A How-To Guide On Getting Inside Of A Customer’s Brain

Marketing Podcast with Nancy Harhut

In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Nancy Harhut. Nancy is the co-founder and Chief Creative Officer at HBT Marketing. A frequent conference speaker and author of Using Behavioral Science in Marketing: Drive Customer Action and Loyalty by Prompting Instinctive Responses.

Key Takeaway:

Behavioral scientists have studied how people make decisions and what they found is very often people aren’t making these well-thought-out, well-considered decisions. What people are doing instead is we’re relying on decision-making shortcuts, which are these automatic, instinctive, reflexive behaviors that humans have developed over the millennia as a way to conserve mental energy. In this episode, Nancy Harhut joins me to talk about how we as marketers can increase the likelihood that people will engage with and respond to our marketing messages.

Questions I ask Nancy Harhut:

• [1:29] How do you define instinctive responses?
• [4:00] Do you ever worry that people might learn behavioral science and create instinctive responses that are not necessarily for good?
• [5:45] Where do you see marketers getting this idea of using behavioral science in the marketing realm?
• [6:46] How do we create emotion so that they get the opportunity to back it up with logic?
• [10:47] A lot of times we will do things to avoid pain or immediate loss before we will do things that are good for us. I’ve heard marketers talk about people will buy painkillers instead of vitamins. How does that one play into a marketer’s ability to get an instinctive response?
• [11:48] Are there positive ways to use scarcity and urgency?
• [13:45] How does reciprocation come into play with humans?
• [17:23] How do you bring some urgency and scarcity to businesses that have a very long sales cycle?
• [19:33] Do you find that any of these techniques or these approaches are more effective visually versus words or stories?
• [21:18] When a client comes to you and they’re struggling with a challenge, do you have kind of a checklist you use, or is every case unique?
• [22:23] One of the things you’ve done in the book is that you kind of break down at the end of the chapter with action steps. Do you also have some checklists and things that people can download as well?
• [23:22] Where can people learn more about your work, connect with you, and get a copy of your book?

Like this show? Click on over and give us a review on iTunes, please!

This episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network.

HubSpot Podcast Network is the audio destination for business professionals who seek the best education and inspiration on how to grow a business.