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(00:55): Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Nancy Harhut. She is the co-founder and chief creative officer at H B T Marketing, frequent conference speaker and author of a book we're gonna talk about today using behavioral science and marketing drive, customer actions and loyalty by prompting instinctive responses. That was a mouthful, but welcome to the show, Nancy

Nancy Harhut (01:24): . You handled it well. Thank you very much, and thank you for the invitation, .

John Jantsch (01:27): I thought I was gonna stumble on a couple of those words there. So, so let's start actually with a part of the subtitle. How do you define instinctive responses?

Nancy Harhut (01:37): Yeah, so it's interesting. Behavioral scientists have studied how people make decisions, and what they found is really fascinating. What they found is very often people aren't making these well thought out, well considered decisions, right? What we're doing instead is we're just relying on decision making shortcuts, which are these automatic, instinctive, reflexive behaviors that humans have developed over the millennia as a way to conserve mental energy and that. So what happens is we couldn't possibly weigh every piece of information before making a decision. We just never get around to making any, we'd run outta time. So instead, we've developed these hardwired behaviors. We cruise along through life on autopilot, and when we encounter a certain situation, we just default to these hardwired behaviors, giving them little, if any thoughts. And so when I talk about prompting instinctive responses, I'm talking about prompting those hardwired automatic responses. You know, we, we wanna increase the likelihood as marketers that people will engage with and respond to our marketing messages. And triggering some of these hardwired behaviors is a great way to do it.

John Jantsch (02:35): Unfortunately, sometimes, I mean, some of these behaviors, knee-jerk reactions, that's another word people give to that sometimes some of 'em aren't in our best interest. Right. As the people responding, are they?

Nancy Harhut (02:46): Well, you know, that's what's interesting. You know, a lot of them kind of developed, you know, way back in, you know, the time of our ancient ancestors, you know? Right. And sometimes those, you know, those responses were important. They kind of kept us alive, you know, know the two, two guys walking along that see a sabertooth tiger, the one who goes, oh, looks kind of furry, but the teeth look kind of boom, he's lunch. The other one who sees the tiger doesn't stop to think just bolts, he survives, you know, passes down his gene. So, you know, at one point, some of these hard responses we had, you know, kept us alive. Now they help us get through the day. And, and some of them, you're right, aren't always, you know, the best force, Dan Ailey, who's a behavioral scientist, and the author of a book called Predictably Irrational, actually talks about that and he says, you know, we have a tendency to behave in a certain way. It may not be the best way, but yet we just keep defaulting that, that to that particular behavior. Sometimes they're very helpful. Other times, you know, these automatic behaviors, not so much. But again, because we're not thinking, we're just responding, you know, it's kind of what, it's kind of what we end up with.

John Jantsch (03:45): Well, and when I read books like this, and again, I'm not putting you in this category, but I think a lot of people, sometimes people take a book like this and they say, oh, this is how I can manipulate people. And I know that's not why you wrote the book, of course, by any, any, but do you ever worry that, that people, you know, might learn behavioral science and, you know, creating instinctive responses, not necessarily for good?

Nancy Harhut (04:10): Yes. You know, it is something that comes up when I talk to people and definitely when I speak at conferences. But what I always say is, look, as marketers, we should be responsible. We should be ethical. Just because we can do something doesn't necessarily mean we should. And for those, you know, for those people who would like to abuse these principles, you know, you may win the battle, but you're gonna lose the war because ultimately it comes back to bite you. You know, you erode customer trust, you damage your brand, and it's just not worth it. And I think the other thing I wanna mention is, it's not like it's a magic wand. We can't make somebody do something they don't wanna do. We can, you know, if you think about it, you know, you put a marketing message out, so you've got a product or service, the world is gonna divide it into three different camps.

(04:49): There's gonna be someone who says, oh my God, I've been looking for that, thank goodness. Sign me up. There's gonna be another camp that says no way know how, completely not interested. You know, I, I don't like it, it's too expensive. I already have my preferred provider. And then there's gonna be the third, arguably largest group, and those are the people that are on the fence. And if we can help them pay attention to the message, understand the message, and you know, and respond to the message, well, that's a good thing for them and for us. Right? But we can't force them to do anything, nor will these, you know, these tactics result in that, but we can increase the likelihood that they'll pay attention, that the message will be more meaningful, more, more relevant, and as a result, more likely to be responded to.

John Jantsch (05:29): Yeah. To basically what we're trying to help people do is make a decision that's actually in their best interest if there is a fit. Right. And I think to, that's a more positive spin, I think, on where you're going with this. Where do you see marketers getting globally, you know, this idea,

Nancy Harhut (05:44): I'm sorry, where do we see marketers globally getting,

John Jantsch (05:46): I mean, where do you see, see them getting this idea of using behavioral science in marketing wrong?

Nancy Harhut (05:51): Where are they getting it wrong? Oh, okay. So there's a couple of, couple of instances. I think, you know, in, in one case, somebody, you know, listens to a podcast, reads a book, you know, reads a case study and says, oh, I get it. And so they go and they apply a particular behavioral science principle, and they don't get the double triple digit lift in response that they were looking for. And so they say it doesn't work. Now, it could be that it was applied improperly. It could be that particular technique that they tested wasn't the right one for their, you know, situation. So I think that's, you know, that's one place where people are getting it wrong. I think in another place people are like in the right way, and you know, in that way is a brain friendly way, and that's gonna increase the likelihood that you'll get the response that you want. So, so I think, you know, one way people are getting it wrong is they know a little bit, they test it when they don't get the immediate desired response, they say, forget it. And then the other group is the people who are naysayers and say, I don't need it. You know? And even if they're doing well, they could be doing even better if they added in.

John Jantsch (06:46): So let's talk about a few of the, the principles. You kind of break each chapter up into a, you know, kind of known principle. Um, the one that, I mean, I must have heard, you know, a million times from people talking about marketing and that that's, people make decisions for emotional reasons, rather, and then maybe they back it up with some sort of rational reason. So, you know, how do we take advantage, or, I mean, how do we create emotion, I guess, is really what we're after there so that they get the opportunity to back it up with logic,

Nancy Harhut (07:13): Right? Right. Well, John, you're absolutely right. You know, people make the decisions for the emotional reasons, and then they justify them to themselves, to other people with the rational reasons. So what we need to do is we need to think about our customers and our prospects, put ourselves on their shoes and consider what it is they're feeling. You know, even in a B2B environment, feelings factor in, you know, you wanna, you know, feel like you're, you know, you're making a good decision. You want the boss to like the shareholders to, like, you want your employees to, like, you, you wanna be able to get home in time for dinner, or, you know, whatever it is. There are definitely, you know, human desires, human emotions that, that factor into buying decisions. And instead of ignoring them, we wanna acknowledge them. You know, I did some work for a company that makes business intelligence software.

(07:50): So right away you think, okay, kind of a technical sophisticated product, right? A highly educated audience, and, you know, one could argue a kind of a cut and dry product. And so, you know, you could have done a few different things. You know, you could have done some advertising that says, here's what we do, right? You have data, data is locked away in, in disparate databases. This unlocks it. Like, oh, okay, great. You know, kind of straighten to the point. Or you could have said, you have a problem. Your data is locked away in disparate databases. As a result, you don't see all the information you need to see, and you're probably, you know, not making optimum decisions. We have a solution that could also work. But, uh, instead what we did is we focused on how the end user might be feeling, knowing that they're making these decisions, these high powered decisions, and they don't have all the information that they need at their fingertips.

(08:36): And they realize it's just a matter of time before something's gonna go wrong, they're gonna make the wrong decision. And there's a lot of, of, you know, weight on your shoulders. And so we talked about the, you know, the product being the diet for an anac of tough decisions. You know, the fact that you probably are, have these gut wrenching decisions you have to make, or that it's the delete button for that voice in your head head because you're constantly second guessing yourself. Did I make the right call? Did I overlook a piece of information that that would've changed my mind? So, so we actually took these into research, and what we found was that third one, that emotional one got a 11% lift in brand favorability and a 13% lift in purchase intent. And I believe it was because, you know of that emotional connection, people were like, if this company understands me and my world as well as they seem to, they likely have a product that would benefit me.

John Jantsch (09:23): Are you an agency owner, consultant or coach that works with business owners? Then I want to talk to you about adding a new revenue stream to your business that will completely change how you work with clients. For the first time ever, you can license and use the Duct Tape Marketing system and methodology in your business through an upcoming three day virtual workshop. Give us three days and you'll walk away with a complete system that changes how you think about your agency's growth. The Duct Tape Marketing System is a turnkey out of processes for installing a marketing system that starts with strategy and moves to long-term retainer implementation engagements. We've developed this system by successfully working with thousands of businesses. Now you can bring it to your agency and benefit from all the tools, templates, systems, and processes we've developed to find out when our next workshop is being held, visit dtm.world/workshop. That's dtm.world/workshop. I'm, I'm just gonna jump to another one. Loss. More than gain. Greater than gain. I mean, a lot of times we will do things to avoid pain or immediate loss, you know, before we will do things that are good for us or that we'll get a scan. I've heard marketers talk about people buy pain killers instead of vitamins. So, you know, again, how does that one play into, you know, a marketer's ability to, you know, get an instinctive response?

Nancy Harhut (10:47): Sure. So, behavioral scientists have found that people are actually twice as motivated to avoid the pain of loss as the pleasure of gain. And so, of course, what do we do in marketing? We doubled down on the gains, right? We always talk about the gains, the advantages, the benefits. And you know, John, there's nothing wrong with that. We know that benefits sell, we know that they work, but a little well placed loss aversion could go a long way. So, for example, instead of saying, you know, take advantage of this great new product, maybe we say, don't miss out on this great new product, right? We don't want, people don't like to miss out. You know, a lot of times we talk about savings. Oh, you know, if you buy today, you'll save $50. Well, one loves to save, but what they love even more is not overpaying. So maybe what you do is you say, if you wait, you're gonna overpay. So instead of the message being saved today, it's pay more tomorrow. So there are ways to frame things, uh, so that it points up the potential loss. And that can be very motivating because as you noted, people don't like to lose loss aversion is very, very compelling, very motivating behavior.

John Jantsch (11:42): So I'm gonna jump now to scarcity and urgency. We see this all the time, especially online marketers, you know, selling some course or something that there's only five seats left, or, you know, the offer, there's a little, the countdown clock that shows you that you're not gonna get this offer if you wait five more minutes. Some of those, again, I think do fall into manipulative there. That's easy for me to say yours. But there are also very positive ways to use them as well, aren't there?

Nancy Harhut (12:10): Yeah. You know, if somebody is genuinely interested in something and you know they're engaging with the marketer, it's good for the marketer to say, Hey, look, if you're interested, there's only five of these left, or the sale ends next week. Because if you don't share that with your prospective customers, they're gonna get angry when they come back, you know, in two weeks. They're like, well, why didn't you tell me that the price was going on? Why don't you tell me you were running out of them? You know? But of course, as we said earlier, use it ethically. Use it responsibly. Don't say, this is the last one, if you've got 10 more in the back room, because ultimately that's gonna erode trust, it's gonna erode the brand. But, but the truth of the matter is, people value things more that are scarce, and if we realize there's a finite quality quantity or a finite time, it does get someone off the dime. It gets them to act now.

John Jantsch (12:52): Yeah, and I think to your point, if you're going to use a tactic, it is true, the sale ends, or this price ends at a certain, you really have to hard line honor that. Um, I think that's where people get in trouble is that they put those, and then it's like, well, we didn't really mean that, you know, because hey, we can take your money. Right? And I think that, as you said, that nothing you owed trust faster. You have, uh, on the back cover Robert CD's endorsement of the book. You know, certainly if anybody's familiar with him, they're familiar with, certainly with Influence, some of the first, I think he was one of the first, at least to my knowledge, that wrote about this type of behavior in marketing. It's funny, he told me, I had him on the show. I mean, he told me that he wrote that book because he'd seen people being manipulated. He wanted them to know how people were manipulating them. And he said that, you know, he never envisioned it turning into like the marketer's, you know, Bible for behavioral, behavioral science. One of his, you know, as I recall, you know, reciprocation was certainly a, you know, a big principle of influence and it shows up in this book as well. So you wanna talk a little bit about, you know, how that principle comes to play on humans?

Nancy Harhut (13:58): Absolutely, absolutely. And you know, and again, it's not about manipulating, at least it shouldn't be about manipulating people. It should be about understanding how they make decisions. And so reciprocity is a really interesting one because people feel obliged to return favors. So if you do something for someone, if you give them something, whether or not they ask for it once it's in their possession, well, you know, they feel obliged to kind of answer in kind to return the favor. You know, humans are hardwired like that to, to cooperate. It's what helped us continue from generation to generation. We, you know, we try to be cooperative, we try to be civil, we try to get along, it ensures the propagation of the race. So we had a client that came to us and said, listen, we're financial services firm and some of the financial advisors that were selling our products stopped about a year ago, and we wanna reengage them, so we'd like to send them something.

(14:42): So, you know, you might say to me, well, Nancy, why would they wanna send a gift to people who were not doing what they wanted them to do? Like, wouldn't they wanna say it, you know, save their money and send gifts to the, to the financial advisors who were selling their products, reinforce the positive behavior, but they use the reciprocity principles. So they sent out an email that said, watch your mailbox. We've got a gift. We picked it out, especially for you. Now, mind you, these people would stop selling the product a year ago, but, you know, we picked out a gift, especially for you. So you get that in your inbox and you think, oh, I'm gonna check that out. Next thing you know, when the mail this box appears inside was a framed New Yorker cartoon that was appropriate to a financial advisor, some, you know, little joke about selling financial services and the cutline, the caption had the advisor's name in it, so John, yours would have your name, you know, mine would have my name, right.

(15:25): It was beautifully framed. It was a New Yorker cartoon, and there was a, you know, a letter, short letter with it from the wholesaler said, we've been trying to get hold of you. We'd really like to catch up. So, you know, you get this and you're like, oh my God, this is really cool. I'm gonna hang it on my wall. That's my name on a New Yorker cartoon. And then, so what happens, you know, you're, not only is it top of mind, but when the wholesaler calls, you're gonna take their call when you're, you know, out talking to your customers, you're gonna say, oh, maybe I should tussle to business this way. You know, the company's way, right? They've picked up 68 million in incremental revenue, traced back to that one promotion, you know, reciprocity principle give to get,

John Jantsch (16:00): Yeah. Wrote a book on referrals called the Referral Engine. And I, you know, I tell people that all the time because there's an element that you, you touched on, but glossed over a little bit, is that there's an element of reciprocity in kind. And so I tell people all the time, if you want to get more referrals, give more referrals, because people will feel somewhat obliged, you know, not that you make a part of it, but they will feel somewhat obliged to, um, to really not just reply, but reply in kind. And so probably send you a referral or send it to somebody. So I'm gonna jump way to the, those were some of the early chapters. I'm gonna jump way to the back of the book and pick on one that I think is particularly troubling for people, particularly people that have a, either a long sales cycle or like change that they're trying to ask for.

(16:48): It's just gonna be really hard for, you know, even though if somebody knows it's in their best interest, and that's this idea of the payoff being too distant, that creates a bit of, of a challenge, you know, for people, because I, I, you know, I hate to pick on this, whoever will politicize the show, you know, I think that's the problem with climate change, right? People are willing to make hard decisions today because, ah, that's 30, 50 years from now, you know, won't impact me. So if you're in one of those businesses where, you know, you are struggling a little bit with that, you know, how do you make, you know, how do you bring some urgency, and scarcity, you know, to something like that?

Nancy Harhut (17:23): Yeah, yeah. So payroll scientists talk about something called temporal discounting. Basically what what they're saying is, you know, we live in this kind of instant gratification world where people prefer, you know, gratification. Now they'll take a smaller, albeit sooner, reward over a larger, but longer one. So if, you know, if you offer someone $5 today or $10 next week, many times people grab the $5 today, they want it right now, and then a week later they're like, oh, why didn't I wait? You know? But that they, when they look at it in the future, it just looks more distant. So if you're a marketer selling insurance or retirement services, or even, you know, uh, education, those are like some of those industries where the payoff comes down the road. And, you know, if you've got a hundred dollars in your hands now, it's a lot easier to just go out to dinner in a movie than is, than it is to put it in the bank and save it for your retirement, which could be 20, 30, 40 years down the road, right?

(18:12): Right. And so it's like, you know, we just keep thinking, well, we've got plenty of time, we'll get to it later. So what behavioral scientists have found is one of the keys to get, getting people to overcome this idea of temporal discounting is to get them to see themselves as they are today with the same likes and preferences and needs. But in the future, because one of the problems is when we look at ourselves in the future, when we try to imagine ourselves in the future, that person is like a, I don't know, like a stranger to us. We don't really have a concept of who we are. So we try to bridge that gap. The person you are today and the kinds of things that you like is gonna be the same person, you know, in 10 years. And so make the decisions today that today's person would want, because in 10 years you're gonna want that.

(18:52): You know, that same thing, if you want more money today, for example, don't you think you're gonna want more money in 10 years? Oh yeah, I guess I would. Well then suck a little way now. So Merrill Lynch actually ran a, um, an interesting campaign where they're trying to get people to save for retirement. They had them upload their photo and they could age progress it. And so you could see what you would look like 25 years, 35 years down the road. And a lot of people, I think 60% of the people that did it actually said, send me some information about how to save for retirement. You know? Now of course, that's an expensive software program, but you can do it with language too, just drawing the link, you know, Hey, you know, we asked you if you wanted, we asked a future, you if you wanted more money, you said yes, duh. Well, of course the future me said yes, the present me would say yes to. So

John Jantsch (19:34): Do, do you find that any of these, and I this is a terribly hard question to answer specifically, but do you find any of these sort of, these approaches are more effective visually versus, you know, words or stories?

Nancy Harhut (19:47): Yeah, some of 'em are, are specifically, I think, for the art world. So one of them is photos, you know, you can do like a before and after photo or a cause and effect photo, you know, and so what you wanna do is you want those to be as close together as possible, because the closer they are together, the greater the relationship people perceive there to be. So instead of having, you know, the before shot way on the left and the after shot way on the right, you know, you want them as, as you know, almost adjacent because when people see them, they think that the relationship is stronger. But there's a study that came out of Cornell that found that people believe text more, copy more if it's accompanied by a chart or a graph. Yeah. And it's not that the chart, the graph provides additional information or makes the information clearer. What the researchers found was that it just adds this kind of scientific veracity, this era or not era, this aura of credibility. And so people aren't even gonna pour over the graph, just its presence makes them go, oh yeah, this must be truthful. There are definitely some design techniques that we could use.

John Jantsch (20:46): It was scientifically researched, right, because it has a graph.

Nancy Harhut (20:50): Exactly. Yeah. That's kinda where people go,

John Jantsch (20:52): You know? So, so you, when you look at, say a client comes to you or somebody comes to you or they're struggling with, you know, a challenge, do you have kind of a checklist of, well, have we thought about how we would do this? Or is it every case unique in that, you know, there's really only one or two challenges that they're, or one or two opportunities maybe for prompting an instinctive response? Or do you just kinda layer 'em on?

Nancy Harhut (21:18): Well, you know, what we do is we, we start with, alright, what's the goal? Who's your target market? Who's your audience? What's the biggest reason they are not gonna wanna do what you're asking them to do? And now let's look at the ways to overcome that. And then I kind of, I have probably about 25 different behavioral science tactics that are my go-tos. I write about 'em in the book. Are there others? Absolutely. But these are the 25 that I've seen work over and over again. So the question is, all right, which of the 25 do we use? And very often there's, there is more than one we might choose, you know, three or four of them depending on what it is we're creating. Is it an email, is it a direct mail, is it a blog piece? Or is it a very concise social media post?

(21:54): If there's not a lot of real estate, we have to limit ourselves. But if there's a little bit more real estate, you know, use a few of them. But the idea would be identify, you know, the most, you know, compelling reason why someone isn't gonna wanna make the decision. They don't know your company, they think you're too expensive, they're not sure they have the, you know, the need. They think they've got a, a better solution. And then once we know what that is, then we say, all right, now what's the best way to overcome that? What's the best argument to make people say, oh no, maybe I should be making this purchase decision?

John Jantsch (22:23): So the book, one of the things you've done in the book that I always like in a book is that you kind of break down at the end of the chapter, not just references, but like, here's action steps and here's, you know, kind of here are the key elements of the book. And you also have, did I read that right? Do you also have some checklists and things that people can download as well?

Nancy Harhut (22:42): Yes. Yeah. So what I wanted to do is really make the book like a hands on handbook. So if you're a marketer, you get a lot of stuff on your plate. In fact, even if you're not our marketer, even if you're just someone who has to do marketing as one of a million other tasks, you know, I wanted to make the book very accessible so that you could parachute in and out, you could quickly grab what you needed. So there were checklist and you know, how-tos and little cases, mistakes to avoid, you know, things to test. And then if you buy, it's available in many places, but if you happen to buy it through Cogan page, the publisher, you can actually download some checklist that, that you can, you know, refer to that will just help you kind of codify these, uh, these different principles and give you some examples of how to apply them and why you, you know, where you might best use them, I should say.

John Jantsch (23:22): Awesome. Well, Nancy, I appreciate you stopping by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast to talk about your book. And, uh, you wanna invite people, you've already mentioned the books available anywhere, but, uh, anywhere they might want connect with you.

Nancy Harhut (23:34): Absolutely. I, you know, I'm, I'm on Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter. You can find me at and Har Hut or Nancy Har Hut at Facebook, and Nancy Har hut at LinkedIn. And then my agency, H B T Marketing, which stands for Human Behavior Triggers Hbt Marketing. We're at H B T M K T G, we abbreviate marketing, and we've got a lot of, you know, articles and, uh, you know, podcast interviews and things like that up on the site. So anyone who's interested in behavioral science now, there's a treasure trove of information there, and you can connect with me there too. So I'd love to hear from your listeners, you know, whether they have a specific question or whether they just wanna say hi and, and connect.

John Jantsch (24:08): Awesome. Well, again, I appreciate you taking a moment to stop by the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, and hopefully we'll see you one of these days soon out there on the road. We, I just missed you in Boston. I think we were at the same conference.

Nancy Harhut (24:18): Yeah, well, I'm sure we're traveling in the same circles, but John, thank you so much. It's been a delight to be on the show. I really appreciate it and, and I do look forward to, to seeing you in person the next time I'm out and about.

John Jantsch (24:27): Absolutely. Hey, and one final thing before you go. You know how I talk about marketing strategy, strategy before tactics? Well, sometimes it can be hard to understand where you stand in that, what needs to be done with regard to creating a marketing strategy. So we create a free tool for you. It's called the Marketing Strategy Assessment. You can find it @ marketingassessment.co. Check out our free marketing assessment and learn where you are with your strategy today. That's just marketingassessment.co. I'd love to chat with you about the results that you get.