Demand Generation - Discovering the Brain Science That Drives B2B Buyer Behavior

In this episode of the Marketing Smarts Live Show, B2B marketing expert and author Nancy Harhut delves into the fascinating world of behavioral science and its usefulness in marketing for decoding and influencing B2B buyer behavior.

She offers invaluable behavioral science insights for marketers.

The psychology of decision-making. Despite advancements in technology and social dynamics, human decision-making, including in B2B contexts, remains deeply rooted in psychological factors. Harhut emphasizes that although B2B buyers appear to make logical, company-beneficial decisions, they are also influenced by subconscious elements.

Subconscious influences. Harhut discusses how B2B buyers, often unknowingly, respond to certain psychological triggers that can significantly influence purchasing decisions, making it crucial for marketers to understand and apply those triggers in their strategies.

Integrating neuromarketing. By applying principles of brain science to marketing, businesses can create more effective campaigns that resonate with their target audience on a deeper level.

By tapping into psychological insights, marketers can craft more effective, resonant strategies that align with the innate decision-making processes of their B2B audience.

Check out the video for more details, and the full podcast (link below the video) for the entire insightful conversation.

Don't miss future episodes: Subscribe to the Marketing Smarts Live Show on YouTube. And to catch up on all previous episodes, check out the full playlist on YouTube.

Episode Details, Guest Information, and Referenced Links

Episode No. 66

Live date: February 5, 2024
Episode link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSlqTDt--XM
Original podcast episode: Discovering the Brain Science That Drives B2B Buyer Behavior: Nancy Harhut on Marketing Smarts [Podcast]

Guest's social media profiles:

Twitter/X: @nharhut
LinkedIn: Nancy Harhut

MarketingProfs resources referenced in the show:

"In B2B News" article referenced in the show:

2024 B2B Marketing? Think Tech, Tailoring and Business-to-Human Communication

"From the #mpb2b Community" links referenced in the show:

Post

Transcript: Discovering the Brain Science That Drives B2B Buyer Behavior, With Nancy Harhut

Welcome to the "Marketing Smarts Live" show by MarketingProfs and the Marketing Smarts Podcast. Where we dive into B2B news, resources, valuable guest content, and much more each week.

If you're a B2B marketer looking for a place to learn, keep up to date, and have some fun along the way, grab a beverage, a notepad, or at least some style of writing utensil, and welcome to the show!

Hello to all my Marketing Smarts Live viewers today. I'm excited to bring you yet another episode of the Marketing Smarts Live show.

This week's topic is Discovering the Brain Science That Drives B2B Buyer Behavior.

So, if you're ready to get your learn on, buckle up and let's get ready to rock and roll.

Hey, I'm your boy George B. Thomas, speaker, trainer, catalyst, and host of this show, the Marketing Smarts Live show, and the Marketing Smarts podcast found on your favorite podcast app.

Today's guest clips are brought to you by none other than Nancy Harhut.

Nancy Harhut is the co-founder and CCO of HBT Marketing, a direct and digital marketing agency driving engagement with science.

Getting people to take action is what Nancy is all about. Her specialty is blending best-of-breed creative with decision science to prompt response.

A frequent conference speaker, Nancy has shared her passion with audiences worldwide.

Along the way, she has been named an Online Marketing Institute Top 40 Digital Strategist, Top 50 B2B Marketing Influencer, and the Energizer Bunny of B2B Copywriting.

Nancy and her team at HBT Marketing have won 200+ awards for digital direct marketing effectiveness.

Now, remember the clips of Nancy Harhut today are pulled from the full Marketing Smarts podcast episode, and if you want to listen to the full interview with Nancy Harhut and myself, make sure to tune into the Marketing Smarts podcast, link to the full show will be in the description below after the live show ends.

In this episode, I'm again talking with Nancy Harhut about Discovering the Brain Science That Drives B2B Buyer Behavior.

In this clip, I wanted to ask Nancy if we can use any behavioral science tips or tricks when dealing with multiple decision-makers as B2B Marketers.

Here's what she had to share with us.

Nancy: There are at least three behavioral science principles that I would turn to that would help us as marketers to address the multiple decision-makers or decision-by-committee situations that we're in.

One of them is the idea of the authority principle. We have a tendency to listen to authorities, we believe what they tell us, we do what they tell us. As you're dealing with your multiple decision-makers, you want to zero in on the biggest one, the most important one. If you can get their vote, people have a tendency to fall in line. If you get the most important person, there's less likelihood that other people are going to try to buck the system, because the big woman or the big man says this is what they want. That's one way to go. Not always easy, but certainly one way to go.

Another way to go is the idea of social proof. Just telling people that more and more people are on board. If you're dealing with half a dozen decision-makers, if you can get four of them, the other two are likely going to just follow suit because we have a tendency to do what other people do, particularly other people like us. In this case, it would be people who are on this buying committee in this particular company, they're like us. We feel that if other people are doing something, they either know something that we don't know, or at the very least they have made a decision and we feel safe following that decision. We're not going to be missing out on something by not following them. We're also not going to be risking a mistake because we're following them.

The third thing that I would point to is this idea of cognitive fluency, which is a mouthful of a phrase which basically means people prefer things that are easier to think about and easier to understand. Cognitive fluency is all about people prefer things that are easier to think about and easier to understand. Not only do they prefer them, but they have a tendency to believe them, to believe they're more truthful and accurate, and they feel more confident in their ability to make a decision about them. That's of course the Holy Grail for us in marketing. What this means is we want to make sure that the information that we're putting out there is easy for everybody in our target market, the influencers and the ultimate decision-maker, to understand.

When you have this group of decision-makers, some of them are going to have more technical ability, others are going to be listening in for financial information, others are going to be thinking about the overall impact on productivity. You want to figure out what's the best way for me to serve up the information so that I can get each individual person's vote.

Did you hear that?

Are you leveraging the Authority Principle?

Do you have and are you using Social Proof?

Do you pay attention to consonance fluency? Or do you need to learn more about it?

You can use Those three things to empower your B2B marketing when dealing with multiple decision-maker scenarios as you move forward.

Are you using at least one of these in your marketing today?

Put the answer to that in the chat pane or let me know on Twitter using the hashtag #mpb2b and, of course, tag me using @georgebthomas.

We'll get back to Nancy Harhut and her thoughts on Discovering the Brain Science That Drives B2B Buyer Behavior, But first, I have to ask...

Are you part of the MarketingProfs community? If not, become part of the MarketingProfs community by heading over to mprofs.com/mptoday - That's mprofs.com/mptoday.

Now, it's time for one of my favorite sections …

In The B2B News - Where we talk about breaking B2B news or really important tips we find on the Google news tab related to you and your B2B business. This week, the title is...

2024 B2B Marketing? Think Tech, Tailoring And Business-To-Human Communication By Kristin Russel

In 2024, the golden trifecta for B2B marketers comprises leveraging technology, tailoring content and embracing a human-centric approach.

Amid the dynamic landscape of innovative technology and evolving consumer behaviors, marketing professionals face the challenge of staying relevant among competing voices.

With the backdrop of a forthcoming presidential election adding to the noise, differentiation and market-value proposition become paramount.

Delving into the intersection of technology's utilization and omnichannel strategy, here are a few insights on what we can expect from marketing teams across industries in the year ahead.

To read this article, check out the link below when the live show is over.

So, let's get back to Nancy Harhut and her Marketing Smarts podcast episode.

In this next clip, I wanted to ask Nancy about some of the hurdles we may face around behavioral science and our B2B marketing efforts.

Listen in and see if you have fallen prey to these hurdles.

Nancy: One of them we touched on briefly, and that is the idea that I have a really B2B-focused audience, a really intelligent audience, they're making decisions based on facts and figures and the good of the company. We need to get B2B marketers to understand that's not the entire equation. That's one myth, that emotion has no role here. It really does.

Another is sometimes you get an advocate within the company that manages to get a test in there, we're going to try some brain science, we're going to test something, and it doesn't return a tenfold increase in ROI and it's like it's a failure. That one test gets behavioral science just written off for the next 10 years, "We tried it once and it didn't work." The truth of the matter is it's an inexact science. You really need to test to find out what's going to work best for your market, for your message, for your product. A single test that doesn't necessarily work doesn't mean using behavioral science in your marketing is never going to work.

That's one of the things that you run up against. You want to try a few things. You want to think about, as we were saying, why isn't someone going to want to do what we want them to do, what are a few potential ways we can overcome that, and then let's get them out in the market, let's test them, let's see where we're getting some traction.

Then I think the other thing is people hear brain science or behavioral science and they think it sounds complicated, it sounds expensive perhaps, it sounds like I need to go out and get a degree that I don't have, I don't have the time to get it, I don't currently have it. That's not entirely true. You can source people who have experience doing this. The truth of the matter is you're going to send the message out there anyway. We're all doing the marketing, we're all getting the marketing out there. It doesn't cost any extra to make it brain-friendly. It's easy enough to do.

It can be the matter of framing something one way, phrasing something a different way. It's just getting a little understanding about behavioral science or tapping into someone who has that understanding and beginning to feed it in.

Did you hear any hurdles you may have faced?

You now have a couple you can watch out for!

I love that Nancy talked about testing and trying a couple of things vs doing it once, and because we did not get the results we wanted, we quit!

Test, Test, Test. That is the way to B2B Marketing success.

I also love her saying it does not cost more to make it brain-friendly.

We will get back to Nancy Harhut in a few minutes, but first, it's time for some...

Dope B2B Learnings From The Vault of MarketingProfs Articles

That's right, it's time to dig into the treasure trove of valuable information and pull out two pieces of gold to help you be a better B2B marketer.

Article one this week is: Four Visual Neuromarketing Hacks to Boost Your Branding by Mostafa Dastras

Decision-making happens in seconds, without any general mechanically calculable pattern. Any visual detail of your branding activities can influence your customers' decision-making process.

The challenge that brands are confronted with has to do with the probable effect each detail has on the human mind: An ill-suited color (however minor), misplaced text (however clear), or a miscalculated name (however meaningful), could have the most negative or nerve-wracking effects on people.

Article two this week is: Five Effective Neuromarketing Principles That Boost Marketing Efforts by Laurynas Skupas

Neuroscience helps us marketers understand customers' behavior by giving us deep insight into what works and what doesn't in persuading our customers to buy a product or service.

Neuromarketing, the use of neuroscience principles for marketing, can help to boost your efforts to achieve massive benefits for your brand or organization.

The following five neuromarketing principles, when put into practice, will boost your marketing and advertising campaigns.

Want to keep learning more? If so, check the links in the description below after the live show to get access to both amazing MarketingProfs articles.

Okay, back to Nancy Harhut … Let's dive back into this conversation of Discovering the Brain Science That Drives B2B Buyer Behavior

In this clip, I wanted to ask Nancy about success or doing it right. What should we consider and where should we be heading as B2B marketers? Especially when we step into marketing, knowing three types of humans might bump into our marketing.

Here are her thoughts.

Nancy: We want to be honest. We want to be responsible. We want to be ethical. Just because we can potentially cause action and change behavior, doesn't necessarily mean we should.

For example, if I say we have this 50% off sale, if you get in now, you can save 50%, but it's only good this week. If that's true, my prospect is going to benefit from that. But if two weeks later I'm running the same sale, I've essentially misinformed that prospect. That's just not honest, it's not ethical, it's not responsible, it's not what we want to do. We want to be respectful of our customers and our prospects. We want to help them come to a decision that they're going to find beneficial.

When you think about it, we have a target market out there that we've defined, but the truth of the matter is some people are going to see our message and they're going to say, "This is what I have been looking for," and they're going to buy. Then you're going to get some people who, even though technically they're part of our market, they're going to say, "No way, no how. I am a customer of such-and-such corporation, and I will only buy from them." We're probably not going to convert them. Then there's that middle ground of people who could probably benefit from our product or service, but we have to reach them. We want to reach them in an honest way, in an ethical way, we want to give them information that they will find helpful and useful.

We want to give them that nudge because there's a lot going on in people's lives and they don't always have the attention that we would like to give them. We spend far more time and effort on our marketing communications than any of our target does consuming them. We pore over them to make sure everything is perfect. They glance at them, if we're lucky. We want to make it as easy as possible for people who really can benefit from what it is we have to say to encounter our messages.

If we do that honestly, ethically, and responsibly, if we think about who is on the other end and think about that person as a friend or a family member, would we want to mislead a friend or family member? No.

Did you hear that?

Honesty, ethically, treating humans we are marketing to like family members…

So much great information in Nancy's answer to that question!

We're going to get some words of wisdom from Nancy Harhut here in a few minutes, but right now, it's time to turn the spotlight on you, the MarketingProfs community. Yep, time for...

From The #MPB2B Community

We searched far and wide in the #MPB2B universe to find amazing information and conversation to bring to the masses.

So, first, make sure you are using the hashtag, and second, make sure you have fun and add value to the community.

Then, we'll spotlight you or your crew on the show. This week, it's...

B2B Marketing Zone or @B2bMarketingZ

It goes a little like this…

B2B Marketing Expert Interview Series: Feeling B2B with Joe Pulizzi #MPB2B by

@toprank

https://b2bmarketingzone.com/go/r/0/a/24618833/e/658470

#b2bmarketing #b2b

But you need to check out the description and click that link to check out the post and read or learn more!

Marketing Smarts viewer, I have to ask... are you going to be next to get the spotlight?

Remember, community, use the hashtag #mpb2b on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter and get the light shined on your awesomeness in the next episode or a future episode of the Marketing Smarts Live show!

Pro-tip, it won't hurt if you tag me in your post as well I'm @georgebthomas on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Okay, let's kick it back to Nancy Harhut and some words of wisdom around this topic of Discovering the Brain Science That Drives B2B Buyer Behavior.

Here is what Nancy Harhut wanted to leave us with...

Nancy: I think it would be that we have to remember that people, our customers and prospects in the B2B world, are making decisions that are influenceable or nudgeable or triggerable, that they're not these automatons that are only making decisions based on facts and figures and data. At the other end of our communications are people, and people have emotions, and people rely on decision-making shortcuts. As marketers, it's smart for us to get on board. More and more marketers are. There are senior level, even chief behavioral officer level positions at companies like Microsoft and Google and Amazon.

It's out there, companies are understanding it, companies are benefiting from it, and we should just begin to embrace it because it's going to make things better not only for ourselves, but for our customers. If you're not on the brain science bandwagon yet, jump on. My book is a good place to start, it will give you a good introduction. It's going to make you a better marketer and it's going to make you more valuable to your customers and prospects.

Did you hear that?

People are making decisions that are nudgeable or triggerable!

They are people, they have emotions, and they use decision-making shortcuts!

Companies understand this and are benefiting.

Is your company on the brain science bandwagon yet?

Have you enjoyed today's journey? Let us know, use that hashtag #mpb2b on whatever platform you are joining us on.

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