketing.md` exists (or `.claude/product-marketing.md`, or the legacy `product-marketing-context.md` filename, in older setups), read it before applying mental models. Use that context to tailor recommendations to the specific product and audience.
-
- Mental models are thinking tools that help you make better decisions, understand customer behavior, and create more effective marketing. When helping users:
-
- 1. Identify which mental models apply to their situation
- 2. Explain the psychology behind the model
- 3. Provide specific marketing applications
- 4. Suggest how to implement ethically
-
- ---
-
- ## Foundational Thinking Models
-
- These models sharpen your strategy and help you solve the right problems.
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- ### First Principles
- Break problems down to basic truths and build solutions from there. Instead of copying competitors, ask "why" repeatedly to find root causes. Use the 5 Whys technique to tunnel down to what really matters.
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- **Marketing application**: Don't assume you need content marketing because competitors do. Ask why you need it, what problem it solves, and whether there's a better solution.
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- ### Jobs to Be Done
- People don't buy products—they "hire" them to get a job done. Focus on the outcome customers want, not features.
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- **Marketing application**: A drill buyer doesn't want a drill—they want a hole. Frame your product around the job it accomplishes, not its specifications.
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- ### Circle of Competence
- Know what you're good at and stay within it. Venture outside only with proper learning or expert help.
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- **Marketing application**: Don't chase every channel. Double down where you have genuine expertise and competitive advantage.
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- ### Inversion
- Instead of asking "How do I succeed?", ask "What would guarantee failure?" Then avoid those things.
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- **Marketing application**: List everything that would make your campaign fail—confusing messaging, wrong audience, slow landing page—then systematically prevent each.
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- ### Occam's Razor
- The simplest explanation is usually correct. Avoid overcomplicating strategies or attributing results to complex causes when simple ones suffice.
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- **Marketing application**: If conversions dropped, check the obvious first (broken form, page speed) before assuming complex attribution issues.
-
- ### Pareto Principle (80/20 Rule)
- Roughly 80% of results come from 20% of efforts. Identify and focus on the vital few.
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- **Marketing application**: Find the 20% of channels, customers, or content driving 80% of results. Cut or reduce the rest.
-
- ### Local vs. Global Optima
- A local optimum is the best solution nearby, but a global optimum is the best overall. Don't get stuck optimizing the wrong thing.
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- **Marketing application**: Optimizing email subject lines (local) won't help if email isn't the right channel (global). Zoom out before zooming in.
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- ### Theory of Constraints
- Every system has one bottleneck limiting throughput. Find and fix that constraint before optimizing elsewhere.
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- **Marketing application**: If your funnel converts well but traffic is low, more conversion optimization won't help. Fix the traffic bottleneck first.
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- ### Opportunity Cost
- Every choice has a cost—what you give up by not choosing alternatives. Consider what you're saying no to.
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- **Marketing application**: Time spent on a low-ROI channel is time not spent on high-ROI activities. Always compare against alternatives.
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- ### Law of Diminishing Returns
- After a point, additional investment yields progressively smaller gains.
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- **Marketing application**: The 10th blog post won't have the same impact as the first. Know when to diversify rather than double down.
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- ### Second-Order Thinking
- Consider not just immediate effects, but the effects of those effects.
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- **Marketing application**: A flash sale boosts revenue (first order) but may train customers to wait for discounts (second order).
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- ### Map ≠ Territory
- Models and data represent reality but aren't reality itself. Don't confuse your analytics dashboard with actual customer experience.
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- **Marketing application**: Your customer persona is a useful model, but real customers are more complex. Stay in touch with actual users.
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- ### Probabilistic Thinking
- Think in probabilities, not certainties. Estimate likelihoods and plan for multiple outcomes.
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- **Marketing application**: Don't bet everything on one campaign. Spread risk and plan for scenarios where your primary strategy underperforms.
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- ### Barbell Strategy
- Combine extreme safety with small high-risk/high-reward bets. Avoid the mediocre middle.
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- **Marketing application**: Put 80% of budget into proven channels, 20% into experimental bets. Avoid moderate-risk, moderate-reward middle.
-
- ---
-
- ## Understanding Buyers & Human Psychology
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- These models explain how customers think, decide, and behave.
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- ### Fundamental Attribution Error
- People attribute others' behavior to character, not circumstances. "They didn't buy because they're not serious" vs. "The checkout was confusing."
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- **Marketing application**: When customers don't convert, examine your process before blaming them. The problem is usually situational, not personal.
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- ### Mere Exposure Effect
- People prefer things they've seen before. Familiarity breeds liking.
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- **Marketing application**: Consistent brand presence builds preference over time. Repetition across channels creates comfort and trust.
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- ### Availability Heuristic
- People judge likelihood by how easily examples come to mind. Recent or vivid events seem more common.
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- **Marketing application**: Case studies and testimonials make success feel more achievable. Make positive outcomes easy to imagine.
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- ### Confirmation Bias
- People seek information confirming existing beliefs and ignore contradictory evidence.
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- **Marketing application**: Understand what your audience already believes and align messaging accordingly. Fighting beliefs head-on rarely works.
-
- ### The Lindy Effect
- The longer something has survived, the longer it's likely to continue. Old ideas often outlast new ones.
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- **Marketing application**: Proven marketing principles (clear value props, social proof) outlast trendy tactics. Don't abandon fundamentals for fads.
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- ### Mimetic Desire
- People want things because others want them. Desire is socially contagious.
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- **Marketing application**: Show that desirable people want your product. Waitlists, exclusivity, and social proof trigger mimetic desire.
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- ### Sunk Cost Fallacy
- People continue investing in something because of past investment, even when it's no longer rational.
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- **Marketing application**: Know when to kill underperforming campaigns. Past spend shouldn't justify future spend if results aren't there.
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- ### Endowment Effect
- People value things more once they own them.
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- **Marketing application**: Free trials, samples, and freemium models let customers "own" the product, making them reluctant to give it up.
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- ### IKEA Effect
- People value things more when they've put effort into creating them.
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- **Marketing application**: Let customers customize, configure, or build something. Their investment increases perceived value and commitment.
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- ### Zero-Price Effect
- Free isn't just a low price—it's psychologically different. "Free" triggers irrational preference.
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- **Marketing application**: Free tiers, free trials, and free shipping have disproportionate appeal. The jump from $1 to $0 is bigger than $2 to $1.
-
- ### Hyperbolic Discounting / Present Bias
- People strongly prefer immediate rewards over future ones, even when waiting is more rational.
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- **Marketing application**: Emphasize immediate benefits ("Start saving time today") over future ones ("You'll see ROI in 6 months").
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- ### Status-Quo Bias
- People prefer the current state of affairs. Change requires effort and feels risky.
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- **Marketing application**: Reduce friction to switch. Make the transition feel safe and easy. "Import your data in one click."
-
- ### Default Effect
- People tend to accept pre-selected options. Defaults are powerful.
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- **Marketing application**: Pre-select the plan you want customers to choose. Opt-out beats opt-in for subscriptions (ethically applied).
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- ### Paradox of Choice
- Too many options overwhelm and paralyze. Fewer choices often lead to more decisions.
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- **Marketing application**: Limit options. Three pricing tiers beat seven. Recommend a single "best for most" option.
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- ### Goal-Gradient Effect
- People accelerate effort as they approach a goal. Progress visualization motivates action.
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- **Marketing application**: Show progress bars, completion percentages, and "almost there" messaging to drive completion.
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- ### Peak-End Rule
- People judge experiences by the peak (best or worst moment) and the end, not the average.
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- **Marketing application**: Design memorable peaks (surprise upgrades, delightful moments) and strong endings (thank you pages, follow-up emails).
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- ### Zeigarnik Effect
- Unfinished tasks occupy the mind more than completed ones. Open loops create tension.
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- **Marketing application**: "You're 80% done" creates pull to finish. Incomplete profiles, abandoned carts, and cliffhangers leverage this.
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- ### Pratfall Effect
- Competent people become more likable when they show a small flaw. Perfection is less relatable.
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- **Marketing application**: Admitting a weakness ("We're not the cheapest, but...") can increase trust and differentiation.
-
- ### Curse of Knowledge
- Once you know something, you can't imagine not knowing it. Experts struggle to explain simply.
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- **Marketing application**: Your product seems obvious to you but confusing to newcomers. Test copy with people unfamiliar with your space.
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- ### Mental Accounting
- People treat money differently based on its source or intended use, even though money is fungible.
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- **Marketing application**: Frame costs in favorable mental accounts. "$3/day" feels different than "$90/month" even though it's the same.
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- ### Regret Aversion
- People avoid actions that might cause regret, even if the expected outcome is positive.
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- **Marketing application**: Address regret directly. Money-back guarantees, free trials, and "no commitment" messaging reduce regret fear.
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- ### Bandwagon Effect / Social Proof
- People follow what others are doing. Popularity signals quality and safety.
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- **Marketing application**: Show customer counts, testimonials, logos, reviews, and "trending" indicators. Numbers create confidence.
-
- ---
-
- ## Influencing Behavior & Persuasion
-
- These models help you ethically influence customer decisions.
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- ### Reciprocity Principle
- People feel obligated to return favors. Give first, and people want to give back.
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- **Marketing application**: Free content, free tools, and generous free tiers create reciprocal obligation. Give value before asking for anything.
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- ### Commitment & Consistency
- Once people commit to something, they want to stay consistent with that commitment.
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- **Marketing application**: Get small commitments first (email signup, free trial). People who've taken one step are more likely to take the next.
-
- ### Authority Bias
- People defer to experts and authority figures. Credentials and expertise create trust.
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- **Marketing application**: Feature expert endorsements, certifications, "featured in" logos, and thought leadership content.
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- ### Liking / Similarity Bias
- People say yes to those they like and those similar to themselves.
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- **Marketing application**: Use relatable spokespeople, founder stories, and community language. "Built by marketers for marketers" signals similarity.
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- ### Unity Principle
- Shared identity drives influence. "One of us" is powerful.
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- **Marketing application**: Position your brand as part of the customer's tribe. Use insider language and shared values.
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- ### Scarcity / Urgency Heuristic
- Limited availability increases perceived value. Scarcity signals desirability.
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- **Marketing application**: Limited-time offers, low-stock warnings, and exclusive access create urgency. Only use when genuine.
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- ### Foot-in-the-Door Technique
- Start with a small request, then escalate. Compliance with small requests leads to compliance with larger ones.
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- **Marketing application**: Free trial → paid plan → annual plan → enterprise. Each step builds on the last.
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- ### Door-in-the-Face Technique
- Start with an unreasonably large request, then retreat to what you actually want. The contrast makes the second request seem reasonable.
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- **Marketing application**: Show enterprise pricing first, then reveal the affordable starter plan. The contrast makes it feel like a deal.
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- ### Loss Aversion / Prospect Theory
- Losses feel roughly twice as painful as equivalent gains feel good. People will work harder to avoid losing than to gain.
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- **Marketing application**: Frame in terms of what they'll lose by not acting. "Don't miss out" beats "You could gain."
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- ### Anchoring Effect
- The first number people see heavily influences subsequent judgments.
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- **Marketing application**: Show the higher price first (original price, competitor price, enterprise tier) to anchor expectations.
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- ### Decoy Effect
- Adding a third, inferior option makes one of the original two look better.
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- **Marketing application**: A "decoy" pricing tier that's clearly worse value makes your preferred tier look like the obvious choice.
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- ### Framing Effect
- How something is presented changes how it's perceived. Same facts, different frames.
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- **Marketing application**: "90% success rate" vs. "10% failure rate" are identical but feel different. Frame positively.
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- ### Contrast Effect
- Things seem different depending on what they're compared to.
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- **Marketing application**: Show the "before" state clearly. The contrast with your "after" makes improvements vivid.
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- ---
-
- ## Pricing Psychology
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- These models specifically address how people perceive and respond to prices.
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- ### Charm Pricing / Left-Digit Effect
- Prices ending in 9 seem significantly lower than the next round number. $99 feels much cheaper than $100.
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- **Marketing application**: Use .99 or .95 endings for value-focused products. The left digit dominates perception.
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- ### Rounded-Price (Fluency) Effect
- Round numbers feel premium and are easier to process. $100 signals quality; $99 signals value.
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- **Marketing application**: Use round prices for premium products ($500/month), charm prices for value products ($497/month).
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- ### Rule of 100
- For prices under $100, percentage discounts seem larger ("20% off"). For prices over $100, absolute discounts seem larger ("$50 off").
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- **Marketing application**: $80 product: "20% off" beats "$16 off." $500 product: "$100 off" beats "20% off."
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- ### Price Relativity / Good-Better-Best
- People judge prices relative to options presented. A middle tier seems reasonable between cheap and expensive.
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- **Marketing application**: Three tiers where the middle is your target. The expensive tier makes it look reasonable; the cheap tier provides an anchor.
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- ### Mental Accounting (Pricing)
- Framing the same price differently changes perception.
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- **Marketing application**: "$1/day" feels cheaper than "$30/month." "Less than your morning coffee" reframes the expense.
-
- ---
-
- ## Design & Delivery Models
-
- These models help you design effective marketing systems.
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- ### Hick's Law
- Decision time increases with the number and complexity of choices. More options = slower decisions = more abandonment.
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- **Marketing application**: Simplify choices. One clear CTA beats three. Fewer form fields beat more.
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- ### AIDA Funnel
- Attention → Interest → Desire → Action. The classic customer journey model.
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- **Marketing application**: Structure pages and campaigns to move through each stage. Capture attention before building desire.
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- ### Rule of 7
- Prospects need roughly 7 touchpoints before converting. One ad rarely converts; sustained presence does.
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- **Marketing application**: Build multi-touch campaigns across channels. Retargeting, email sequences, and consistent presence compound.
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- ### Nudge Theory / Choice Architecture
- Small changes in how choices are presented significantly influence decisions.
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- **Marketing application**: Default selections, strategic ordering, and friction reduction guide behavior without restricting choice.
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- ### BJ Fogg Behavior Model
- Behavior = Motivation × Ability × Prompt. All three must be present for action.
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- **Marketing application**: High motivation but hard to do = won't happen. Easy to do but no prompt = won't happen. Design for all three.
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- ### EAST Framework
- Make desired behaviors: Easy, Attractive, Social, Timely.
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- **Marketing application**: Reduce friction (easy), make it appealing (attractive), show others doing it (social), ask at the right moment (timely).
-
- ### COM-B Model
- Behavior requires: Capability, Opportunity, Motivation.
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- **Marketing application**: Can they do it (capability)? Is the path clear (opportunity)? Do they want to (motivation)? Address all three.
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- ### Activation Energy
- The initial energy required to start something. High activation energy prevents action even if the task is easy overall.
-
- **Marketing application**: Reduce starting friction. Pre-fill forms, offer templates, show quick wins. Make the first step trivially easy.
-
- ### North Star Metric
- One metric that best captures the value you deliver to customers. Focus creates alignment.
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- **Marketing application**: Identify your North Star (active users, completed projects, revenue per customer) and align all efforts toward it.
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- ### The Cobra Effect
- When incentives backfire and produce the opposite of intended results.
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- **Marketing application**: Test incentive structures. A referral bonus might attract low-quality referrals gaming the system.
-
- ---
-
- ## Growth & Scaling Models
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- These models explain how marketing compounds and scales.
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- ### Feedback Loops
- Output becomes input, creating cycles. Positive loops accelerate growth; negative loops create decline.
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- **Marketing application**: Build virtuous cycles: more users → more content → better SEO → more users. Identify and strengthen positive loops.
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- ### Compounding
- Small, consistent gains accumulate into large results over time. Early gains matter most.
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- **Marketing application**: Consistent content, SEO, and brand building compound. Start early; benefits accumulate exponentially.
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- ### Network Effects
- A product becomes more valuable as more people use it.
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- **Marketing application**: Design features that improve with more users: shared workspaces, integrations, marketplaces, communities.
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- ### Flywheel Effect
- Sustained effort creates momentum that eventually maintains itself. Hard to start, easy to maintain.
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- **Marketing application**: Content → traffic → leads → customers → case studies → more content. Each element powers the next.
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- ### Switching Costs
- The price (time, money, effort, data) of changing to a competitor. High switching costs create retention.
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- **Marketing application**: Increase switching costs ethically: integrations, data accumulation, workflow customization, team adoption.
-
- ### Exploration vs. Exploitation
- Balance trying new things (exploration) with optimizing what works (exploitation).
-
- **Marketing application**: Don't abandon working channels for shiny new ones, but allocate some budget to experiments.
+ Read `.agents/product-marketing.md` first if it exists and ask only for what it does not cover; see `suede-product-marketing` for path fallbacks.
- ### Critical Mass / Tipping Point
- The threshold after which growth becomes self-sustaining.
+ Then:
- **Marketing application**: Focus resources on reaching critical mass in one segment before expanding. Depth before breadth.
+ 1. Use the Quick Reference table below to narrow the user's challenge to two or three candidate models.
+ 2. Read only those entries from `references/model-catalog.md` — the full library, with an evidence tier on every entry. Read it whenever you are about to name a model; never recommend one from memory, because the tier is what bounds the claim you are allowed to make.
+ 3. Emit one block per recommendation using the contract below. No recommendation ships without all four parts.
- ### Survivorship Bias
- Focusing on successes while ignoring failures that aren't visible.
+ ### Per-recommendation contract
- **Marketing application**: Study failed campaigns, not just successful ones. The viral hit you're copying had 99 failures you didn't see.
+ ```
+ **Mechanism:** [named model] — [the behavior it predicts, in one sentence]
+ **Evidence:** [Robust / Context-dependent / Contested / Folklore / Framework,
+ copied from the catalog entry] — [what that tier means for how hard you may
+ lean on it here]
+ **Application:** [the specific change to this product, page, price, or
+ sequence — not a generic tactic]
+ **Test:** [what changes, what you measure, the success threshold, and how long
+ it runs before you decide]
+ ```
- ---
+ If the catalog entry is **Contested** or **Folklore**, say so inside the recommendation and present the application as an experiment to run, never as a reason the change will work. If nothing in the catalog fits, say that rather than stretching a model — an unevidenced behavioral claim is out of bounds no matter how plausible it sounds.
## Quick Reference
- When facing a marketing challenge, consider:
+ When facing a marketing challenge, consider these models, then pull their entries from `references/model-catalog.md`:
| Challenge | Relevant Models |
|-----------|-----------------|
- | Low conversions | Hick's Law, Activation Energy, BJ Fogg, Friction |
+ | Low conversions | Hick's Law, Activation Energy, BJ Fogg Behavior Model |
| Price objections | Anchoring, Framing, Mental Accounting, Loss Aversion |
| Building trust | Authority, Social Proof, Reciprocity, Pratfall Effect |
| Increasing urgency | Scarcity, Loss Aversion, Zeigarnik Effect |
| Retention/churn | Endowment Effect, Switching Costs, Status-Quo Bias |
| Growth stalling | Theory of Constraints, Local vs Global Optima, Compounding |
| Decision paralysis | Paradox of Choice, Default Effect, Nudge Theory |
| Onboarding | Goal-Gradient, IKEA Effect, Commitment & Consistency |
---
## Task-Specific Questions
1. What specific behavior are you trying to influence?
2. What does your customer believe before encountering your marketing?
3. Where in the journey (awareness → consideration → decision) is this?
4. What's currently preventing the desired action?
5. Have you tested this with real customers?
---
## Boundaries
- Do not diagnose people, infer protected traits, or present marketing models as clinical or universal truths.
- Do not recommend deception, coercion, fake scarcity, hidden defaults, obstructive cancellation, or other dark patterns.
- Do not claim a behavioral effect will occur without evidence; express it as a hypothesis and define a test.
- Do not publish copy, change interfaces, or decide ethical and legal risk for the user.
## Routing
- Use `suede-site-alchemy` for page application and `suede-copy` for message framing.
- Use `suede-pricing` for pricing architecture and `suede-paywalls` for in-product upgrade moments.
- Use `suede-ab-testing` to test behavioral hypotheses.