Understanding Customer Decision-Making to Market with Integrity

Humans like to think they make up their own minds about things, but the truth is, most often, when decision-making is in the moment, our subconscious does the work. Any "thinking” we do often happens with ‘post-hoc rationalization’ afterwards to justify the choice. This very fact drives people like James Clear to promote better habits as a mechanism for better decision making in his book Atomic Habits. The idea is that true free will is not available to us in the moment, but instead over the long term. We shape our habits today to create a subconscious that makes better decisions for us in the future.

Outside of the value these insights provide for my own life, I am interested in how this neurological wiring gets exploited today in media and marketing. What does this knowledge mean for marketing with integrity? One thing that has to get prioritized is the broader view. Communicate the vision beyond the “sale” to your audience. Aim for them to understand the scope of your business. Help them become a better version of themselves over time through each interaction with your services (regardless of if they ever make a purchase). And take responsibility for the integrity of your own products and services. If you know somebody may pay for something from you on a gut impulse, do everything you can to make it worth it. Be relentless in your own work and the pursuit of make it of the utmost value in the world.

The Emotional Brain: Connecting to Your Market is Good for You and Your Business

Connecting emotionally is an important way you can build a relationship with the people you serve with your small business services and products. Forming this relationship not only makes their experience more fulfilling, but it also helps to keep you attached to the purpose of your work. That’s because the best ways to connect emotionally with your audience is to show people experiencing authentic emotions that trigger mirror neurons for those observing them or to tell a story.

Finding ways to hone in on genuine experiences to share or tracing a story from the work you do lets people in on why what you do matters, and if you are like most small business owners, it also gives you a breath of fresh air and reminds you of why all those tasks that are piling up in the notes section of your phone are actually for.

Help your Audience Make Decisions: Reframing Scarcity in Marketing with Positive Urgency

You’ve seen scarcity used on every platform. We all have. Hell, we have even used it! “One day sale” and “Only 3 available” or even the idea of an early bird window all pull on this marketing tactic. Based on our previous chats, you may guess this is useful because it targets the primal brain. In ethical marketing, though, the goal is not to manipulate the audience, but to serve them as best you can. When it comes to using scarcity, then, we need to orient ourselves around positive urgency rather than fear tactics.

It should go without saying, but deadlines and numbers should be honest and practical. What are the deadlines you actually need for the backend work? How many products are actually available? We also need to recognize that humans were designed to be seasonal creatures, rather than having nearly everything available all at once.

Our world now has so many options, 24/7. It can actually be helpful, then, for businesses to create some windows of services and remove some of the decision-fatigue of daily life. In turn, this also creates demand for your customers when those windows are open. If it’s a seasonal event or product, for instance, they begin to look forward to it; and, if you do it with intention, it helps to create rhythm in their lives and in your community. Take a look at your business and look for areas where you can benefit your client with rhythms and positive urgency.

Feeding your Audience: Serve your Customers a Three Course Meal with Marketing

Let’s imagine you’ve been gifted a free meal with your favorite person. You have been given two options: a fine dining experience at a new fancy restaurant with several courses or, alternatively, two combos at your favorite fast food place. Play out both of those options in your mind. Which one makes you feel more fully nourished?

I’d bet that while you might have a great time eating with good people at Chipotle, the fine dining experience likely seems more appealing overall. Part of the reason this may be true is that the fine dining option stimulates several areas of our brains. It’s new, which sparks our attention. The person we are with is safe and the thought of being with them and experiencing something new together stirs up the emotional parts of our brains. And lastly, the idea of dining at a fancy restaurant brings with it the possibility for higher levels of learning. It makes us feel a little curious about what we may discover about food itself.

Attention, Emotion, and Cognitive Curiosity. These are the three aspects of the human brain that want to be fed well. As a small business, recognize that each component has its value and use good marketing to serve your customers up a three course meal they will appreciate and remember.

A Case for Video Reviews: Why Small Businesses Should Use Real Customers for Ads

Do you remember the first time you ever had a to record yourself talking on camera? I do. I was incredibly awkward. In my defense, I went my whole childhood never having to do anything of the sort, aside from “I love you, dad!” videos to my dad when he was deployed. This is no longer true. Most people under the age of 30 are relatively comfortable on camera. As a small business owner, this is incredibly valuable—especially if you provide a service or product that truly brings people value.

With social media ads and market manipulation running rampant, people have not only gotten better at speaking on camera, but at recognizing when they are being sold to. Our brains, designed to pick up subtle signs of trustworthiness in the human face, have learned to recognize when a smile is genuine or paid for. Because of this, your best ad is an honest one, and video makes it even easier for your customers to recognize that truth. Don’t be shy, ask your customers to shoot you a video review. If they appreciate what you’ve given them, they will probably be more than happy to support.

Keeping the Customer's Brain in Mind: Marketing to Real People

Have you ever craved a particular food when you are feeling bored, or upset? Maybe craved some chocolate when you really needed a cuddle? The part of your brain that loves those familiar comforts is also responsible for shaping your purchasing preferences. Our decisions about what products to buy are largely made for us by our base brain settings and the early experiences that shaped them. Sure it’s possible to reshape the things we find appealing, but that takes time and awareness. Instead, our brain often just finds creative ways of chasing the same things we have had before, even when we like the excitement of something new.

Understanding this tendency as a consumer is clearly valuable for our personal growth, and likely our wallet. As a marketer, though, this knowledge can mean the difference between product sales that bloom or ones that wither. Your customer is both looking forward to something new and, to some extent, wanting what they already have, what they already know, and what they have already seen. Give them both. Make your new-to-them product feel familiar. All that takes is knowing your market…simple, right?

User Experience (UX) Strategy. What is it?

Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat. -Sun Tzu

The beautiful thing about the world of product design and the “user experience” way of thinking is that businesses often begin to orient themselves around the way their products impact others. The details matter and designers become empathetic to all of the ways people and systems interact with those details. A struggle that arises, then, is that the work is infinite. How does one decide where to provide value first, and where to channel design energy most often? The potential for deliverables are endless, but which ones will make an impact, and which are a waste of time?

All of these answers (and the importance of the questions themselves) vary depending on the field each business exists in, the size or the organization, and the value it is trying to provide in the world. User experience strategy involves the unique approach each team will take to deal with these questions and problems. It isn’t just about how products will be designed, produced, marketed or sold (though all of these things are addressed), but instead how the concept of user experience will fit into the framework of the business or organization at hand. How will this team prioritize user experience? How can user experience principles be implemented and who will be responsible for them? How will UX itself be internally assessed, prioritized, developed, and expanded? How do the business strategy, product value, and the user themselves (using research and considering their experience) fit together practically?

Take the time to consider how these questions might take shape within your organization or influence your processes differently! Every business and organization can begin to implement UX strategy on some level and save themselves some busywork in the long run.