On this episode of Brainfluence, we explore how behavioral science can be utilized in both B2C and B2B marketing. Nancy Harhut shares how campaigns that focus on emotional impact over product features can increase purchase intent. We also discuss information gap theory and how marketers can use it to pique interest, availability bias, and autonomy bias. We dive into how giving people choices can increase the likelihood of a buying decision, and how the use of the word “because” can increase compliance. In addition, we cover temporal landmarks, guiding customer choice, and the importance of coming off as engaged and interested in clients’ work. Join us as we dive into these fascinating behavioral science principles and their applications in marketing.
For marketers, science trumps cleverness. Nancy Harhut, aka @nharhut, shares actionable ideas from her book, Using #BehavioralScience in #Marketing Share on XListen In
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Nancy Harhut – Key Moments
Acceptance of Behavioral Science in Marketing [00:00:44] Nancy discusses the growing acceptance of behavioral science in marketing, citing the creation of C-level positions like Chief Behavioral Science Officer as an indication of its power and effectiveness.
Skepticism in B2B Marketing [00:01:20] Nancy talks about encountering skeptics in B2B marketing who believe that behavioral science doesn’t fit in with the rational sell, and shares an example of a successful campaign for a company that did business intelligence software.
Autonomy Bias in Marketing [00:06:04] Nancy explains autonomy bias, the innate desire for control over oneself or one’s environment, and how marketers can use it by offering choices to make people feel like they have some kind of control.
The Power of Choices [00:06:42] Having choices can increase the likelihood of making a buying decision, but too many choices can lead to analysis paralysis. Marketers should use choices to feed into the desire for autonomy, but guide customers towards a specific direction.
Temporal Landmarks and Discounting [00:10:05] Temporal landmarks are days when people feel like they can start fresh and accomplish anything, making it a great time to convince someone to commit to something. Temporal discounting is the tendency to prefer immediate gratification, which can be overcome by making people feel that their future selves are the same as their present selves.
Retirement Age Progression Tool [00:12:36] Merrill Lynch’s age progression software for retirement funds and its impact on people’s perception of saving for retirement.
Information Gap Theory [00:14:07] Using information gap theory to create curiosity and interest in a product or service by posing questions that create a gap between what people know and what they want to know.
Availability Bias [00:18:17] Nancy and Roger discuss how availability bias affects people’s fears and decision-making processes, and how it was used in a successful marketing campaign for a B2B client.
Overcoming Bias in B2B Purchases [00:21:18] The mental process of keeping the status quo and avoiding risk affects many B2B purchases, and marketers need to find ways to overcome this bias to promote change.
Automatic Compliance Triggers [00:24:08] Nancy talks about the power of using the word “cause” as a trigger for automatic compliance, and how it can be used in marketing to increase customer engagement.
The Power of “Because” [00:24:43] Nancy Harhut explains how the word “because” triggers automatic compliance and how it can be used in marketing.
The Credibility of Charts and Graphs [00:25:26] The mere presence of a chart or graph can increase the credibility of the text that’s next to it.
Using Behavioral Science Principles in Marketing [00:27:39] Nancy Harhut shares how she begins a new project by looking at the desired behavior, the target market, and the number one reason why people may not want to take action. She also discusses some of the behavioral science principles that can be used in marketing.
Nancy Harhut Quotes
The Importance of Citing Behavioral Science: “I think being able to point to what behavioral scientists have found in the market adds credibility to us as marketers. And so our clients, as a result, are a little bit more willing to listen to what we have to say and feel a little bit more confident when they’re rolling out our campaigns.”
Autonomy Bias: “Giving people a few choices makes them feel like they have some kind of control. And control is a deep seated desire for people.”
B2B Marketing: “People make their decisions for emotional reasons and then justify them later for the rational one. So I always say to clients, have both, have both in your marketing messages.”
The Power of “Because”: “She identified the word because as an automatic compliance trigger. When we see it or when we hear it, we just start to nod up and down like little Bobbleheads without fully processing what comes next.”
Marketing Tactics: “Usually where we’ll start is to look at the action we’re asking people to take and what’s the number one reason why they won’t do it.”
About Nancy Harhut
Nancy Harhut is the Chief Creative Officer at HBT Marketing. She specializes in blending creative with decision science to prompt responses and has spoken at industry conferences around the world. Prior to co-founding HBT Marketing, she held senior creative management positions with Hill Holliday, Mullen, and Digitas, and has won over 175 awards for digital and direct marketing effectiveness.
Nancy Harhut Resources
Amazon: Using Behavioral Science in Marketing
Twitter: @nharhut
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancyharhut/
Instagram: @nancyharhut
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nancy.harhut
Website: https://www.hbtmktg.com/
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Full Transcript:
Full Episode Transcript PDF: Click HERE
Intro [00:00:00]:
Welcome to Brainfluence, where author and international keynote speaker Roger Dooley shares powerful but practical ideas from world class experts and sometimes a few of his own. To learn more about Roger’s books, Brainfluence and Friction, and to find links to his latest articles and videos, the best place to start is Rogerdooley.com. Roger’s keynotes will keep your audience entertained and engaged. At the same time, he will change the way they think about customer and employee experience. To check availability for an in person or virtual keynote or workshop, visit rogerdooley.com.
Roger Dooley [00:00:37]:
Welcome to Brainfluence. I’m Roger Dooley. Today’s guest has written a book I know will appeal to just about everyone in the Brain Fluence audience. Nancy Harhut is the co founder and chief Creative officer of HBT Marketing. She and her team have won over 200 international and national awards for marketing effectiveness. She’s worked with big brands like Nationwide, GM Card and H & R Block. Nancy’s new book is Using Behavioral Science in Marketing – Drive Customer Action and Loyalty by Prompting Instinctive Responses. And here’s a disclaimer: I wrote a testimonial for the book, so like most humans, I may be biased. Welcome to the show, Nancy.
Nancy Harhut [00:01:13]:
Thank you so much, Roger. Happy to be here.
Roger Dooley [00:01:15]:
Well, Nancy, you’ve worked in this space for quite a while. Are you seeing more acceptance of the use of behavioral science in marketing?
Nancy Harhut [00:01:24]:
Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. We’re seeing our client base grow, which is kind of one example of more and more people getting into it. But I’m also seeing large companies create sea level positions like Chief Behavioral Science Officer, things like that, or SVP of Behavioral Science. And so I think that’s a real indication that more and more companies are beginning to embrace the field and realize just how powerful and how effective it can be to do so.
Roger Dooley [00:01:52]:
Do you still encounter skeptics? I’m thinking particularly on the B to B side, people have always considered consumers to be somewhat irrational. But are there still skeptics out there?
Nancy Harhut [00:02:03]:
I think there are, and I think you’re absolutely right when you’re trying to explain this and you say, hey, look, people rely on decision making shortcuts. There are decision defaults. You can prompt them or trigger them. You just really need to embrace behavioral science. We can often get the B to C clients there a little bit faster because it seems to kind of make sense. But when you start to talk about it in B to B, a lot of clients are thinking, I don’t know, my customers are very educated. They’re serious about what they do. It’s all about the facts. It’s all about the speeds and feeds. It’s all about just the rational cell. And some of this fluffy stuff that you’re calling behavioral science really doesn’t fit. But the truth is it does. I worked on a piece for a campaign, actually, for a company that did business intelligence software, and that’s pretty darn serious. Right, it’s high tech, it’s complicated, it’s expensive. And basically what it does is it allows companies to get a 365 degree view of their data. Data is very often siloed, and this allowed the data to kind of bubble up and people could see all of it. But the campaign we did didn’t really talk about what the product did and it didn’t even talk about why it might be useful. What it did instead is it talked about the target market, the person who would really be able to benefit from this. So you’ve got a sea level executive. They’re making these decisions all the time, very important decisions. Decisions that not only impact whether or not they stay employed, but whether or not other people in the company stay employed, whether or not the company itself is profitable, maybe whether or not the company runs afoul of certain regulations. And so they’re making these decisions. And if they know that they’re making them without a complete view of data, they know it’s just a matter of time before they’re going to get it wrong. And so as a result, that leads to sleepless nights, that leads to agita. And so we rolled out a campaign and we led with that feeling. We said it was the bubble wrap for difficult decisions or the decaf for difficult decisions, or the antacid for difficult decisions. But we talked about what it was like for people in the target market to be able to use the product. And as a result, it did really, really well. In fact, it increased purchase intent by double digits. So of course we talked about the product and what it did, but we led with a more emotional, more behavioral science Brainfluence kind of approach.
Roger Dooley [00:04:34]:
I suppose if you run into a skeptic, Nancy, you could use those same techniques. And instead of trying to show them the data why behavioral science works, you could bring up issues of promotion and job security and so on in a subtle way to get them moving in the right direction.
Nancy Harhut [00:04:53]:
But the other thing I find helps is a lot of times agency people will get up and they’ll do their presentation and the client is sitting there thinking, does this person really want to be here or would they rather be writing the great American novel? Would they really rather be painting something that’s going to hang in a museum? And when we get up and we present a campaign and we say, listen, here’s why we’re doing what we’re doing, and here’s the research that supports it, and here’s a study that came out of Stanford, and here’s a study that came out of Harvard, and this is what they found. It actually increases our credibility with our clients. And I think it makes our clients feel a little bit more comfortable that they’re getting work that’s designed to work and not work that is being put in front of them because somebody thinks it’s creative, or somebody’s favorite color is red, or somebody really liked the turn of phrase that they wrote. I think being able to point to what behavioral scientists have found in the market really kind of adds credibility to us as marketers. And so our clients, as a result, are a little bit more willing to listen to what we have to say and feel a little bit more confident when they’re rolling out our campaigns.
Roger Dooley [00:05:59]:
Right, well, I’m sure the only advertising awards you’re looking to win are the Fe Awards, which are for effectiveness, not necessarily for artistic quality or being fun to watch or anything else. So that’s great. You covered a lot of territory in this book, and some of it will be familiar to our listeners, things like social proof and scarcity, and I don’t really have time to get into those, but there are a few that I know I was a little bit less familiar with and perhaps so to some of our audience. Can you explain what autonomy bias is, Nancy, and how marketers can use that?
Nancy Harhut [00:06:36]:
Yeah, so autonomy bias is really interesting. It’s this deep seated desire for humans to have some kind of control over themselves or their environments. And this is really innate. Every person feels they want some kind of control over themselves, over the things around them. They don’t like to be told what they have to do. They don’t like to be forced into situations. And so when we can give people choices, that’s a really good thing. When marketers can give people choices, it’s a good thing, because a choice makes you feel like you have some kind of control. So offering people choices can be really smart. If you put one thing in front of someone and you say, do you want it or do you not want it? People are like, well, I don’t know. I have nothing to compare it to. I have no context. So maybe I’ll think about it, maybe I’ll do some research. Maybe I’ll ask around, and what happens? People get busy, life intervenes. They don’t get around to doing the research. They don’t get around to asking around. But if you put two or three choices in front of someone, then the question goes from do I or do I not want this thing? To which of these things do I want? And people are almost four times as likely to make a buying decision in the moment. And that was research that was conducted, and they literally found that people are much more likely to make a buying decision if you’ve got choices. So choices feed into this desire for autonomy, and so marketers should use them. That said, you don’t want to go HOGWILD with choices. You want to have so many choices that people are kind of dealing with analysis, paralysis. They have choice overload. They don’t know what decision to make. But giving people a few choices makes them feel like they have some kind of control. And control is a deep seated desire for people. So it’s a good thing for marketers to know about.
Roger Dooley [00:08:15]:
Right. And that reminds me a little bit of the but you are free thing, which if you’re going to give somebody, if you like somebody to sign on the dotted line, even the choice but you’re free not to sign can be something that will enhance your conversion rate, your percentage of yeses, but I think the choice thing, too. It’s kind of an interesting topic. I just talked to Matt Dixon the other day, who I’ve loved his work on customer effort, and he has a new book out. I’m not sure if it’s even in bookstores yet, but I got an advanced copy, and it’s called The Jolt Effect, and it’s about customer indecision and some of the work in there. And I’ve seen this work site elsewhere too, or similar work shows that sometimes giving customers choices can be a reason to delay, for them to ponder it or not make a decision. And part of the solution for that is to guide their choice. Like, Amazon gives you a million choices, and you’d think that everybody would just be stuck in choice paralysis forever there because there’s so many options. But they do guide you. They’ve got Amazon’s Choice for something. They’ve got Simon’s best seller flags, they’ve got ratings and reviews. All of these are tools that help you sort of narrow down the field. And in a more personal sales situation, it might be as simple as saying, yeah, you’ve got A, B, or C. And what I found in my experience in this field is that customers like you most often succeed with choice A. So you’re giving them those options, but at the same time giving them a direction to go in. But it’s a fascinating thing. And clearly letting people know that you aren’t trying to pressure them into doing X is the way to go.
Nancy Harhut [00:09:58]:
And I like the way you added some social proof in there, too. It’s like, okay, you have these choices, but people like you have chosen this, and that gives people a sense that, okay, they’re not going to make the wrong move. So you’re kind of guiding their choices. You’re informing them with a little bit of social proof, but you’re still making them feel like they’re the ones who are in charge. So, yeah, that can be very effective.
Roger Dooley [00:10:18]:
Yeah, it must be instinctive on my part. I just threw that in there. It’s so imbued, probably in both of our approaches to things for so many years. Another topic is temporal discounting and temporal bookmarking. Can you explain what that is, Nancy? Yeah, they’re actually two separate topics, but they’re both temporal.
Nancy Harhut [00:10:40]:
Yes, exactly. Well, they’re almost two sides of the coin when it comes to timing. So there’s temporal landmarks and there’s temporal discounting. Temporal landmarks is this idea that we start new chapters in our lives. And when we do that, we kind of close the chapter on who we used to be, and we start this new chapter. And when we start this new chapter, we feel like we’re a new person. That any of our failings, any of our mistakes, those are in the past. But now we’re somebody new. We’re starting fresh, and we can accomplish anything. So it’s a great time to try to get someone to commit to something, to make a purchase, because they’re feeling like they can do anything. Maybe you’re trying to convince them to buy exercise equipment. And Roger, whoever says I’m going to start my exercise plan on Wednesday, no one does. Right? They start on Monday. Right, because Monday is a temporal landmark. Right? It’s the beginning of the week. Or, of course, the granddaddy of them all is, of course, the New Year’s Day resolutions, the beginning of the year. But it could be your birthday, it could be the anniversary of a major event. It could be tax day, whatever. But there are these days when people feel like, okay, that was the old me. This is the new me. I’m ready to take on the world now. So that’s temporal landmarks and it’s all about getting people to think about the old them is gone, the new them is important. Temporal discounting is almost the other side of the coin. What Paperful scientists have found is we have a tendency to prefer sooner, albeit smaller rewards to later, albeit larger rewards. So, put differently, we’re more likely to take $10 today versus $15 tomorrow. Although tomorrow we go. I should have had out for the 15. But it’s that present focus bias. It’s that need for immediate gratification. So what this means for marketers who sell things that perhaps don’t offer immediate gratification is we need to overcome that, right? Because if people want that immediate gratification and we’re selling something like insurance or saving for retirement or education where the payoff is distant, if at all, it’s really hard to convince someone, hey, you need to act now. So what we need to do is we need to overcome temporal discounting. And the way to overcome it is to make you feel that the person you are today is the same person you’re going to be three months down the road, three years down the road, ten years down the road. It’s getting you to see yourself as you are today with the same preferences and dreams and hopes, seeing that person as you are today, but imagining that person in the future. And that’s what helps you kind of overcome this idea of temporal discounting. So Merrill Lynch did something really interesting. I wasn’t involved in the campaign, but they had this age progression software, so they wanted to sell people about retirement funds. They let people upload a picture of themselves and age progress at 1015 2030, 40 years down the road. And what they found was over a million people actually used the application, and 60% of them said, yeah, give me some more information about saving for retirement. It made it really salient. It made it like something that they suddenly very much cared about, whereas in the past, it was something that was way off in the future, something that they could always put off and perhaps deal with later. So timing and how it relates to people and how marketers deal with timing is really crucial.
Roger Dooley [00:14:01]:
Yeah, I tried that tool. I did not request information, but I did try it, and the result wasn’t pretty. So it does evoke an emotion, though. So that’s great. Have you tried it, Nancy?
Nancy Harhut [00:14:13]:
I did try it, and the result was not pretty. You’re absolutely right about that. But you look at it, you’re like, oh, my gosh. Oh my gosh, that’s me in 30, 40, 50 years. It does make an impact.
Roger Dooley [00:14:25]:
Yeah, it makes you want to sign up for advanced nursing home care or something. Wish you see that photo. Another topic you devote a chapter to is information gap theory. What is that?
Nancy Harhut [00:14:39]:
So it’s a term that was coined by a neuro economist named George Lowenstein. And what he found was, if there’s a gap between what you know and what you want to know, you’ll take action to close the gap. There’s a gap between what you know and what you want to know. You’ll take action to close the gap. And of course, we’re in marketing, right? So we always want people to take action. That’s kind of the core of what we do. So if we can tee up a gap in someone’s information, they’re much more likely to take the action to close that gap to find out. So a great way to do this is to use words like who, what, where, when, why, how? Because when you pose these questions, people, they lean in. They’re like, oh, I don’t know. Who is that? Or what is that? Or why is that? And they want to find out. We did some work for a company that was selling a very sophisticated financial product. And how do you even talk about some of these very sophisticated products of fixed annuities? How do you even begin to explain to someone what a fixed annuity is? We teed it up by saying, how can you earn better rates than a CD but still protect your money for retirement? And that was like, oh, okay. It was a framework reference. People understood they’re maybe saving for their retirement using CDs, but I can get a better rate, but I could still have that protection. So we used information gap theory to get people to kind of go, oh, I need to find out more. And it was very successful. It actually gave them the client at 85 X on their return on investment. And if we had started out by saying why you should know about fixed annuities or what you should know about people would have been like the eyes glaze over. They wouldn’t have been interested at all. Using information gap theory is a great way to pull people in and get them to take the action you want them to take. The key, of course, is to frame the question in the right way. It’s got to be a topic that people are interested in. They have some interest in it, but they don’t know everything there is to be known about it. But they’re also just not so far divorced from it that they have zero interest in it. So again, saying what you should know about fixed annuities probably wouldn’t have gotten them. But how you could actually get better returns on your money than a CD but still protect your money, that’s something that intrigues people. So it’s an interesting tactic for us in marketing, right?
Roger Dooley [00:16:57]:
So really you’re trying to get them curious enough to go to the next step, not necessarily buy the product or place an order, whatever the ultimate goal is, but to get them to open the email, to click on the link for more information, to read the article. And that just moves them down the chain until eventually maybe they get to the point where they’re ready to actually place an order, at least to maybe talk to somebody about that.
Nancy Harhut [00:17:24]:
Yeah, no, you’re absolutely right. Ultimately, people want to sell product. They want to get people to sign up for their services. But before that happens, there’s a series of other decisions that have to be made. You have to decide to open the email. You have to decide to visit the landing page. You have to decide to talk to the salesperson, whatever it is. There are all these different decisions that have to be made. And that’s the beauty of behavioral science when it comes to marketing, is we can use behavioral science to help influence those decisions at every step along the way until you get to the ultimate ask, which is sign on the dotted line.
Roger Dooley [00:17:56]:
I was thinking about availability bias the other day because there was a news article I was reading. They interviewed Europeans who were afraid to come to the United States after reading about school shootings and such. And to me that’s a great example of how something is sort of in the forefront of your mind because it’s very visible and vivid, even though it’s not like the streets of most American cities or the Wild West. It’s actually very safe. And I’m not mocking Europeans because I recall a few years back when there were some terrorists, very minor, relatively speaking, in terms of lives lost, terrorist incidents in Europe, suddenly Americans were afraid to travel there. And so I think that we all recognize that that exists when something is very vivid in people’s minds, that it affects their behavior in an outsized way. But how can marketers use that in a positive way.
Nancy Harhut [00:18:49]:
Yeah. So I’m going to answer that in two ways. I’m going to tell you a personal story that I think really speaks to availability bias, and then I’ll tell you how I applied it in marketing. But I spent last summer on Cape Cod, right? And Cape Cod was experiencing all of these shark attacks. So you’d be in the water, the lifeguard would blow the whistle, you got to come out of the water. And it was like everyone was top of mind about the sharks. And then all of a sudden, the pandemic starts, and what’s everyone worried about? Everyone’s worried about getting COVID. And that became like, the most scary thing out there. So I was boogie boarding with my friends. Lifeguard pulls us out of the water. We’ve got to stay out of the water for an hour. And we were literally impatient. We were looking at each other going, can we go back in? Do you think we can sneak back in? Do you think it’s okay to get back in? And then we’re like, what are we? Like, are we nuts? They pulled us out for a reason. There are sharks. That was like our number one fear a couple of years ago. But suddenly with the pandemic, it wasn’t as salient. The number one fear was catching COVID and a shark. Well, it probably swam away. So it is funny about this idea of availability bias. Like, when something happens, that’s what’s, like, top of mind. So we actually ended up using it for one of our clients. We had a client, it was a B2B client. And they made barcoders the kind of thing that would be used in like a fulfillment warehouse where you’re scanning lots and lots of packages. And what they found was they had a superior product. But people who were running these kinds of fulfillment operations didn’t want to take any risks. They knew they didn’t have a perfect system, but what they knew was if it went wrong, there would be a real problem. So let’s not try to fix what’s not broken. It’s not perfect, but it’s working. And if I introduce something new and it doesn’t work, I’ll have a bigger problem on my hands. So we had to find a way to reach them. And what we ended up doing is we ended up sending a direct mail piece, and the direct mail piece had a compromised label on it. And we did that specifically because we knew that would resonate with people. If, if you worked in that business and you saw a compromised label, you knew what that meant. It was just a world of grief for you because you’re trying to do all this automated scanning, and when a torn or label ask you comes through, it would hit what they called the jackpot lane, which was their sarcastic term for now. We have to go and deal with this by hand, and it’s going to be a real hassle. So we sent out a package with a label that was compromised because we knew for a target, they would immediately recognize that and go like, what a pain in the neck that’s going to be. And then we got into that and said, normally this would present a real problem. However, that’s not the case. We actually have something that you should pay attention to. And it got through that initial barrier of we don’t want to deal with anything. We don’t want to upset the apple cart. We’re just going to keep things the way they are because it got them to actually engage. And then it gave the client a chance to say, listen, we really do have a superior product and you’re not going to go wrong with it. So they actually exceeded their goal by like 266%. It was a very successful application of availability bias.
Roger Dooley [00:21:50]:
Yeah, I think the broader issue there, Nancy, is that the exact mental process that you described affects a lot of B2B purchases. There’s high risk factor if you’re changing a system, whether it’s an information system, a piece of machinery in a factory, or even some process internally, whatever, what you’re doing isn’t perfect, but at least it’s working, more or less. And if you make a change and it doesn’t work out, suddenly you’re the person that made the change that screwed everything up. And overcoming that by some means is so absolutely critical. Matt Dixon talked about that too, where somehow you’ve got to get past that bias for keeping the status quo, in part because it’s low risk. And of course, people are loss averse. That’s another chapter of the book and that’s classic loss aversion. If I do nothing, I’ll keep what I’ve got, but if I screw up, then, boy, I’m going to be in trouble. I won’t get promoted, I won’t get a raise, I might get fired, and so on. Those losses can bloom large in the B two B purchaser’s mind.
Nancy Harhut [00:23:03]:
Absolutely. I do a lot of work with B to C clients with not for profits and with B two B clients. But going back to what we were talking about earlier with the B two B clients, a lot of times people think my target is a B two B client. They’re going to make their decision based on what’s best for their company. Right? I mean, it’s a B two B environment. It’s a B. Two B target. And while this certainly is true and factors in other things are at play, the things that you just mentioned, am I going to lose my job over this? Are people going to hate me because I introduced this new product or this new service and it’s not working well? Am I not going to get home on time anymore because this is going to be more work for me? These are the very human things that people talk about, that people think about and they factor into B two B decisions. And as marketers, we have to be aware of that and we have to inject the right emotion and inject the right reasons to overcome the barriers they may have because they may not be obvious. It might not just be price and availability typical for a B two B product. It could be something a little bit deeper than that. Like how is it going to affect me as an employee? What’s my boss going to think of me? Am I going to get home into my spouse on time? So thinking about people as people, whether they’re at home or at the office, is really critical. And weaving some of that emotion into the marketing makes a lot of sense. People make their decisions for emotional reasons and then they justify them later for the rational one. So I always say to clients, have both, have both in your marketing messages.
Roger Dooley [00:24:26]:
Automatic compliance sounds like something that all marketers would like to have on the part of their customers. And you actually have part of the book titled Automatic Compliance Triggers. What are those triggers and how can marketers pull them?
Nancy Harhut [00:24:40]:
Sure. One of my favorite ones is simply the word because, which I’m sure that you and maybe some of your listeners are familiar with. But Ellen Langer at Harvard ran that study where people lined up to use a photocopier and said, hey, can I cut in front of you? 60% said yes. She repeats the study, but this time they say, hey, can I cut in front of you because I’m in a hurry and I’ve got some copies to make. Hear 94% say yes. Quite a high lift over the 60, which was the baseline. As you hear that, you think, well, they said they were in a hurry. She repeats the study, but this time the person says, hey, can I cut in front of you because I have some copies to make. Then 94 drops to 93. Statistically insignificant. Right. Same high lift over the 60. And when you stop and think about it, well, everybody standing in that line was standing in that line because they had some copies to make. And she identified the word because as an automatic compliance trigger. When we see it or when we hear it, we just start to nod up and down like little Bobbleheads without fully processing what comes next. We just assume whatever’s coming next is a good legitimate reason. So the word because is definitely an automatic compliance trigger. It’s probably one of my favorites. There’s another one that’s more of a visual example that I can offer up, and that is the idea of showing a chart or a graph. And what researchers have found is a lot of times people won’t really spend a lot of time poring over the chart and graph. They won’t really be studying it. Its mere presence suggests scientific veracity. Right. If the chart is. There. If the graph is there, it must be true. And I don’t really have to spend a lot of time looking at it or poring over it. It’s just the presence of it just increases the credibility of the copy, the text that’s next to it about, I don’t know, probably easily ten years ago at this point, we had done some work for a major metropolitan newspaper, and we were trying to get people to subscribe, which is not an easy thing to do. Newspaper subscription rates are declining, but we were trying to get people to subscribe, and we had a special offer which would give them a discount. And so we put a chart in that showed them, this is what other people are paying. This is what you’re paying. And it became the new control. And they have since evolved their messaging, and I no longer work with them, but I’m still on their list. And the one thing that doesn’t change is that chart. No matter what creative they’re sending out there, no matter what marketing message they send out, the chart always seems to be there. And I know I know why it works. It’s just one of those things where you see and you’re like, okay, makes sense to me.
Roger Dooley [00:27:04]:
Yeah, I’ve written about that phenomenon, and it’s so easy, it doesn’t cost anything to incorporate another thing along the same line. They found that neuroscience articles were considered more believable if there were brain scans in them. Even if the brain scans did not relate to the point of the article, they were more credible simply when there was an fMRI brain scan in the article, which has been used as a criticism of overuse of these scans in neuroscience articles. But if you create the impression, the unconscious impression, that there’s science behind whatever it is you’re doing, then it’s more credible. I’m curious, Nancy, when you start off with a brand new project, okay, somebody said, okay, I’m trying to do X here with my advertising and marketing campaign. There are six well, now seven Cialdini principles. There are dozens and dozens of cognitive biases, various other tools that you could use. How do you begin? Where do you start to try and sort of narrow down the range of tools that you might use?
Nancy Harhut [00:28:11]:
Yeah, no, that’s actually a very good question. So usually where we’ll start is we’ll kind of look at the action we’re asking people to take and what’s the number one reason why they won’t do it. So marketer wants to get their message out there, so we’ll look at the marketing message, we’ll look at the product, we’ll look at the desired behavior, who the target market is, and then we start to think about, all right, what’s the number one reason someone may not want to do this? And then we start to brainstorm the possible arguments or levers that would overcome that barrier. And as we’re doing that, we start to also look for the appropriate behavioral science tactics that might come into play. And so there are some that are almost like overarching, like you’d always want to recommend them. Cognitive fluency, for example. People prefer things that are simpler to think about and simpler to understand, or easier to think about, easier to understand. So you kind of can’t go wrong by making sure that it’s easy for people to absorb your message. So we’re going to definitely make that one of the planks, and then we start to look at, well, all right, is it a new company, perhaps that’s not that well known in the marketplace? If that’s the case, we might want to introduce some of the authority principle – member of the Better Business Bureau or endorsed by the Ada? Or is it a new product and people aren’t sure it’s really going to work? Maybe we have some social proof, maybe we have some testimonials. Is it a product that’s maybe more established but rolling into a new geography? Then maybe we talk about the number of customers they have or the number of years they’ve been in business. But basically it’s kind of zeroing in on what it is that we want people to do. What are the likely reasons they’re not going to want to do it, and then what are the best ways we can serve up to overcome those objections? And the book has, I think, 17 chapters and probably covers about 25 different behavioral science principles. There, as you know, are so many more. But from the experience that I’ve had and the work that I’ve been doing over the years, these 25 are probably a good set to start with. They’re a good go to list to work with.
Roger Dooley [00:30:19]:
Nancy, this is such great info. We could go on forever. But I think if folks want more, they will just have to buy the book. Where can people find you and your ideas? Online?
Nancy Harhut [00:30:27]:
Sure. So you can follow me on Twitter. I’m n Harhut. N-H-A-R-H-U-T. You can connect with me on Facebook or on LinkedIn. I am the co founder and chief creative officer of HBT Marketing. HBT actually stands for Human Behavior Triggers. So that’s hbtmktg.com. We shorten marketing Hbtmktg.com. That’s our website. We have a lot of information and case studies and articles and interviews posted there. So please connect with me. Reach out to me. Would love to hear from your listeners. And if anyone’s interested in a copy of the book right now, it’s available on Amazon. It debuted at the beginning of the month in the number one new release category for business marketing. And I just checked this morning, it was still there. So I’m very happy about that. Still in that number one position. So if anyone’s interested in the book, it’s available on Amazon and also at Kogan Page, which is my UK based publisher.
Roger Dooley [00:31:26]:
Great. Well, we will link to those places on the Show Notes [email protected] podcast. Nancy, thanks for being on the show. It’s been a lot of fun.
Nancy Harhut [00:31:37]:
Roger, thank you so much. I’ve totally enjoyed all of your podcast, and I’ve totally enjoyed now being part of one. So thank you.
Outro [00:31:43]:
Thank you for tuning in to Brainfluence. To find more episodes like this one, and to access all of Roger’s books, articles, videos and resources. The best starting point is Rogerdooley.com. To check availability for a game changing keynote or workshop, in person or virtual