How To Use Behavioral Science in Marketing With Nancy Harhut

Nancy Harhut is the Co-founder and Chief Creative Officer at HBT Marketing, a consultancy that applies human behavior to marketing. As an internationally recognized creative director, she blends best-of-breed creative with decision science. Nancy is an international keynote speaker and has been named a Top 40 Digital Strategist by Online Marketing Institute, a Top 100 Creative Influencer by Ad Club, and a Top 50 Email Marketing Leader by Social. She is also the best-selling author of Using Behavioral Science in Marketing.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[2:57] Why top marketers praise Nancy Harhut’s book
[7:33] Creative messaging strategies to capture the customer’s attention
[13:04] How customers make purchasing decisions
[16:18] Nancy explains behavioral and decision-making shortcuts
[19:40] What is autonomy bias?
[26:37] Examples of autonomy bias in marketing
[31:19] The difference between the Zeigarnik effect and reciprocity bias and their applications in e-commerce
[38:57] Applying the endowment effect to online stores
[43:35] How to differentiate social proof tactics — and the role of negative reviews in social proof
[49:13] The uncertainty reward in action
[54:17] Optimizing for purchase versus lifetime value
[1:02:13] How Nancy’s overprotective mother drove her to research behavioral science

In this episode…

Some marketers today are so immersed in numbers and metrics that they often neglect the customer. Others may focus excessively on visual ads, distracting customers from the overall message. Yet 95% of purchasing decisions are made in the subconscious mind. How can you tap into these behavioral insights to influence purchasing decisions?

Behavioral science researcher and innovative marketer Nancy Harhut says the key to driving purchasing decisions is persuasive messaging. Creative marketers can leverage unconscious behavior drivers like the endowment and Zeigarnik effect, social proof, the uncertainty reward, and autonomy and reciprocity bias. For instance, the endowment effect involves generating urgency and scarcity through limited-time offers, whereas the Zeigarnik effect can be used to spark customers’ memories about abandoned carts. You can also offer customers purchasing and discount choices to harness autonomy bias while generating a desired result. When utilizing social proof, Nancy recommends featuring testimonials that begin with skepticism to increase credibility and reach uncertain customers.

Tune in to today’s episode of the Up Arrow Podcast as William Harris chats with Nancy Harhut, the Co-founder and Chief Creative Officer at HBT Marketing, about behavioral science tactics for e-commerce marketing. Nancy shares customer decision-making shortcuts, the true drivers of purchasing decisions, and why you should optimize for lifetime value rather than one-time purchases.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Quotable Moments:

"Up to 95% of purchase decision-making takes place in the subconscious mind."
"If somebody gives us something, whether or not we ask for it, we then feel obliged to somehow return the favor."
"We buy for emotional reasons; we justify with rational reasons."
"The truth of the matter is, nothing is going to work for everybody just because something worked for one person."
"People are actually 68% more likely to complete a task with an uncertain reward."

Action Steps:

Embrace social proof tactics: Incorporate testimonials and reviews in your marketing materials, especially those that start from a place of skepticism and resolve positively. This approach can resonate with potential customers who may have similar concerns, thereby increasing credibility and driving conversions.
Implement scarcity and urgency: Use limited-time offers or emphasize limited availability to create a sense of urgency and scarcity. This taps into the human fear of missing out, which can drive quicker decision-making and purchases.
Leverage the Zeigarnik effect in marketing: Utilize techniques such as abandoned cart emails or ongoing campaigns highlighting unfinished actions. These reminders can capitalize on the human tendency to remember incomplete tasks, prompting customers to complete their purchases.
Provide choices to harness autonomy bias: Offer customers multiple options, such as different product variations or purchasing methods, to give them a sense of control. This approach can nearly quadruple the likelihood of a purchase, as it aligns with the human desire for autonomy and empowers customers in their decision-making process.
Use literary devices for memorability: Integrate alliteration, rhymes, and other literary devices in your messaging to enhance recall and persuasiveness. These elements make information easier to process and can increase the perceived credibility of the message, leading to more effective marketing communication.

Sponsor for this episode...

This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is a performance-driven e-commerce marketing agency focused on finding the best opportunities for you to grow and scale your business.

Our paid search, social, and programmatic services have proven to increase traffic and ROAS, allowing you to make more money efficiently.

To learn more, visit www.elumynt.com.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:02

William Welcome to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris, featuring top business leaders sharing strategies and resources to get to the next level. Now let's get started with the show.

William Harris 0:15

Hey everyone. I'm William Harris. I'm the founder and CEO of Elumynt and the host of the Up Arrow Podcast, where I feature the best minds in e-commerce to help you scale from 10 million to 100 million and beyond as you up arrow your business and your personal life. Joining me today is Nancy Harhut. Nancy is the author of the award winning book Using Behavioral Science and Marketing: Driving Customer Action and Loyalty by Prompting Instinctive Responses, and I actually have a copy of it here. I've read through, I can't say that I've read through every page, but I've read through most of this. It is a big book, and what's nice about it is, I'd say that it's non sequitur, if I would Right. Like, there's 17 chapters, and they're almost like, different tactics or things or principles that we can apply. So you could kind of like, skip around which I appreciated in it. Maybe that's not the way you intended it, but that's the way I read it.

Nancy Harhut 1:01

Nope, that that's the way I intended it. Thank you. Yep, you can write, you can go cover to cover if you want, and there's a certain logic to that, but you're welcome to kind of parachute in and out if you've got a particular subject you want to find out about, or particular challenge you're trying to solve. So yeah, you're doing it right. Thank you. Perfect.

William Harris 1:17

Well, I want to also say that you are also the co founder of HBT Marketing, which is a creative agency that increases response to emails, direct mail, landing pages and more, by prompting the decision making shortcuts your customers and prospects routinely rely on. Nancy, again, I've enjoyed the book very much. I'm excited to have you here on the show today

Nancy Harhut 1:36

now, William, thank you so much. I'm glad you enjoyed the book, and I'm excited to be here and to chat about using behavioral science and marketing. So thank you.

William Harris 1:43

Yeah, perfect. And I have to give a shout out to Will Leach, uh, previous guests on the upper air podcast, uh, author of Marketing to Mindstates. He's the one who, uh, introduced us, and I'm very thankful that really enjoyed that podcast as well. If you want go back, listen to that as well. Actually, I have his his book handy here as well, because why not? I figured we're going to talk about them. But here's that book to marketing the mind states. I feel like maybe I'm on the Reading Rainbow right now, right like this a book review lavar Burton, is that you Reading Rainbow? Anyways, moving on. This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is an award winning advertising agency optimizing e-commerce campaigns around profit. In fact, we've helped 13 of our customers get acquired, with the largest one selling for nearly 800,000,001 that ipoed. You can learn more on our website@Elumynt.com, which is spelled E, l, u, m, y, N, t.com, that said, onto the good stuff, this book. Okay, so we're talking about this little bit. I really like the quote. There's a lot of good quotes on here, but I really like the one that mark. Like the one that Mark Schaefer says, which is a tour de force, the most intelligent marketing book I have read in years. That's a really, that's a really big thing to say. Why do you think that he's saying that this is, you know, the most intelligent marketing book?

Nancy Harhut 2:57

So I was, you know, over the moon when he when he gave me that quote, I was so happy and so appreciative. I, you know, he said that he hadn't really read anything like this. He found that it was incredibly actionable and practical, and he felt that it would really make a difference for marketers. And he told me he was giving a giving it, it's, you know, an honest review, which I think is high praise coming from a guy like Mark, who's, you know, so accomplished and so intelligent, and who's written a number of books on his own. So I was very happy, and I wasn't gonna argue with him. You know,

William Harris 3:33

that's good well, and you know, it's not just mark. The first four pages are practically a who's who in marketing praising this book, a lot of names that I loved and recognized in there, and so that's that's a good thing to see. And I would agree with him about it being very actionable and practical. That's what I felt as I'd read through this, where it's like, I don't know if you remember this, there was a I don't remember even where I read this, but Shakespeare wasn't that great of a writer to begin with. And you can look at his earlier works to side, like, oh, he really was, you know, mediocre at best. Like nobody would have thought anything of it. But you could see him learning over time. And it was really interesting. You can see him start to employ basically different literary devices to improve his writing. And you're like, Oh, now he just discovered, you know, alliteration, and now he's going really hard on that. And so you can see this throughout time. But I kind of felt like that's how this book was for me, where I was like, Oh, I could take one of these concepts, chapter three, and I could break it down and actually just start to apply that to whatever business it is that I'm working on right then again, it felt very practical, where it's like, great. I'm going to do a deep dive for this month on just chapter three,

Nancy Harhut 4:40

no, no, that's great, you know. And the idea was, you know, quick, easy to read. At the end of every chapter are the takeaways. There's, you know, also mistakes to avoid. You know, there's one mistake to avoid in each chapter. There's a little mini case study. I just tried to make it as you know, simple and easy and accessible as possible. Because people are busy, you know, people are busy. And, you know, it's called using behavioral science for marketers. But it's, it's written for people who aren't necessarily marketers, but maybe who have marketing is one of the many things on their to do list. And so I wanted to make it, you know, make it accessible to people, and you can get in, get out, get your idea, get it into the market and benefit from it. And, you know, so it's, it's, there's just enough science to explain why you can trust this, but it's much longer on the practical application. And several people have said to me, it's like, you know, every time I read it, I underscore something else and say, I've got to test that. I've got to try that. I'm going to use that. And then sometimes people come back to me and actually say, I just got this great response, which really, like, you know, makes me very, very happy, you know, when they think to write back and say, I've tested it and it worked, you know. And I don't know if it's because they thought, wow, that's surprising. I didn't think it was going to work. I better let her know it does. Or if they're just really being, you know, enthusiastic and kind and wanting to get back to me. But it's, it's great to hear that, you know, people, they see something like that would work for me. They try it. It does. And that's great. And you know, in the truth of the matter is nothing is going to work for everybody. Just because something worked for one person, it may not work for you. Just because it works for you, it may not work for another person. But you know, in this you know, in this game, it's all about testing, as you well know, as your listeners well know, and you know, this gives you a leg up in terms of what you're going to test, right? Because we know we have to test, but let's stack the deck in our favor. Let's test something that's more likely to win, that's more likely to produce the response we're looking for. And that's what the book does. There's 288 282 pages, I think, or 288 I forget. Anyway, 17 chapters and over 25 very practical, actionable things that someone can take and run with and get out in the market in order to increase engagement response. So, yeah, yeah,

William Harris 6:42

I love that. Well, I want to dig into this. There's a lot of things that I've read that I want to kind of talk about, but before we get into let's say the improvements in the tactical and the practical, let's start with the problem. We were talking about this like there's a problem in marketing. And there's a really good tweet that I just read this morning by Brett Swensen. Brett is the EVP of kizik shoes, which is a really great shoe brand out in like the Salt Lake City, Utah area. I think it was at purple before, and there's a really good D to C community out there in Utah. But this is what he said, and I'm going to go into what you said, which I really appreciate, too. But he said, where you've lost the art of marketing, we're too focused on spreadsheets, instead of romancing our customers through thoughtful emotion, invoking moments. I'm like, Yes, this is something that I talk about all the time, which like Romancing the customer. What do you

Nancy Harhut 7:33

think about that? Well, you know, I think he has a very good point. You know, there was a time, a long time ago, when it was all about Romancing the customer and Romancing the products and the services. And then, you know, enter technology. And I have no beef against technology. Technology has helped us be more effective and more efficient, but suddenly it seems like the pendulum has swung that way. And it's, you know, not about what you're putting out, it's how quickly you're getting it out and how efficiently you're getting it out and where you're putting it. And really, you know, once you've optimized all of that, you know, and good for you, if you have, you know, you should, but once you've optimized all that, the biggest opportunity you have for any kind of leverage is in your creative it's, you know, the message you're putting out there. It's how you're Romancing The, you know, the products and the services, how you're building that relationship with your customers, how you're kind of getting in their heads, and, you know, solving their problems and answering their needs, and, you know, lighting a fire under their goals. It's going to be that, you know, the creative that's that's going to make the difference, because all of your if you think about it, all of your competitors have access to the same technology. They can, you know, buy the same list. They can buy the same, you know, ads on the same distribution channels they, you know, they can hire the same, you know, coders to do the back end of their site. But it's, it's that language and that romance that, you know, the the art part of it, I guess that needs to maybe come back a little bit more and and, oddly given, my title is using behavioral science and marketing. It does help with the art part of it. It does help you get inside your customers heads and and make the emotional connections and paint the right pictures. So, so there's a lot of good stuff in there that that will help you kind of balance out the, you know, the tech end of things.

William Harris 9:16

There's a science to the art and there's an art to the science. Right. Perfectly. Put William, yes. So this is what you said, though, in your book, that I really appreciated when we're like, really getting into it's like, what is the problem marketing you had? You said mistake making your ads so captivating that people pay attention to it and remember it, but not the marketing message associated with it. I was like, Oh, that's good. Is that the problem that you see in marketing that we're really trying to address by just using better behavioral marketing.

Nancy Harhut 9:44

Well, it's one of the problems, honestly, you know, sometimes, you know, we're just talking about like the art in the creativity and romancing and, you know, sometimes, and I am a creative person. I grew up as a copywriter and then became a creative director, like that is my end of the world. But sometimes the the creative teams run amok. They do they, you know, they get so excited about their idea that that it, it, the idea kind of overshadows the product and and maybe even the category in some play, in some cases, you know, there have been studies that, you know, show, pardon me, people will be asked like, what was your favorite ad on the Super Bowl, they'll be given a, you know, a list of different advertisers, you know, this brand, that brand, that brand, you know, who does like the best. And at one point, when the study was run, they slipped in a name of a brand that didn't advertise, and it still got a huge number of, you know, people saying, oh, yeah, I love their ad. You know, we don't. We don't know who's when we get so caught up in the ad, Oh, that's funny or, you know, but then it's okay. What was it for? I don't know, like, I annoy my friends because of, like, oh my god, Nancy, I just saw this, you know, this TV spot that I loved, and it did this, and then it did this, and then they said this. And I'm like, that's cool. What was it for? Not really sure. How about the category? Yeah, you know. And so that's one of the things we have to worry about, you know, we want to be entertaining, we want to be informative. We want to be attention getting absolutely getting absolutely but we also have to make sure that we link back to, you know, our product, our brand, our service, so that when people walk away, they remember the main message, and not just the funny story or the laugh that they got.

William Harris 11:16

Here's a very modern example of this that I'm I don't know if you're on Tiktok or not. These ads have started to trickle over from Tiktok on the on the Facebook meta as well. But there's this thing we call like a thumb stop ratio, which is, you got to get people to stop, right? They're scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. Gotta get rid, at least stop. And one of the ways that people are doing this, and at least a trend, is something absolutely ridiculous that has nothing to do with anything else that's going on. And an example that I could think of right now is of right now is there's like, this horse or donkey or something real one that kind of like, rolls over a fence, like head first is kind of like, just, kind of like, rolls over it, and then it's like, as the donkey rolls, then it's like, somebody else rolls right out of a truck. So it's like, it's seamless, right? So it's like, Hey, by the way, I've got this thing to tell you about kind of thing. So it's like, what got your attention? It was good. But there's the reality is, I don't know if I can even right now. I can't recall who this ad was, what was for. I remember the donkey very well.

Nancy Harhut 12:14

So, yeah, no. And I mean, and if it happened to be for, I don't know, a feed and Supply Company, well, maybe that would have been a nice link or something, you know, but, yeah, that that is, that's a good example of the danger. It's like it, you know, yes, it catches your attention, and we do have to, and it's harder and harder to break through and get someone's attention, no question about it. But if you, if you kind of over index on that, you know, you can, you can lose people, and then that's, that's money that's not well spent, because you're spending all this money to entertain people, but they forget who you are, and so we got to find that balance. That's, you know, that's absolutely something that's that's important these days. So let's start

William Harris 12:49

digging into the ways that we fix marketing in the way that it's maybe currently being done. One of the things that you brought up to me when we were chatting before is that people don't think the way marketers think they do. How do people actually think?

Nancy Harhut 13:04

Yeah, so it's very true. You know, for years, we as marketers have been lied to really, because we've been told, if we get the right message to the right person at the right time, we'll get the right result. And that's only part of the story, because what we have to do is get the right message to the right person at the right time and in the right way. And when I say in the right way, I mean a brain friendly way, that the truth of the matter is, you know, we I like to think that I make well thought out, well considered decisions. William, you probably think the same thing. And by extension, we think that our customers and our prospects do right like, you know, no one says they're influenced by advertising. Nobody says that they, you know, do what they don't want to do like they were forced into it. We all feel like we know exactly why we're doing what we're doing and when we do it. And the truth, though, is that's not the case. Up to 95% of purchase decision making takes place in the subconscious mind. And the reason for this is we couldn't possibly weigh every bit of information before making a decision, or we wouldn't get around to making any so we, we kind of cruise along on autopilot. We've developed these hard wired, reflexive, automatic, instinctive reactions. We cruise along on autopilot. We encounter a situation, and we just respond, given the matter at hand, little, if any thoughts. And that's the thing that marketers have to understand. You know, we we're kind of laboring and creating under this illusion that if we just put the right information in front of people, they will come to the right decision. They'll make the logical choice that they should buy from us. But they're very rarely in that moment with their thinking caps on, weighing the pros and cons. You know, consciously engaging. They're cruising along on autopilot and but the good news is, if we know this, we can use it in, you know, to our advantage, because there are certain ways that we can prompt these decision making shortcuts that people have. You know, if we know that, when somebody sees why they're going to do X, if we want them to do x, let's make sure we show them why, you know, let's, let's use these little prompts in order to increase the likelihood people do what we do. So. It's not as well thought out, well considered as rational and rational as we think, but that presents an opportunity for us.

William Harris 15:06

I couple years ago, few years ago, maybe more than a few years ago, skinny jeans were becoming cool, you know, now they're they're phasing out, but I can remember, you know, I didn't want to get rid of my boot cut jeans. And so I had to make a decision. I needed a new pair of jeans because my jeans were old. And so I was like, I didn't just need a new pair of jeans, though. I needed to decide if I was changing my entire style at this point in time. It's like, am I finally going to adopt the style that exists out there? So I did make a spreadsheet of jeans and the different genes that I was looking at and why, and one of the pros and one of the cons, and my wife's like, You're a psycho, right? But to your point, if I tried to make every decision that way, I would never be able to accomplish anything. Decision fatigue would set in. It's impractical, it's impossible, and so I can see that. So what's funny is I probably got to the end of that spreadsheet, and without realizing it, I probably still made an emotional decision, I'd probably still base it on some of these shortcuts, and wasn't as based on logic as I thought that it was at that time. And you mentioned, like, there are these shortcuts? What are what are some of these shortcuts? Or what potential shortcuts was I potentially exploring at that moment that I didn't even realize?

Nancy Harhut 16:18

Well, I mean, that's a good question. So I think you know, the very fact that you decided to put together the spreadsheet, right? What was happening there was, I think, social proof. So when we're not sure what to do, we look to others. We follow their lead, right? So if a bunch of people are doing something, we assume, well, I guess we should do it. So all of a sudden, you know, skinny jeans are in. So what did you do? You're like, well, maybe, I don't know. Maybe I should be getting, I'm not really sure, but maybe I should, maybe I should be getting skinny jeans, because that's what everyone else is doing, right? It wasn't like you woke up one day no one else was doing it. You said, I think, I think skinny jeans are for me. No, it would have never, you know, never entered your mind. But because everyone else was doing it, you were like, I don't know, maybe I should be too so I think that was no, that was one of the things. There's also the idea of loss aversion, where, as humans were twice as motivated to avoid the pain of loss as we are to achieve the pleasure of gain. But of course, in marketing, you know, we often double down on the gains, all the gains and benefits, and all the advantages and wonderful things that will happen if you, you know, buy my product or sign up for my service. But, but, but it's not that benefits don't work. They do. But the idea of loss aversion can be even more powerful, because we don't like to miss out. And in this case, you were thinking, Well, should I get the genes? If I don't, I'm going to miss out. Maybe I'm going to miss out on a really cool trend. Maybe I'm going to miss out on looking really good. Maybe I'm going to feel like a social outcast, because all of my friends are doing it, and I'm not, you know. So I think there was, there was, there was an element of that as well. And then, you know, and then there's also the notion of novelty. The human brain is hardwired to seek out the new and novel, because when we think we found it, the reward center in our brain is activated. Dopamine is released. That's a feel good chemical, among other things. And so as a result, we're always jonesing for that next hit of dopamine. So the next new thing that comes out, the new trend, the new new fashion, whatever it is, we're like, oh, let me check this out. You know, I found something new, you know, and I'm going to maybe get that hit of dopamine, and that's going to feel good. So think in any, any or all of those things may have been at play as you were putting together that spreadsheet, diligently figuring out what kind of genes you're going to get. Well,

William Harris 18:19

this is tangential, but you talked about dopamine. What do you think about, like, these dopamine resets? Have you heard of that, where it's like, we've almost become so addicted to dopamine hits that there's people are trying to, you know, get away from their phones and, like, try to reset the body's response to dopamine. Is it good? Yeah, bad? I don't know. Yeah, you know.

Nancy Harhut 18:38

Well, it is interesting. We're talking about the fact that people's attention spans are short, that they've got a lot of demands on their attention that they're making, you know, all of these, up to 95% of the decisions subconsciously because they can't weigh all of the information and so. So pulling back a little bit and in quieting your mind and not having as many demands on you and not being, you know, a slave to every time that the phone beings, it, right, you know, and, and that is dopamine, that little being, it's like, ah, something new, you know, what? What is it? What could it be? Maybe someone like my post, maybe someone sent me an email, maybe, you know, maybe I got an offer for something, or, you know, a text about but, yeah, it's, it's like, you can kind of be on this treadmill about it. And it's maybe not the worst thing in the world to try to step back a little bit and say, Okay, I've got to detox a bit.

William Harris 19:26

You talked about in your book one of the ones that I really liked, one of these shortcuts then that you we're calling this, is autonomy bias. You said that it's one of the most powerful drivers of human behavior. What's autonomy bias? So

Nancy Harhut 19:40

it's really interesting. William, behavioral scientists have found that people have this very deep seated desire to exert some kind of control over ourselves and our environments, right? A psychologist would call it agency. We want agency, but we want some kind of control. We simply put, we don't like to feel forced or pushed or shoved. In a direction we like to feel that we're in charge. And so from a marketing perspective, any time that we can make our customers and prospects feel like they're in charge, as opposed to, you know, that they're being pushed into something, that's a good thing, because if you feel like you're being pushed into something, you have no option, right? A lot of times you just push back and you say, I'm not gonna I'm gonna react against it, I'm not gonna do anything at all, or I'm gonna do the exact opposite thing, right? But if you can make somebody feel like they're the ones calling the shots, they're the ones in charge, you're much more likely to to get the response you're looking for. And a great way to do that is to give people choices, because if you have a choice, the skinny leg jeans or the boot cut like you know, if you have a choice, you're the one making the choice. And by definition, you're the one in charge. You've got the, you know, the autonomy. And so anytime we can give customers choices, how they you know, how they interact with us, how they shop with us, the product line that, you know, the good better, best, whatever it is. Anytime we can give somebody a choice, that's a really good thing. So matter of fact, there's some research that came out of Tulane University that found if you provide an option, you can nearly quadruple the likelihood someone will make a buying decision in the moment. So if you put one thing in front of someone, you know, here's here's your genes, you have to decide, well, do I or do I not want these, this particular pair, you know? And so maybe think, well, I don't know. I'll do some research. I'll talk to my friends. I'll, you know, Google it, I'll put together a spreadsheet, whatever. I'm going to do some research, you know. But if you put two things in front of somebody, the question goes from, do I or do I not want this? To, oh, which of these two do I want we make it? You know, easy. There's context, there's comparison, and the brain likes to take the easy way out. And in the first case, with only one option, there's a lot more work to decide whether or not you want it, but when there's two, you've got that automatic built in comparison, it's a lot easier to make a decision, and as a result, you're much more likely to make it. That said, you know, two is better than one. Three is a magic number. I wouldn't go beyond five. I wouldn't say, oh, people like choices, good. Let's give them 20. You know, analysis paralysis sets in, and, you know, it's like people can't make a decision, or if they do there, they constantly wonder, did I leave something better on the table? And then, related to the idea of autonomy, bias is something called the by AF technique. By AF stands for but you are free. And what behavioral scientists have found is you can tell someone what you want them to do. You can ask them to do it, and if you follow that request with a phrase like, but you're free to choose, or it's up to you, the choice is yours. It's your call. You can, on average, double the likelihood people will do what you want. And I know it sounds counterintuitive, because we're trying to get someone to do something, why would we at that very moment that we've asked them, then pull back and say, but you know what? It's up to you, but it reminds people that they're the ones in charge. It brings that idea of autonomy to, you know, to the surface. It becomes very top of mind. And people think I'm doing this of my own accord. I'm doing it because I want to, you know, I'm they're not forcing me. I'm choosing to do it. And that's incredibly powerful. So autonomy biases is a really powerful tool for us to use in in business and in marketing.

William Harris 23:01

You know what's wild about that that my my synapses were going a million miles a minute. So there's some stuff about parenting I want to talk about with that. But before I get to that, it reminds me of like magicians a little bit, right? It's like, Hey, you can cut the deck if you want. You can do like it's your choice, and you feel as if you've made the choice, but they've really controlled the entire thing all the way through. But there's a game show, and I'm trying to remember the the name of the game show, the Monty the Monty Hall problem. Are you familiar with this? The Monty Hall

Nancy Harhut 23:33

problem? I'm not sure. Okay, what's in the box or behind the curtain? Is that the one? Yeah,

William Harris 23:39

it's similar to that. So they're given three doors, and it's like, okay, behind door number one is maybe, you know, behind one of the doors is like a Ferrari, and behind the other two are goats. And you pick a door and they reveal one of the doors that you didn't pick to show that it was a goat. And then you have the option of either sticking with the original choice that you made or switching, and makes it feel as if you're just like, hey, you have the choice. You could, you could do what you want, and people tend to often want to stay with their choice, which is a really interesting thing, because statistically speaking, they have double the chance of being right if they would switch their choice at that point in time. It's a mathematical thing that it feels counterintuitive, but to your point, it's like the game show is almost making it seem like you can switch. It's your choice kind of thing. And so that you just like, Well, yeah, my choice, I'm going to stick with my choice.

Nancy Harhut 24:27

Oh, that's interesting. That is an, you know what? There's a little bit of something called the endowment effect, I think, associated with that, because it was my choice. Here's, here's the three I've made my choice, and now that's mine. And it's like, okay, you can change it now if you want. It's like, no, no. That's, that's that's fine, you know. And what behavioral scientists have found is, once we think of something as ours, we value it even more, you know. Then you know. So if there's something that we want to acquire, well, obviously we evaluate that's why we want to acquire it. But once it becomes ours, we place greater value on if. There have been studies that show, you know, if you if you. Um, got a ticket to a game, right? A baseball game or something, a basketball game, and maybe, maybe you paid a certain amount for it, but the tickets are all sold out now, and so people are going to offer you money to buy your ticket. You because it's already yours, you will hold out for this huge amount of money, much more than you would be willing to pay if the situation were reversed, you know. But because it's yours, it's, you know, it's why, when people go to sell their house, they'll tell the real estate agent, no, no, that's too low. It's got to be higher, even though the real estate agent bases it on the, you know, the data about comparable sales in the neighborhood. You know, we have a tendency to overvalue things that are ours. So that might also be a play there. It's like, I made the decision. I chose box number one or door number one. I'm not going to move because now I'm wed to it. It's interesting. Yeah,

William Harris 25:48

I think you're absolutely right. Sticking with the autonomy bias, though, for a little bit longer. And then I want to jump into that is parenting, though, which is funny, we do this with our kids all the time when they're young, right? It's like, Hey, would you like to do your homework now or in 15 minutes? Now they have a choice versus Hey, you know, are you ready to start your homework? The choice is just yes or no, and it's like, well, you've eliminated that's not the choice that you wanted to give them. The choice that you wanted to kind of force or control is, would you like to do your homework now or in 15 minutes? Well, now they get the opportunity to choose. And that's maybe a dumb example, but you get where I'm going with those words, like they're still getting the outcome that I want out of this. I've still controlled the situation, but I've given them this, this feeling of choice. Are there any examples like that of autonomy, bias being used very well that you could think of with a business?

Nancy Harhut 26:37

I mean, your your example with the kids is a smart one. It was, it's perfect, actually. So with businesses, you know, I saw, I was on a website for a pizza place, and they said something like, dine in, takeout or delivery, the choice is yours. And so you feel like, okay, this is my choice, you know. But whatever one I choose, they're gonna win. They're selling some pizza. You know, they're selling it whether I pick it up myself, or they have it delivered, or whether I eat it there. So I thought that was an interesting, you know, use of it. You know, every once in a while, I'll find a sales pitch, and they will end with, you know, the choice is yours, or it's up to you and and I think I see what they're doing there. Somebody's, you know, somebody's plugged in. I got up an email the other day from, I think was Marriott Bonvoy, and they were showing me two different credit cards. And you know, they had the two of them. And, you know, I mean, the credit cards are credit cards, a credit card, but there were slight differences. And because there were two, instead of having to decide, gee, do I want a Marriott credit card, it was more like, oh, which of these two do I want? There's this one with these Bennies, and there's that one with those Bennies. And you know, so I do see, I do see brands out there using it and using it pretty well, but I still think it's underutilized. I still think there are more opportunities

William Harris 27:51

when you when you recognize that, because you see this so easily, when you recognize the tactics that people are using. Does it make you appreciate it enough to want to give them your business. Or are you almost turned off by you're just like, Oh, no. Red flag. I just saw that. I know they were trying to control the situation. No,

Nancy Harhut 28:08

no, no. Honestly. The honest answer is, I want to screenshot it and use it in one of my presentations. But no, you know, if I recognize that, I kind of smile and I think, Oh, that's pretty cool. I don't think any any any less of them, maybe, I think more of them. So I'm like, Oh, they're, you know, they're really working this. You know, the interesting thing is, and I was just asked this recently there, you know, like someone said to me, you really know about this stuff. So, you know, do people who really know about it, are they, like, immune to it in a way, like, does it just not work? And knowing about it, and, in being immune to it, are two different things, I guess. So I was telling this, this gentleman, I was on vacation, and I decided I was going to treat myself to a glass of wine at this bar. So I walk in, I sit down at the bar, I look at the wine list, and I don't recognize a single wine on the, you know, the wines by the glass list. Just don't recognize any of them. I know, I want a glass of red, you know. So I said, the bartender comes over, and I said, Hey, listen, you know, I'd like a glass of red. I don't recognize any of these. I like something that's got a little more leather or tan, and what would you recommend? And he immediately, William recommends the most expensive glass of wine on the list. And I kind of look at him like, I don't think I'd spend that on a bottle, you know, like, so I said, Hey, I bet you it's good. I'm sure it is, but I'm not looking to spend that kind of money. Like, you know, what's a bit more moderately priced that might also fit my profile. And he says, Oh, well, the blah, blah, blah. Like, okay, that sounds good. I'd like a less of that. Couple minutes later, he returns, and he has two glasses with a taste in each, right? And he's like, here's the one I use, the first one I recommended. Here's the second one. Yeah, give him a try, right? I didn't ask him to give, you know, I very clearly said, I'm going to take the second one you recommend. But he comes back with two, and I taste them, and they're both good. But you know that that first one, he recommended the various ones, it was quite good. And I found myself saying, Well, you know what, Nancy, you're on vacation, and you know, you could indulge yourself. You know? Give yourself a little reward, so I get it, you know, and hours later, I'm back home at the hotel, or back, you know, back in the hotel room, and I realized that what was happening there was something called reciprocity bias, right? If somebody gives us something whether or not we ask for it, if they do us a favor, if they give us a gift, whether or not we ask for it, we then feel obliged to somehow return the favor. We want to, you know, even the score. We don't want to feel like we're we owe somebody. And at the time, I wasn't thinking that way. At the time, I was like, kid is pretty good. And, man, you know, I this one time. I can go for, you know, I can splurge and, you know. So here's an example of someone who clearly, you know, I have a whole chapter about reciprocity in my book, you know. And it's, again, it's an example of someone who clearly understands these tactics, and yet, in the moment, I wasn't immediately identifying it for what it was, you know. And so getting back to your question about, like, if I see somebody using another marketer, you know, do I go, you know, they're trying to No, I mean, you know, if I see him using it and I happen to notice it, I'm like, that's pretty cool. Good, you know, good for you. But a lot of times you don't even see it, and I have to almost be looking for it, as opposed to be being in the moment, you know, like in the moment that was a transaction. I was trying to order a glass of wine when I'm, you know, kind of scrolling the internet or going through my email box. Sometimes I'm more in the frame of what's interesting here, that I might need in a presentation or that I might want to write about later. You know,

William Harris 31:19

that's fair. So okay, reciprocity bias versus I've got it. I've got a story that, or at least an illustration, that I'm going to use, and I want to see if it's reciprocity bias or if it's the Zeigarnik effect. And I don't know if is it Zeigarnik? I think, okay, yeah, I read it in your book. So that's the first time I experienced it, so I wasn't sure to pronounce it which, one of these effects it is, because I thought it was Zeigarnik. But then now I'm thinking, maybe it's the risk process. So the example that I remember reading about was a car wash that gave somebody, like, a pamphlet with like, eight coupons or whatever, or eight little like slots where they could fill out for, you know, once they fill up all, all eight of them with stickers, then they get a free car wash. The other one was 10 slots, but two of those slots already had stickers on them, so you only had to fill out eight more to get your your free cars. Still eight no matter what. But one, they found a significant higher adoption of people doing, and that was the 10 because of people wanting I, in my mind, it's like, I was thinking, it is the Zeigarnik effect, where it's like, well, I've already got this. I want to finish this. Would you say it's probably that one, or is it more the reciprocity? Yeah,

Nancy Harhut 32:30

no, I think it's, I mean, it's interesting. I never really, I know what you're talking about. Never really thought about it in terms of reciprocity, and there could be a little of that. But I think of it more as the Zeigarnik effect, which is this, you know, this idea that we we keep in our minds incomplete things that are incomplete, like, if something isn't finished, if we can't check it off the list, if we haven't come to closure, if it's still kind of hanging there, it stays top of mind. It's why cliffhangers work so well in the media, right? It's like, my god, I can't wait for the next season of, you know, whatever elements to come out like I want to see what happened to her, you know? Or, you know, 911 has their three part series. And you know that that woman is up in the air, flying the airplane, but she's not a pilot. Is she gonna land that I have to watch next week and find out, you know? So I and then, and there's a, there's a, almost a companion behavioral science principle to the Zeigarnik effect. And it's called the I've seen, I've seen it. Oh my god, I haven't seen it. I've been seeking, so I can't even pronounce it now. It's gone right in my head, but, but it's the idea that we're prone to not only remember, but act on it and, and I think those two things are there. You've got the, you know, it's, it's, I don't know, 12 boxes, but the first two were checked. So there's 10 more to go. You remember it? And because there's that forward motion, there's that momentum, I've seen Kena, I think it is anyway you feel like I've got to finish this. You know, you've gotten a head start. So it's, um, but, but it's interesting. I've never thought about it as being a reciprocity thing. It's more of a it's we've gotten started. Let's finish it off now so that we can cross it off the list. I think there was a study that came out of like Wharton and USC that showed that there was like a double digit likelihood of people finishing if the first two boxes were already pre checked. So it's like 10 blank boxes or 12 boxes, 12 boxes, but the first two are pre checked. In both cases, you're going to have to do 10 purchases, right? But because they pre check too, it's like, I'm going to go for this.

William Harris 34:26

Yeah, yeah. So what's an example of either one of those reciprocity or the Zeigarnik effect that you could think of in in like, let's say, the e-commerce space? If you can't think of an example, that's fine, too. I'm trying to think of one. And of one, and I can't think of one off top of my head.

Nancy Harhut 34:45

I think, yeah. I mean, if you think about abandoned cart emails, that could very well be Zeigarnik, right? It's like, Hey, you started, but you didn't come back and finish, right? And then, in terms of reciprocity, when you think of. About, you know how to videos or free guides. You know that that a lot of websites will offer. I think that's a good example of reciprocity. It's like, well, they, you know, they've got these videos telling me how to use, you know, this, how to solve a problem. Maybe I'll buy their product. I mean, I could buy the competitors product to solve the problem, but I'm gonna buy their product because they put up this really good video telling me how to solve this particular problem I'm working on, or they've, you know, it's on a website that offered a free planting guide, right? It was like gardener supply website with this free planting guide. So if I'm gonna buy seeds, I'd probably go back and buy my seeds from them, because they gave me the free planting guide. So think those are two good examples. Yeah, it's

William Harris 35:42

brilliant. You just unlocked that for me, because I've used those types of lead gen things all the time. And in my mind, the reason why they were so effective is one, you're capturing their email address, so you have the opportunity to remarket them later. You you have already qualified them as being somewhat interested in the topic. You can retarget them now, because they visit the website, you can target them with ads, and so like, and then there's just the actual idea of, like, the brand recognition. So when they have to make a choice, they're like, well, here's this brand I've heard of, versus this one I haven't heard of because I've already downloaded this, but I never thought about this. Like, this shortcut in the brain, like you said, of like, the zygotic effect, where they're like, no, no, the reciprocity bias, where they're like, I almost feel because you've given me something, I feel the need to, want to give you the business. I never thought about that.

Nancy Harhut 36:30

Yeah, yeah. I mean, in all of the reasons you just rattled off make perfect sense and are sound marketing. But yeah, there is this other reason, which is it's kind of that, like that, that human thing about getting inside your customers heads, and it's like, yeah, you know, you, you did something for them, and so they're going to want to return the favor. And you almost feel a little guilty if you don't, you know, I got this great guidebook here, but I'm going to go next door and buy from someone else. Hey, it's why, you know you even if you walk into a brick and mortar and they have free samples, right? I have so many bottles of wine in my basement because I go to these wine tastings, and it's like, you know, and they tell you there's no obligation to buy, but after you've tasted a couple, you know, it's like, I don't want to walk out and not buy anything. Like, they're so nice, and they're chatting with me, and they're telling me about the wine and, you know, and it's like, the next thing you know, I'm buying a bottle that I liked. And, you know, home it goes, and in the basement it goes, and next week, I'm at the wine tasting. I didn't use the bottle from last week, but I come back with yet a second one. You know, you kind of feel bad if you don't

William Harris 37:29

100% do you think that there's a regional component to that? Like, does that work more in the Midwest than it does? Maybe in the East Coast? Because I feel like, as a Midwesterner, yeah, receiving something from anybody even like a sample. You just like, I mean, I didn't like the cheese, but I'm gonna go ahead and buy of one, because they just gave me a free sample.

Nancy Harhut 37:46

I, you know, I don't, I don't know if it's even more prevalent in in the Midwest than it is like in New England, where we're, you know, considered to be cold and hard to get to know. I don't know but, but I do know that it's, it's a basic kind of hardwired human behavior. So there might be greater, you know, prevalence, or lesser prevalence, but there's kind of across the board. That's how humans are hardwired, and it's because, if you go back to our ancient ancestors, if they didn't cooperate, if they didn't have some kind of interdependence, they would be banished. And if they were, like, kicked out of the tribe. They wouldn't survive on their own. Like, back then, you really had to work as a cohesive group, as a community. And so we're just hardwired from our earlier, you know, earliest origins, to to reciprocate and and to, you know, I do for you, you do for me. And that's how, you know, that's how we both survive,

William Harris 38:40

yeah, and that's not a bad thing. I think there's a reciprocity is a good thing. You talked about the endowment effect a little bit. I want to bring that one back up, because there's a good example that you had for this with the online wine store. Take me through the endowment effect a little bit more, especially how it applied in this online wine

Nancy Harhut 38:57

store. Absolutely, I can see there's this like trend here going with the wine. It's like, oh, well, I went to the bar and then I but yes, I will talk about this. It's, it was a an email that I got from a company called lot 18, and they they were having a sale on wine, and they wanted me to buy a bottle of wine by midnight tomorrow. But they didn't just say, hey, buy a bottle of wine by midnight tomorrow. They told me that I had a $15 a $15 credit in my account that would expire at midnight tomorrow or 1159 tomorrow, right? So mathematically, it's the same thing whether I'm applying a $15 credit or whether they're giving me a $15 discount or taking $15 off the price or sending me a $15 rebate. But psychologically, they're worlds apart, right? Because I have the credit, it's in my account and it's going to expire, right? So there's loss aversion in the endowment effect. The endowment effect is, it's mine, it's already in my account, and then loss aversion, it's going to expire tomorrow at 1159, versus them having their sale until 11. 59 tomorrow, where they would give me, or send me a discount, you know, or a rebate. And again, mathematically, it's the same, but psychologically very different, you know, it's like, oh my gosh, I've got $15 on my account, but it's gonna, it's gonna disappear. It's gonna evaporate if I don't use it. Well, I'm valuing that $15 so much more because it's already mine. It's the same $15 that they would, you know, if they said, hey, we'll take 15 off. But the difference is, that's their 15, and this is my 15. Really, really powerful. I love that example. They were very smart to use it, whether they used it deliberately, whether they tested their way into it, whether they whether it was, you know, serendipity. I don't know, but I love it,

William Harris 40:39

do you are there certain tactics like these that are more effective than others in a general sense, or do they range where it's like, hey, everybody has different ones that they're more reactive and responsive to, and so you should have a broad use of all of These tactics to make sure that you're you're maximizing your your your benefits to each individual type of person.

Nancy Harhut 41:05

That's, it's a really good question. And the way I usually approach it is, I look at what the challenge, the marketing challenge is, and a lot of times in marketing, it's, you know, we'll put together all the reasons why someone should come to our site, why they should buy our product, why they should subscribe to our service, and and that's necessary. We need that. But I always say to my clients, we need to go a step further now. We need to put together that list of why somebody might not, well, you know, might not want to do what we're asking them to do. Let's assume that our product is good and our targeting is good. Some people are going to say yes, but other people are going to be hesitant, and we need to know why, and we need to then figure out how to overcome that hesitation, and and so then, based on what that reason, why is that they may not want to buy, that's when I go in and look at the various behavioral science tactics and say, All right, which is the best one or the best couple that I can test to overcome that? So it's not like there's there's like one go to it really kind of depends on the problem you're trying to solve. I mean, that said, especially in e-commerce, I think two very popular ones that pop up a lot are the idea of social proof. You know, a lot of other people are doing this. So you should, you know, millions serve, you know, most popular product, you know, best selling product. You know, that's very helpful for people. It's a great decision making shortcut. So we do see that a lot, and the idea of scarcity. We value things when they're harder to get or when only certain people can get them. And so you know, limited time, sales, limited quantities, time is running out available only to people in this group. Those things also work very well. And we do see that often in e-commerce, but, but really, you know what we what we need to do is we need to think about what's the problem we're trying to solve, like, why might someone not want to do this? And that really opens up the the toolbox, if you will, and it gives us more things to play with in terms of influencing the behavior.

William Harris 42:56

Yeah, I love that. It makes a lot of sense too, that different groups would have different ones at different times, and so you really have to kind of do the research and find out which one applies to the situation or the specific problem that you're addressing, the social proof. 100% see this all the time in e-commerce. I do feel like, how do we differentiate social proof now, though, one of the things I feel like we're seeing is everybody's doing the same kind of social proof. It seems like everybody's doing the same influencers in UGC, and it maybe feels like it's just become noise. Are there ways that people can do it better than just simply having, you know, influencers or just saying that, you know, 50 million people like this or things like that. What are some better ways of doing that?

Nancy Harhut 43:45

Yeah, so here's one that I often share with my clients, and that is, we know that testimonials can work very well, right? They work well if they're positioned on a website next to the, you know, to the button. You know, they work in subject lines on emails, right? We just know that that, you know, testimonials work. But here's the thing, most of the time, when we're trying to pick a testimonial, we're trying to find the most glowing one we have, right? We want that one customer who said, you know, Acme is the best thing since sliced bread. Because we're like, this is awesome, right? Like they said it, you can't even buy this kind of, you know, this press, this is fabulous, right? They they love me. And the problem with that is people can be a little skeptical, and so we're better off when we're when we're choosing a testimonial. We're better off finding some, you know, someone who starts at that place of skepticism. You know, I thought the price was a little high, but I decided to give it a try anyway. Boy, am I glad that I did. Or, you know, I thought, you know, all of these, you know, every, every bank, well, bank accounts, probably the wrong word, but, you know, every widget was the same. But then I tried these guys. They really are better than the last people I used, you know, because you think about where somebody is, they haven't decided to buy yet. They're. Reading these reviews. They're reading these testimonials. You know, if they recognize themselves in it, that's what's going to grab them. So a lot of times, you know, companies or brands, they're like, Well, I don't want to, I don't want to put that idea in someone's head. If they don't think we're too expensive, I'm not going to put a testimonial out there that says, gee, I thought they might be a little pricey, but I decided. But it's like, believe me, your prospects are already having those thoughts, so you're better off running a testimonial that starts at that place of skepticism. It hooks people, and then they just come right along and they think, well, all right, you know this guy, William said he thought the Acme widget might be kind of expensive, but he decided to try it and he's happy with it. That must mean I could be happy with it too. He rolled the dice, he took the risk, and now I'm going to be able to be able to benefit from that. So I think that's one, one way to approach the idea of social proof, that's that's maybe not commonly used, that will help somebody stand out and still get that desired response that they're looking for.

William Harris 45:53

I love it, and that's using reviews in a way that reaches people. We talked about, you know, Romancing the customer. But, you know, in order to romance anybody, it starts by being able to get on their level in some way, right? And I think that to your point, to what you're just saying, answer those objections. One of the things I used to say, at least in the retargeting, let's say, on meta ads, was it's like, what, what are the top three reasons why people wouldn't end up using your product or think that they wouldn't right? Because maybe, maybe price is one of the it's too expensive. Great. Let's answer that objection. What's another objection that people might have? Uh, blah, blah, blah. Okay, great. Let's answer that objection to your point. It's not doing you a disservice, actually benefiting you. Because you're saying, I already know what you're thinking, and I have an answer for you. Answer that for them,

Nancy Harhut 46:38

Yep, yeah. And not only it's, you know, and I have an answer for you, it's like, somebody like you has the answer for you, which is even stronger, right? You know, like, not like saying, you know, you might think that we're expensive, but let me tell you why we're really not. It's like, well, of course, that's your perspective. You're the marketer. And another customer says, you know, I thought they might be too expensive, but it turns out they're worth every penny. It's like, oh, that can be really strong. You know,

William Harris 47:03

that's good. What about negative reviews? Where would this fit into this? And an example that I'll give of this liquid death has done some fantastic ones, but one that I remember seeing not too long ago was the Bible app. It had it said zero, I think it said zero stars. Would not recommend Satan. And it's like, okay, right? Like, so it further affirms that you actually just like, okay, the person who I don't want to be like, is saying, I don't recommend this. But like, is that still following within social proof? But it's just like, anti social proof in a way. Or, like, where does that fall in?

Nancy Harhut 47:36

You know, that could very well just be there's something called the von restorff effect, which is with this idea that we have a tendency to notice and remember things that are different, that stand out from their surroundings. So if you think about ratings and reviews, normally, they're positive, right? I mean, like, why would a company put up a negative review like that? You know? And so when you see it, and you're like, oh my gosh, that surprised me, right? It stands out. It's not what you expect to see. It stands out from all the other reviews. And so I think it's a little bit of the Von Restorff effect. I just used the word Surprise. Surprise is really important, because when you can surprise somebody, it actually amplifies their emotions by about 400% according to a study that came out of Scotland, University of Scotland, Scotland University, or someplace in Scotland, but it amplifies your emotions by about 400% and that's important to marketers for a couple of reasons, because when your emotions are high like that, you're focused on the thing that surprised you. And as a marketer, we want people to be focused on it, and you're more apt to remember it. And as marketers, we want people to remember our marketing messages. So when you do something like that, people they notice them. They pay attention to them, they remember them, and that can be incredibly helpful. Yeah,

William Harris 48:50

there's another tactic that you and I were talking about before too, which is the motivating uncertainty effect. And you had a couple of good examples for this one, but you said, you know, 68% more likely to complete a task with an uncertain reward. So we talked about like, completing when there's a certain reward you've got, the the car wash, the free car wash you get to get this is the reward you have, or whatever. What do you mean by like this uncertainty reward?

Nancy Harhut 49:13

So it's interesting. You know, a lot of times in marketing we use incentives. You know, if you do this, you'll get this right? If you buy today, you'll get 10% off. If you buy today, you'll get a free upgrade, right? It's like, you know I know what I need to do and what I'm going to get as a result, and we know that incentives work. I'm not saying that they don't, but some research came out of Chinese University of Hong Kong that found that people are actually 68% more likely to complete a task with an uncertain reward. And an uncertain reward is either I don't know what I'm going to get as a reward, or I don't know if I'm going to get one at all, right? And so that can be, like, really, really powerful. There was, um, there was a promotion that Sephora ran at one point where they were asking young ladies to upload photos of themselves wearing Sephora makeup for a chance. It to be featured on the Sephora website. So they didn't just say, hey, send us a picture and we're going to upload it. It was like, upload it for a chance. And so, you know, you go out, you buy the makeup, you apply it, you're not going to return it. You've already purchased it and used it, right? And because you're 68% more likely with the uncertain reward, they probably sold more makeup that way than just making it a straight incentive, you know, because what behavioral scientists have found is it's almost a reward in and of itself, to find out, did my picture get chosen right? To find out, you know, whether or not I got something or what the something is. You know, a lot of times an e-commerce site will want to get your email address, like we were talking about earlier, and they'll say, Hey, listen, you know, enter your email address and you'll get 10% off your your purchase, your next purchase. But if instead they said, Hey, enter your email address and maybe you'll get 510, or 15% off your next purchase, I'm more likely to enter just so I can see what I got. And you know, from the retailer's perspective, they can control that so that, you know, from a financial perspective, they're still limiting their exposure. They're still giving out, you know, if you know, for every 5% they also have a 15% and everything else is a 10% you know, they can balance it so that they're not going to be exposed financially. But people are much more likely to say, Oh, I'm going to, I'm going to find out. You know, same thing with those spin to win. Am I going to get $4 off? $5 off? Maybe I'm going to get it for free, you know, I don't know. Unless I give that wheel a spin, and I'm more likely to give the wheel a spin just to see, right? That's rewarding to me.

William Harris 51:30

It's wild. Kids toys do this very well. I don't know if you've seen like, the LOL dolls or some of these other things, but it's like, you don't know what you're going to get. You get your kid this toy, and it's like, the it lasts for five seconds, because once they open it, it's like, not even a toy they necessarily wanted to play with. But it was the surprise of whatever This toy was going to be that was the exciting factor for them. I mean, baseball cards, another great example this, right? It's like, you rip open the pack, you don't know what's going to be in there, but it's the it's the uncertainty of what's in this pack of cards. I could have the, you know, autographed LeBron James, basketball card, whatever. Like this. Like, is that kind of like, what you're saying here, too?

Nancy Harhut 52:06

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it. It's like, I you know, it's the, it's the finding out that becomes a reward, you know, like, we're so excited. It's like, all right, I'm not sure, you know, maybe it'll be a bunch of cards I'm not interested in, but maybe it'll be that one wonderful card, you know, or maybe that the toy will be something really cool, or maybe not, but it's, it's getting it, you know, that's, that's so exciting. It's finding out. It's, you know, satisfying our curiosity. And then a lot of times, what happens is, you know, for example, with the, you know, enter your email address, and you'll get five or 10 or 15% off, or spin the wheel, and maybe you'll get $4 or $5 or free, you know, is you get your your reward, and now you're in what a behavioral scientist would call a, you know, a hot state. And so hot state decision making happens. And, you know, we've all heard the term, you know, like, oh, you know, let Cooler heads prevail. Or, you know, but we're in this hot state where, you know, kind of like, our emotions are amplified, and we're much more likely to make that purchasing decision. So I just won $5 I have to spend it now, or I just got 15% off. Let me order something. Whereas, you know, if you waited for 24 hours, you might come back and then say, I don't really need, you know, I don't really need to make that purchase, you know. But at the moment, you've just won something, you're so excited, and you just follow through on it.

William Harris 53:21

So those were very popular for a while. They still are, but I've never been a big fan of them, and one of my biggest reasons for it is when you look at the LTV of customers that came through with an incentive to purchase at a discount versus just purchasing full price, the lifetime value of those customers is often wildly different, right? Like, there's one that says, No, I see the value and I want to buy it, versus another one says, this is a game to me. You've offered me something. I almost feel obligated to buy. Whatever this thing is now that you've just tricked me a little bit, not tricked me, but like, you've, you've, you've amplified my emotions by 400% and so therefore I'm buying and I maybe wasn't going to buy before. Like, they are different customers from a cohort perspective. Um, what do you, what do you think about like? Where's the line between like, optimizing for the purchase now versus optimizing for like, lifetime value?

Nancy Harhut 54:17

Um, you know, I think you know, we have to, we have to look at what our goals are, right? Are we in? Are we in growth mode?

William Harris 54:22

Sure,

Nancy Harhut 54:23

and you know, if we are, maybe we need to pull in more people, you know, more customers. But then I think a lot of it depends on what you do with those people afterwards, right? So they, you know, you you let them win something, or you gave them something because they entered their email address, you know, so they made the purchase. But then, you know, it's up to to cultivate them, to nurture them, to keep them in the fold, or they could very well be that one and done. You know, I came across some research that came out of World data that found that you can maybe send out an email offer, and a huge number of people will try to respond after the offer has expired. And so our, you know, kind. Of our inclination is to say, sorry, it's over. But what they found was, if you don't just say hey, sorry you missed out, but you say, hey, sorry you missed out. But let me offer you something instead. You know, like our buy one, get one free, is over, but here's a 20% discount if you're interested, that the lifetime value on those people can be substantially higher. And it might have to do with that idea of reciprocity, you know, it's like, wow, okay, I missed out, but they're still doing something. It might be just that they've been, you know, kept in the in the fold, and then continually, you know, marketed to. And, you know, now you're like, Gee, those were those nice people who cut me in on the deal after, you know, after it was over. So you feel a little bit more obligated. You pay more attention, you know. Maybe, like, I don't want to miss the next deal and be late, you know. But it was, it was an interesting factoid that that world data shared about that. And I'm like, so I think a lot of it has to do with, once we get that initial purchase, what we do with those people and and, you know, to your point, some of them might be one and done. I was only there for the promo and I'm gone, but there's probably a sizable, I would imagine, percentage of them that if properly, you know, groomed and nurtured, we can turn them into, you know, better customers. Yeah,

William Harris 56:14

in fairness, sometimes I'll also counterpoint my own example there, and I'll say, Yeah, but the lifetime value of somebody that never purchased is zero, so you got to get them to buy in the first place. What about run with an example here for me, just for fun, because I see a lot of times brand founders, especially technical brand founders, rely way too much on science, and they're still convinced that it's like the science is what's going to sell. It's the features that are going to sell. And it's like you got to get past that. You got to get into this is stuff that I want them to get, that I think can unlock bigger growth for them. So I'm just going to come up with, like, a scenario. Let's say that this is a skincare brand, and they've got this wild new science behind it, this crazy new ingredient, blah, blah, blah, whatever, right? And it's like, the science is amazing, and they're a PhD, and they're like, this is this, is it. And we're trying to go after the science. How would you, how would you try to reposition this highly scientific skincare brand with chemicals that I can't pronounce into, like, how would you get them to, like, reposition and start thinking about this in a more, like, emotionally driven behavioral approach?

Nancy Harhut 57:21

So I think, you know, what we what we want to think about is, all right, well, what's the end benefit of this new skincare regime? Right? This, this new cream, or whatever, you know, what? What is it? What does it do for you and me? Or maybe it makes your skin smoother? But okay, then, well, what does that mean? You know? So at the end of the day, maybe we're selling confidence, right? Like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna look good. So maybe we're selling confidence, or maybe we're selling belonging, like I'm gonna feel like I I've arrived and I belong to a certain set, because now I use this product. Or, you know, maybe we're selling, you know, this, this feeling that, you know, I'm going to be able to one up by, you know, my the other women on the street, because I have this, you know, but it's, it's kind of, and then I'm not saying we should walk away from the all the science behind it that could become the reason to believe. And when someone says, Why did you buy it? It's like, ah, the science behind this is amazing, brand new, you know. But what really got someone to buy was that emotional thing, right? We buy for emotional reasons. We justify with rational reasons. So what I'm buying is confidence. What I'm buying is the the hope that I'm going to look better, the, you know, the what I'm buying is the the ability to fit in with these people that I admire, you know? So we're selling the we want to sell the emotion and then kind of back it, or support it with, with the science, but, but, but the promise, I think, needs to come first. Like, what is this doing for you? And it's, you know, it's probably gonna make you feel better, it's gonna make you feel more confident, it's gonna make you feel more beautiful. And, you know, that's what people want. That's

William Harris 58:56

brilliant. Yeah, I like that. This one's not one of the principles, but you have it in your book. And so at least, wanted to call it out a little bit. You talk about literary devices, which, which I really like as well. And again, one more Reading Rainbow, right? Like another book that I love is the elements of eloquence by Mark Forsyth. But you talk about, you know, using literary devices, alliteration, homophones, etc, in order to help it to, like, stick better in people's mind, in order for them to make these purchases. So it's like, it's not necessarily the it's not the emotion itself, but it maybe it helps to drive the point home and make it more memorable. Is that kind of how I understood that? Yeah,

Nancy Harhut 59:37

it has. It has to do with how the brain encodes information. And so words that start with a similar sound, for example, words you know like an alliterative phrase, so words that start with a similar sound get encoded in the brain and in in the same area, which makes them easier to retrieve. So the benefit is easier retrieval. You're more likely to remember the you know, the particular. The product that you read about, and that's a good thing. There's something called rhyme. Is reason bias, and we know that rhymes are memorable, right? So the idea of rhyme is reason bias is you can have two sentences, they both pretty much convey the same information. One rhymes, the other one doesn't. So woes you Knight foes, woes you Knight enemies, they both convey the same information. One rhymes, the other one doesn't. Not only is the rhyming one easier to recall, but studies show that people believe it to be the more truthful, more accurate sentence, and it seems more credible, and as a result, it's more persuasive. And the reason for that is rhymes are easier for the brain to process, and when something is easier for the brain to process, it feels right. And if something feels right, it's not a big leap to assume that it is right. So, you know, we have an opportunity to use rhymes so that our slogan or our headline or our content title or our you know, our subject line, it's easier to recall, but people actually believe it more becomes more persuasive. So there are definitely opportunities with with these literary devices. It's not just people playing with words, but there's a real reason for why they're doing what they're doing, you know, in terms of memorability and easy, you know, ease of recall.

William Harris 1:01:08

It's just wild to think that because something rhymes, we believe it to be more true. I mean, I get it, but it is. It is a really weird thing to think about with our brain. And like you said, this isn't just, you know, affecting kids. This is affecting PhDs. This is affecting absolutely every single human being, because this is just a shortcut of how our brain is wired to think,

Nancy Harhut 1:01:26

yeah, yeah. It is pretty it's pretty crazy, you know. And when I first read it, I was like, you know, why is that? So I dug more into it, and it's like, all right, it's easier for the brain to process. And when it's easy to process, it feels right, right. There's just less cognitive, you know, energy and so, it makes perfect sense. If it feels right, it must be right. You know, we can take that leap That's wild.

William Harris 1:01:46

I've really enjoyed talking about these tactics. I also really like to get into the personal side of you. So who is? Nancy har hut, it's something that I really just enjoy as a human connection. So let's dig in there a little bit, how did your childhood impact you, and do you think has helped you to become the behavioral scientist marketer that you are?

Nancy Harhut 1:02:13

So it took me a little bit to get to where I am, but when I look back on it, I credit my mother, because my mother was wildly overprotective. And for me to do, you know, anything that my friends were doing required, you know, a healthy dose of persuasion skills. And it's funny, years later, I look back on it, I'm like, No wonder I'm so interested in persuasion. No wonder I'm, you know, so facile with these things. It was, you know, trying to just live a normal kids life, you know, and what my friends were doing, but she was just incredible. She and my dad married when they were both older. My dad got back from the war. They had me, and, you know, the doctor basically said, this is going to be your only kid, you know, because she was of a certain age and she was not going to let anything happen to me. But I felt like I was, you know, wrapped in bubble wrap all the time and just trying to, you know, do stuff. It was like, gotta convince mom, you know. So I think that's the that's the link. God love.

William Harris 1:03:06

You learn the behavioral science by application of being a child to try to get your way with certain things, right? And then you're like, well, there must be some science behind this. Let me start putting words and vocabulary behind it.

Nancy Harhut 1:03:20

Yeah, no, it's funny. I you know, I had to, I had to get my way. I had to be persuasive. Years later, I found behavioral science, and I'm like, oh, that's what was happening there. I get it. Now, that was that technique, yeah,

William Harris 1:03:30

I love that. Are there any podcasts or books that you really enjoy? These don't even have to be business ones, just ones that you enjoy listening to you think are fun to talk about.

Nancy Harhut 1:03:41

Yeah, well, you know what? I just picked up something called The Mindful Body. It's a book by Ellen Langer, and it's Ellen Langer is actually the researcher. She's a Harvard researcher. She's the researcher who identified the word because as an automatic compliance trigger when we see or hear the word, because we just start to agree before we've processed what comes next. We just assume whatever's coming after that word, because is a good, legitimate reason, and so it puts us in this agreeable mindset. And so I have been a fan of hers for years because of that. A lot, a lot of marketers have gone down to that, but she's developed her career, and she does a lot with with the mind body connection. And she was actually saying recently at a talk that I went to that it's not even like the two are connected, connected, like two different things that are connected. It's like they're one in the same and so anyway, she's got this new book out. It's called the mindful body, and so I picked up a copy of that, and I'm really excited to read it, because from her perspective, it's all about your health. But from my perspective, it's like it goes all the way back to her earlier research with because we're not really in the moment we hear because, and we just say, yes, there are marketing applications, you know. So, so I'm particularly interested in for for that reason. So, so there's that, in terms of a podcast, I love Melina. Palmers, The Brainy Business. I love Roger Dooley's Brainfluence. There are definitely some good ones out there.

William Harris 1:05:05

Yeah, those are good. I You've got me wanting to read that book, though now, because you're very convincing, that's something that I find interesting. And man, I That sounds that sounds wild and fun. What's something that makes you cringe. Is there anything that you're just like, Ah, this is just frustrating, annoying. Wish it didn't exist in the world. Yeah,

Nancy Harhut 1:05:27

the current thing that's bugging me is, I'll get a LinkedIn invitation, and it's no sooner do I accept it than the sales pitch comes, you know, yeah, it just, I mean, and I know I'm not the only one who's annoyed by this. A lot of people are annoyed by the pitch slapping, I guess they call it, but, you know, it's, it's annoying. It's like, Oh, someone reached out. They want to connect, I connect. And then, you know, without, without missing a beat, it's just like, you know, that annoys me. And then getting emails that are so completely mis targeted annoy me, you know, I'll get these are like, well, you know, we've reviewed your, you know, we've reviewed your agency, HBT Marketing's Tiktok account, and we think that we can help you. And I'm like, No, you can't, because we don't have one, you know? And it's like, come on, you know? So things like that just bugged me. It's like, it's so transparent that, that they're just fishing and trying to find something. But, you know, it'd be, it'd be one thing if, you know, if we had an account, but it's like, No, you didn't do your research because we don't have an account. And so those things bug me. The

William Harris 1:06:32

ones that I always feel like are the best on LinkedIn right are they're just like, I'm looking to expand my network. Okay, good for you. Like, how does that apply to me? Like, why? Why do you need to? How does that benefit me? By you expanding your network in what way have you interested me? Can Can people come back from this? Somebody, somebody does pitch slap you on LinkedIn, or sends you a very horribly targeted email? Is there an opportunity to come back from that as a business? It's like, yeah, we made a mistake, but let me fix it, or is it kind of like, like your brand is kind of tainted in my mind, and it's gonna be very hard to re earn my trust?

Nancy Harhut 1:07:07

I think it's the latter. I mean, I wouldn't say it's absolutely impossible, but I think it's the latter. It's like, you know, you have, what do they say, one chance to make a good first impression you blew it, and I'm just less likely to to engage, you know, to open anything, to engage with any other messages. I'm not, I'm not saying it's impossible, you know, but it's, it's a missed opportunity when you, when you blow that, that first one,

William Harris 1:07:31

yeah, I'm with you completely. You are a Broadway show tune fan. We were talking about this a little bit about, tell me about tell me about her, about, like, Broadway, show tunes, why you love them, you

Nancy Harhut 1:07:44

know, I just, you know, I think that part of why I love them is the language and the lyrics, right? They're just, you know, we talked about rhymes. There are certain rhymes, but they're not always end rhymes. Sometimes they're slant rhymes, sometimes they're, you know, middle rhymes that, you know, just, just some of the language. You know, I was thinking about wicked recently, and there's a great line there where they say, Who can say if I've been changed for the better, but I know I've been changed for good or something like, it's, it's very similar to that. But, you know, it's like that, the lovely play on language. You know, change for the better, change for good. And you know, better good. I just love listening to really good show tune lyrics, you know, I don't, I don't know why, but I enjoy it. You know, whether it's, I think Avenue Q has some great ones, I think wicked has some great ones. Hamilton was fabulous.

William Harris 1:08:39

Lin Manuel Miranda, I'm sorry, yeah, Lin Manuel Miranda, like, like, one of the genius Lyricists of our time.

Nancy Harhut 1:08:47

He's amazing. And he did, we were talking about this earlier, and he did something called In the Heights. And I kept saying to you, it's like, in the neighborhood or something. And after, afterwards, I was like, no, no, it's in the heights. And that was this, like, you know, that preceded Hamilton. And I went to see that thinking, I don't know if I like this, and I loved it, you know? So, yeah, there's, I mean, there's just for a writer, the lyrics and the language and the word play, I just really enjoy it. Yeah,

William Harris 1:09:14

yeah. What's, what's probably your favorite all time, show tune?

Nancy Harhut 1:09:22

Favorite, all time. You know, this is going to go back to one of the first, first shows I was in when I was in high school, was Guys and Dolls. So I love the, you know, soundtrack to Guys and Dolls. I was in London last year, two years ago, and they did a revival of it in London. They did it. They did a like a theater in the round, so the the audience is all around the stage, and the stage, you know, the actors are in the center, and pieces of stage came up and down. It was really interesting. You know, it was a wonderful production. And so I think, I mean, I can't even pick one song from that. I mean, there's few for tin horns, which I happen to like. It's one of the early songs in the in the show. But I almost every song in that. Show, I think is terrific. Adelaide's lament is very good. Yeah, the language that the lyrics in Adelaide's Lament are very, very good, actually. So, yeah, so it would have to be something in that show,

William Harris 1:10:10

I think. So you said you were in this in high school. What part did you play in? Are you still doing show tunes

Nancy Harhut 1:10:15

so? Well, here's the funny thing, I was in the theater group, but I can't sing to save my life. So I had, at the beginning of of guys and Dallas, they have something called Runyon land, and it's just people. It's supposed to kind of recreate New York and the hustle and bustle of New York, and people are just walking back and forth. But, you know, and I was just one of those people who walked, you know, I came walking in, and I came walking back the other way. I had no lines. There were other shows they did where there wasn't music, and I had larger roles in those. But I just remember the show it was, it was early on in my father was a freshman or something, and it was, you know, I really like, I really liked it. It kind of has an indelible imprint on my mind. Now,

William Harris 1:10:56

that's really cool. I love that. I think show tunes are something that we can. We can all get excited about the the enjoyment of seeing people breaking out in song and dance in the middle of a street or whatever, right, where it's like, you didn't expect that. I think that's one of the things that I liked about flash mobs, when those were a thing where it's just like, This is unexpected, but it's fun, and we need that, that light-hearted fun in the world.

Nancy Harhut 1:11:20

I love it. I love comparing a musical to a flash mob. That's because there are some people who are like, Oh my god, musicals. In fact, there's even a musical where they have a funny line about that. And it's like, you know, musicals where people will, you know, stop and just burst into song for no apparent reason yet. And some people are just like, oh my god, this is so frustrating. But for me, I'm like, I'm loving this. Yeah,

William Harris 1:11:41

yeah, same right there with you. Nancy, it has been absolutely amazing chatting with you. I feel like I've gotten to know you better. I've definitely gotten to learn a lot more about behavioral science and how to apply that within e-commerce. If people wanted to work with you or they wanted to follow you, what's the best way for them to do that? Sure

Nancy Harhut 1:12:00

that would be great. I'd love to hear from, from any of your listeners. You can reach out to me. Our website is HBT Marketing. It HBT, which stands for Human Behavior triggers, and then MKTG, we abbreviate marketing, so HBT, mktg.com, you can find me on LinkedIn. You can find me on Twitter, threads, Facebook. We would love to hear from, from any of your listeners, that would be great. Yeah, yeah. And this is from me,

William Harris 1:12:23

not from you. I said this is from me, not from you, but I am going to give another shout out to the book to show the title in the in the the cover. Hear us that way. It's like, highly recommend this if you, if you are at all remotely interested in what we talked about here today, this book is going to go in a lot more depth here. Thank you. Thank

Nancy Harhut 1:12:41

you so much. Using behavioral science and marketing, and it's available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and COVID page, the publisher anyplace, basically online. So thank you very much for that very kind shout out. I appreciate it.

William Harris 1:12:52

Yeah, well again, thank you for joining me. I really have enjoyed you sharing your time, your wisdom with us, and everybody for tuning in. Thank you very much. I hope you have a great rest of your day.

Outro 1:13:03

Thanks for listening to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris. We'll see you again next time, and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.

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