MarketingProfs B2B Forum 2023

Discover the Brain Science That Drives B2B Buyer Behavior with Nancy Harhut

Are you using behavioral science in your marketing?

You may want to start, because it taps into your buyer’s decision making shortcuts, says Nancy Harhut, founder of HBT Media.

For over 15 years, Nancy has applied behavioral science in her marketing to great effect.

And in this insightful clip from her standing-room-only session from B2B Forum in 2023, she shares ideas that you can easily apply to your own marketing for increased response.

Nancy returns to B2B Forum this November in Boston, along with more than 50 other marketing leaders sharing their experience and expertise with the B2B marketing community.

We’d love to see you there, too!

Tickets are limited and cost $2,495 for a three-day, All-Access pass when purchased at the door. But if you invest in B2B Forum early and skip the workshop, you only pay $1,695. That’s a savings of $800—and PRO members and teams of 3+ save even more! See the full pricing schedule and program here—and get your ticket to the world’s most actionable B2B marketing conference today!

Transcript:

Well, here’s an insurance company that sells insurance to dentists, and they say that they have good premiums…

But I have yet to meet an insurance company that says, “well, we’re going to hose you on our rates, but you should do business with us anyway.” Right? They all say they’re going to save you money.

But these guys say, “look, our premiums are among the most competitive in the market. This is possible because of the economies of plant administration.”

And I say, “oh, right, of course, the economies of plant administration.”

I dunno what that means. No idea what that means, but they give me the reason. And I’m already nodding. “Yes, I can believe them. Yeah, I can trust them.”

Now, you can’t use “because” at the start of every paragraph. You would sound redundant.

So here we have another version of the reason why: “since you’re a valued member of the demand gen community.”

Because… Since… Therefore… As a result… Serve up that reason why!

And sometimes your reason why is going to have to do with something called “input bias.”

And input bias is a very common decision making shortcut. When we don’t know how to evaluate something, what we do is we look at the time and effort that goes into it, and we use that as a proxy for quality.

So if a lot of time or effort went into something, well, we think it must be good.

Here it’s like, “we’ve analyzed over 1 billion tweets.”

And we think, “Ooh, wow, okay, this must be a pretty solid, comprehensive list if they’ve put that much time or effort into it.”

So what we want to do is we want to include “because,” or the “reason why,” to trigger compliance, to get people to say yes.

And sometimes the reason why is going to be the time or effort that went into creating our product or bringing it to market. 

We’re also influenced by first mentions and familiarity. We’re talking about how what we hear influences us, what we hear first and what we hear often can impact us.

Behavioral scientists talk about anchoring. And what they found is the first piece of information we encounter—very often a number, very often a price—becomes our reference point. And everything else gets evaluated against it.

That first piece becomes our reference. And then any other piece of information we encounter, we evaluate against it.

Researchers wrote an interesting study. They ask people, “how old do you think Mahatma Gandhi was when he died?”

But some people were asked the question one way, and some people were asked another way. 

So some people were asked, “how old do you think Mahatma Gandhi was when he died: older or younger than nine?”

Other people were asked, “how old do you think Mahatma Gandhi was when he died: older or younger than 140?”

Those two numbers—nine and 140—are not particularly helpful.

If you know anything about Mahatma Gandhi, he was older than nine before he passed away. And if you know anything about the human lifespan, you know that nobody’s quite made it to 140, right? 

But the numbers served as anchors.

People who were asked, “older or younger than nine,” they estimated 50.

People who were asked, “older or younger than 140,” they estimated 67.

17 years spread—and the only difference was the anchor that had been dropped into the question. Pretty interesting.

So how do we use anchoring in our marketing?

Well, if you have a range of products or services, start with your most expensive one.

I know it’s tempting to start with the lower priced one because we don’t want to scare people off, but you want to start with your highest one.

Some people will say yes. Other people will be like, “ooh, that’s kind of expensive…” But everything else is going to look like a better deal.

When you start with your lowest price, it’s really hard to move people up. So you want to start with your high price and then go down from there.

If you’re having a sale… you want to have your original price, and then you want to have your sales price. The original price becomes the anchor, and then the sales price is like, “ooh, wow, that’s a much better deal.”

So this example isn’t great because they’ve got the original price and the sales price, but they’ve got the sales price first and the original price beneath that. They would be better off with the original price to the left, sales price to the right.

They would also—and this is very counterintuitive—but they would also be better with a larger point size on the original price and a smaller point size on the sales price, because studies have shown that the smaller point size communicates a smaller price, like a better deal.

So a couple of things that could have improved here, but at least they’ve got the basic idea of anchoring.

Now here we’ve got CVO Academy and they’re selling some online courses for the first time.

And I dunno, people aren’t really sure what an online course should cost out of CVO Academy. 

And they say, “you know what? We’re running a special for the next 10 hours. The price is a steal—about two cups of coffee.”

And we’re like, “oh, okay. That’s a price I understand. I know what a cup of coffee costs. I buy several every day. This would be a good spend. It doesn’t seem to be exorbitantly expensive.”

So what we want to do is, we want to lead with our higher prices, and we want to link to easy numbers.

Another piece of behavioral science, as we’re talking about what we hear, is: descriptions trigger default decisions.

How we describe something can change how people respond to it.

I can have the same product, the same price.

I describe it one way, everybody wants it. I describe it a different way, nobody’s very interested.

Behavioral scientists call this “framing.”

And what they found is, the words that you choose not only impart information, but they influence people’s decisions.

Sometimes we think, if we can just get the words out there and there are no typos, we’re good.

But no. Individual word choice can make a difference.

Researchers gave people these bags of sweets. And some of the bags said, “fruit chew.” Some of the bags said, “candy chews.”

Well, when it said fruit chew, people ate more of them. It was the same confection inside the bags, but when it said fruit chews, it just seemed healthier. So people ate more.

So how do we use this in marketing? 

Well, here’s a direct mail piece for Adweek. Adweek is the industry trade publication. You can read Adweek to find out which accounts are being won and lost, which agencies are forming or falling.

But look at how they reframe it. They say, “what influences the world’s most influential industry?”

You’re like, “oh, wow. This is more than just accounts being won or lost. This is the world’s most influential industry that I work for. Wow!”

Or here we have Eversource Energy and they want businesses to take a no-cost energy assessment. Well, businesses are busy, right?

But they framed it differently. They said, “saving energy means more money to invest in your business.”

So it’s not just good for the environment, it’s good for your business.

They get you to think about it differently. 

And here we have something from Intuit, and they’re tapping into a study that came out of Stanford that found that framing things in terms of time and experience is actually more motivating than framing things in terms of money.

When you frame things in terms of money, you focus people on the price.

When you frame things in terms of the experience someone’s going to have with your product, they start to think about the emotions around that and what it’s going to be like to use your product.

And it mitigates the price.

So here’s Intuit. They say, “be your client’s hero.”

And suddenly you’re thinking about how it’s going to feel to be your client’s hero, to have your clients looking at you adoringly.

And if it costs a little bit extra, that’s not as important anymore.

So framing things in terms of experience is more important than framing things in terms of money.

And when I say more important, I mean more effective.

So remember, get people to see things in a different way. That’s what framing will allow you to do.

Published July 24, 2024


B2B Forum is packed with marketing insights, strategies, and tactics taken from the real world experience of over forty industry experts, packaged into context you can actually put to use.

Join us in Boston for B2B Forum 2024 this coming November 12-14, 2024. Early buyers get B2B Forum tickets at their lowest rate, and discounted hotel rooms are available while they last.


 

 

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