Why Behavioral Science is Better Than Marketing Science with Nancy Harhut

[00:00:00] Scott: Hello, and welcome to the show today. You will hear the advice of behavioral science and digital marketing expert, Nancy Harhut. She'll explain how human behaviors provide marketers with roadmaps on how people react to content and make purchasing decisions. If you can incorporate this knowledge into your content strategy, it can generate next level results for your company.

My name is Scott Murray, and this is the content brief where I bring you the key points and takeaways from conversations. With today's experts and humanized and innovative content. Every time you hear this sound, that's a key takeaway from today's episode. Let's get started.

Thanks for joining me today. Nancy Harhut is the co founder and chief creative officer at HBT marketing, where they develop digital and direct marketing campaigns driven by what behavioral scientists have proven about how people make decisions. Transcribed She is also the author of the award winning book using behavioral science and marketing drive customer action and loyalty by prompting instinctive responses when I've talked to people about humanizing content marketing or what I mean when I say communication makes or breaks marketing The topic of behavioral science always comes up.

How could it not? After all, we're using the copy, the sound, or even the visuals and content to send a message to the audience. Now, whether that works or not is usually rooted in the response from the audience. And when we think about those things, we have to consider many of the same factors that would come into play if we were speaking to someone.

When we get caught up in what you might call the science of marketing and the content structures that are associated with that, it's easy to lose focus. It's easy to forget the human elements involved in what a brand or marketer is trying to achieve. Maybe instead of behavioral science, we're building that content around an algorithm or some sort of internal customer journey map that dictates how we should communicate through content, instead of thinking about the human behaviors that should really be helping shape the content.

Sometimes that's the problem. Other times, it's the human behaviors of Marketers that get in the way

[00:02:34] Nancy: in marketing. We believe in our product, our service, our company. We're enthusiastic about it. We want to tell everyone about it, but we're so focused on what we want to say that we sometimes lose sight of what it is our customers and prospects want to hear what they're looking for.

And I always say to my clients, try to downplay your use of we, our, our product, our company, our company, and, and increase the number of times you use the word you. And also, stop and think about not only why someone would want your product or your service, and of course that's great, that's important, we need that, but also think about why they may not want to do what you're asking them to do, and start to craft some messaging around that to kind of overcome that buying barrier.

That's what allows us, I believe, to put our customers at the heart of our communication, and that lets us get out of our own way and actually do a better job marketing.

[00:03:23] Scott: Now remember what I said about Nancy's company, and how it taps into what Behavioral scientists know about, well, behaviors. I mean, basically how people think, react, respond, and what drives those behaviors.

When you think about it, there's a ton of data, research, and insights about behavior. Human behaviors out there. And since we know there is an increasing demand by modern audiences for brands to communicate more like humans and less like corporate marketers. And since we know the trends are telling marketers to tap into.

Emotions like empathy and other elements of the human psyche. Why aren't more marketers excited about that data, those insights and that research? There's just so much stuff out there available to us right now, and we can apply it directly to marketing.

[00:04:23] Nancy: You know, there's a lot of research. A lot of it is, is academic.

Um, my perspective is curating what I found that the researchers and the educators and the academics have come up with and apply it to marketing because I'm a practitioner. So for me, I look at everything through the lens of, all right, you know, what could work for my clients. And so, some of the things that, uh, sometimes marketers overlook as they're trying to get that sale or trying to get that response are the notion of availability bias and, um, the notion of information gap theory and also just commitment inconsistency.

So, the idea of availability bias is this behavioral science principle that means that we are more likely to believe something will happen if we can easily call to mind an example. So what we as marketers should do is before we like rush in and say, here's this great product and you should buy it, we should back up a little bit, set the stage, lay the groundwork and get our prospects to think of a time in the past when, if they had our product or service, it would have freely come in handy or even get them to imagine, take a minute to imagine what it would be like to be our customer, to use our product and service, you know, to benefit from it.

Once we set the stage that way using availability bias, we're going to It's much more likely we'll make the sale because we get people to recall, Oh yeah, I could have used that in the past. That means I'll probably be able to use it in the future. Or they start to imagine what it's like to use it. They start to think of all the times that they'd be able to benefit from it.

And they think, Oh yeah, I'll totally be able to use this. You know, sign me up. Let me, let me purchase. So that's availability bias. Um, another thing that we can do is we can use something called information gap theory, which was a term that was coined by a neuromarketer to explain that if there's a gap between what we know and what we want to know, we'll take action to close the gap.

So sometimes what we need to do is tee up what we want to talk about in terms of who, what, where, when, why, how, the most, the best, the least, the worst. Because people are, you know, they're intrigued. They're curious. Oh, you know, What is the best way to do this? And so it pulls people in and they voluntarily decide to close the gap in their information by, you know, consuming the content by engaging with the communication.

And then that allows us to deliver our message. And then I think the, uh, the third thing that I mentioned is this idea of commitment and consistency. And that's this proven theory that Once people say yes, once they're much more likely to say yes. The second time, a third time, a fourth time. So from a marketing perspective, if we can get that first ask, we're better positioned to get the second and the third and the fourth.

And the way to do that is to start with a smaller request. And again, sometimes we're so enthusiastic about what we have to sell. And we're so focused on trying to get that sale that we rush in, you know, with the buy message, but. Sometimes we need to back up a little bit and get a, you know, a couple of small yeses, a couple of small wins first, before we have our ultimate request, which is become a customer.

[00:07:14] Scott: It's really important to point out the role emotions play in decisions, including client and customer decisions, because that's something that just isn't considered enough in a content strategy. But unless your audience is Full of Vulcans. How

[00:07:31] Nancy: do you feel? I

[00:07:34] Scott: do not understand the question. You have to consider it.

Consider this. Nancy has discussed research by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio that shows that individuals with damage to the part of the brain responsible for triggering emotions struggle to make decisions. Even simple ones like choosing what to eat for lunch. These individuals can become stuck in indecision.

Cycling through options without reaching a conclusion because they lack the emotional input that usually guides decision making. But as you consider emotions when it comes to positive responses, like forming a connection with your brand or choosing to make a purchase, don't forget about those negative emotions.

There's plenty of content out there that is disguised to look like it has the audience's best interest in mind. But if that audience feels like you're trying to trick them, that will generate some bad emotions. And less than ideal decisions.

[00:08:41] Nancy: Behavioral scientists talk about something called, um, I think it's inequity bias, where we have this huge need for fairness.

We don't like to see, uh, inequity. We don't like to see unfairness. Sometimes we'll stop doing business. We'll stop taking an action if we don't feel it's fair. There was a, a really good example. It was a, An experiment that some behavioral scientists, uh, ran where, you know, there could be two of us. You have ten dollars, and the researcher says, split it with Nancy.

Any way you want to split it, it's up to you. So, you know, you could say, well, all right, I've got the ten bucks. I'll give Nancy a dollar. That's a dollar more than she has right now, but I'll still have nine of it. And, you know, great. And in the rational, Nancy would say, Well, that's true, it's a dollar more than I had to start.

But the emotional Nancy, the irrational Nancy, the human Nancy, would say, That's, that's not fair. Scott got 10 and he's only given me one. He didn't do anything for the 10, they just handed it to him. He should split it 50 50, it's the two of us, you know, or at least 60 40. And so what the researchers found was anything that got below 60 40, people would actually walk away from.

Just, you know, they would, they would walk away from free money. Just because they were like, no, I'm not going to agree to this. And of course, if in this case, you know, I, or the other person didn't agree to it, then nobody got any money. So that's, that's the reason it's like, all right, I, you know, you don't want to be fair to me that I'm going to stick it to you, you know, but humans really do have this, uh, this aversion to, uh, inequity.

So that's also something that ties into this. Cause if you're going to, you know, promise someone something and then turn around and tilt the balance in your favor and not really give them what you promised, but use the opportunity to just further your own interest. People will respond very negatively to that.

[00:10:17] Scott: Yeah, so those negative experiences, and I think it's safe to say we've all had them, create defenses. Our brains remember those things so we don't fall prey to them again. We have impulsive responses to things that might make us think that we're falling victim to something again. I have a bad feeling about this.

Sometimes it's the way something is worded. Maybe it sounds corporate. Maybe it sounds selfish or maybe even too good to be true. Maybe it misses the mark on convincing you that a brand has the solution to your problem. You see that content and you quickly form a decision that this might be clickbait.

Or a landing page that just wants your information. Or it's a perceived offer that might turn into no value at all. Instead, it's just going to be a link to set up a meeting. So, those defenses get added to a content consumer's mentality that is already cynical, by the way, about ads, marketing, and advertising.

So, with their brains making instant judgment to save time, energy, and risk, Word choices in your content become critical.

[00:11:29] Nancy: One word or just the first few seconds can push someone in one direction or another because we're not always making the most well thought out, well considered decisions. We're cruising along on autopilot, we see a little something and it just automatically makes us think of something that we experienced in the past.

And that could be a good thing or it could be a bad thing. You know, I always say to my clients, Always remember to provide the reason why. You're going to tell people what you want them to do, you know, here's my product, here's my service, here's all the benefits, here's all the features, here's where you can find it, here's the price, but close the loop and also tell them why.

Behavioral scientists have found that people are more likely to do what we ask them to do if we give them a reason why. And then I always say it goes beyond that. Sometimes we have to provide that reason to believe. You know, you could say, uh, you know, having this great sale on raincoats at their, you know, 80 percent off.

And I would say to myself, 80 percent off? I bet you they've just jacked the price way up so that they could then say it's 80 percent off, you know? I, I just don't believe it, right? Because maybe once before I got taken by somebody. And so, I see that and right away I have that initial response. But if you said, you know, Hey, I'm having this great sale on raincoats, 80 percent off.

We made a mistake. We ordered too many. Or we had an exceptionally dry spring, but now I have to get these off my floor so I can make room for my summer merchandise. Now I get it. I'm like, Oh, your bad luck is my good fortune. You know, I will get a good raincoat at a good price. But providing that, that reason why, or that reason to believe is so important.

Marketers need to put in that extra effort or we're going to lose sales.

[00:13:03] Scott: When Marcus Sheridan was featured on this show, he talked about the critical importance of surprising your audience with honesty. That honesty includes explaining why your product or service is more expensive than a competitor.

It's about full transparency. Sometimes brands avoid transparency because they think it's going to make them look bad. Marketing science may say that. But behavioral science says something else.

[00:13:32] Nancy: There's, you know, the authenticity, the genuineness. So some people, some marketers might say, for that reason alone, that's why I'm going to be more transparent.

But there are business reasons too. If you have a price that's maybe higher than the competition, you explain why. And that's been proven to work. There's something called the Proutfall effect that behavioral scientists have identified. What they found is if we admit to one of our smaller shortcomings, we're much more likely to be believed with everything else we say.

It's like, oh, okay, they're not trying to pull the wool over my eyes. They're acknowledging it. They even called it out before I did. They said, well, you know, it may take a little bit longer when you order from us. But it'll be worth the wait. What's nice about that is the marketer is being honest, pointing out, you know, a small deficit, but then you can go on to say, but these are all the advantages you get and people are more likely to believe the advantages because they were honest about the smaller deficit.

I think that that's, you know, that's another way that, that we can be honest and transparent and actually have a benefit, not only the consumer, but the business. Another example that comes to mind is with, uh, testimonials. We love to use testimonials. We know they're great for social proof. A lot of times marketers look for the absolute best, most glowing testimonial.

You know, uh, this was fabulous. Couldn't find, you know, a thing to complain about. Absolutely wonderful. And that's great, but if you started with a place of skepticism, because that's where we all are. Is it really as good as the marketer says it is? Is it any better than the competition? Is it any better than the thing I'm currently using?

If you start there and move it along and get to the great place, it's a much stronger one. If someone says, um, you know, Acme. Cereal is great. Okay, wonderful. But if they say, I used to think any sugar coated cereal is the same as any other kind of sugar coated cereal. But then I, you know, I tried Acme. Oh my gosh, it's so much better.

I'd never go back. You know, someone who reads that, that's a much stronger testimonial. So in this idea of him being transparent, not always having these five star reviews, you know, these five star testimonials, but sometimes having ones that start with that skepticism, or they point out, well, here's the one thing, But.

Despite that, the benefits outweigh, you know, that one small thing. It's so much more believable, and people appreciate that.

[00:15:38] Scott: Yes, I've helped companies develop game changing testimonials. And the key was always The right setting and questions. In other words, no pressure to overstate anything or word something in a marketing sort of way, you know, pressuring them to say something that sounds as good as we would like it said.

Who will get love more ducky or me? Ducky say bunny, ducky, bunny, ducky, bunny, ducky, say bunny, ducky. You know, don't make it sound fake. Don't make it sound over the top. Just say to them. Tell your story the way you would tell your neighbor the way you would tell somebody else that was asking about your experience Share the experience, you know ask questions that get the most natural answers out of the person who is giving the testimonial You can achieve what Nancy's talking about simply by empowering https: otter.

ai

And not generic soundbites, going back to content and thinking about impactful messages. Is it possible that it's a mistake if that content is all positive? If all of those messages are positive messages, you're framing everything in a positive way because sometimes marketers think everything has to be positive or have a positive tone ring or message to it.

And I've been in those creative meeting rooms where everything does have to be positive or at the very least words need to be tweaked so there isn't even a hint of negative to anything. It all has to be positive. However, there is behavioral science that suggests that That some of those negative messages generate the responses that marketers are looking for.

[00:17:32] Nancy: I can't tell you the number of times I've had a client say, let's make this sound more positive. It's great, but let's, we're going to turn this, we're just going to make it positive. And I have to explain to them, people are twice as motivated to avoid the pain of loss. Twice as motivated. It's not that, it's not a preference or I like it.

They are motivated, right? And we're trying to get people to act in marketing. They're twice as motivated to avoid the pain of loss as they are to achieve the pleasure of gain. But. It does go against a marketer's grain because we're all about the benefits, the advantages, all the, you know, the wonderful things that will happen if you just buy my product, if you just click the button.

My perspective is, we don't want to walk away from benefits. We know that they work, but a little well placed loss aversion can go a long way. Remind people of the pain they may find themselves in if they don't do What you're asking them to do, or remind them of the pain they can avoid, if they in fact do, do what you're asking them to do.

A, um, old boss of mine, Alan Rosenspan, he had a really simple test for one of his clients. It said, ISO certification, will your company pass? Because the company was going to help you pass. So ISO certification, Will your company pass? Versus ISO certification, will your company fail? You might think, well, you know, we're a company that's going to help our clients pass and get their certification.

Why would we ever introduce the word fail? And yet the fail version won hands down. Why? Because people are trying to avoid the pain of loss, right? We don't want to make the same mistakes or missteps other people have. We don't want to lose. We don't want to be in pain. I could say to you, uh, Oh, you're, you're coming to Boston to visit.

You've never been. I can give you, you know, the best restaurant to go to. Or, I can tell you the one restaurant you should never eat at. And while you might want to know the best one, you'd be like, Ooh, tell me the worst one because I don't want to get sick, you know? Like, it's more important for me to know that than it is for me to know the best one.

So, loss aversion can be very powerful. And again, we don't walk away from benefits, but we do want to inject a little bit of loss aversion because it does get people to act.

[00:19:24] Scott: And it's even better when that client or customer feels good about their decision. But research shows it shouldn't stop there.

Think about how your client or customer can feel good about their decision days, weeks, or years after they made it.

[00:19:39] Nancy: If you could make the purchase, and you're like, okay, boom, I've crossed that off my list, then maybe don't think about it again. But if the marketer continues to make you feel good about it, remind you that you made a smart decision, remind you that Uh, you know, you were proactive in solving this problem.

It makes you feel good. It keeps, you know, them top of mind. It positions you to return when you have another need for, you know, for something slightly different or to replenish or, you know, what have you. And it does absolutely make you a, a person who would recommend, who would talk about this, who, you know, who could be an influencer.

So, it's really smart and, uh, it doesn't cost that much for us to continue just a little bit beyond making the sale. But very often we like make the sale and boom, we're on to the next one. Nurture that customer relationship. They just became a customer. They just bought from you. That's valuable. Make sure that you don't lose touch.

Make sure they don't just drift off someplace else.

[00:20:29] Scott: Yeah. So, the insights we can get as marketers from behavioral science. Our game changing, especially since we all know that despite all the research, despite all the new demands from people when it comes to marketing communication, despite the changing times, some things will never change.

It makes me think of that time that Jeff Bezos was asked about change. And he said one of the questions he always gets is what does he see changing in the next 10 years? And Jeff said, well, you know, I should get asked on occasion about what is not going to change. For example, he said there's never going to be a time where people aren't going to want stuff fast.

You know, no one's going to be like, you know, I used to want things at my doorstep quick, but you know, it can take a month. I don't care. That's really worth thinking about because as things change, as things evolve, even as new technology like AI comes into play to help with content, to help with marketing, the one thing that's never going to change is your audience, your consumer, your client, your prospect, wanting humanized communication from humans.

Now, some. We'll still be too afraid to break out of the old marketing science that has no human elements to it They'll stick with what they were told works 15 years ago. They'll rely on spreadsheets algorithms technology or just maybe hope in their content marketing or They'll just keep doing the same things over and over again because they're just cycling and can't break out of it It's the definition of insanity, right?

[00:22:14] Nancy: Crazy insane insane reason

[00:22:17] Scott: for others The easiest way to avoid tapping into behavioral science is just to say, Well, our audience isn't emotional. Our audience isn't worried about loss. Our audience is more sophisticated. So this human behavior stuff doesn't align with them. Nancy says, Do not make that mistake.

[00:22:37] Nancy: We all like to think that our customers are intelligent and well educated. And if we're in B2B, you know, they're professional and they're making decisions for the good of the company. All of which may be true, but people are people, whether they're at home or at work, and very often there are other factors at play that influence their decisions that they, even they're not aware of.

So I like to think that I make these great, well thought out decisions. The truth of the matter is I'm human. So I don't always, I mean, none of us do, right. Very often, you know, there's some other factor at play that pushes us in one direction or another, and as marketers, we should use this. We can use it to our advantage, it's been proven, there's scientific evidence that demonstrates that this is the case.

So as marketers, if we use it, we make it easier for people to make decisions that they want to make, that are good for them, and of course, we make it better for our business, because we'll get a Better ROI on our marketing materials. So it just makes sense to get out there. I know it's tempting to say, Oh no, not me, not my customers, not for my product.

But the truth is up to 95 percent of purchase decision making takes place in the subconscious mind. So think of it as another tool. That marketers have to increase the likelihood, they'll get the response that they want, and, and rest assured that there's no magic wand, there's no silver bullet. You can't make somebody do something they're not gonna wanna do, so you're not forcing them, but you're making it easier for them to do what they may wanna do.

That's what it's all about.

[00:24:07] Scott: I will have links to Nancy Har hut on the show notes for this episode. That will include a link to her company, HBT marketing, her LinkedIn profile, and her book. If I can help you improve the way your content stands out and communicates with others, you can email me at scott at scottmurrayonline. com or reach out to me through the contact form on my website, which of course is scottmurrayonline.com. I'd like to thank Nancy Harhut for being a guest on today's show and thank you for joining us on the content brief.