Cecilia De La Viesca Are you ready to unlock the secrets of your audience’s minds?
Have you ever wondered what drives your B2B audience to make decisions? Understanding the surprising psychology behind these choices can dramatically improve your marketing efforts. In this blog post, we’ll explore key principles you can leverage to create more effective and persuasive campaigns.
The power of behavioural science and marketing
We recently held a captivating webinar, alongside our behavioural science agency partner, Capuchin Behavioural Science. The webinar delved into the surprising psychology behind how business audiences make decisions. We discovered practical strategies to leverage behavioural science and boost your sales.
Watch the full webinar back in our video below. Our very own managing director, Cecilia de la Viesca, and co-founders at Capuchin, Patrick Fagan and Dan Thwaites, shared practical, actionable advice for combining psychology and data science to achieve measurably better results.
If you prefer to read, we’ve rounded up some key psychological principles for B2B marketing discussed in the webinar.
7 key psychological principles for B2B marketing
Changing people’s behaviours
How do you get people to buy into your ideas? There are seven principles to get buy-in:
- Autonomy
- You can’t push people from behind and you can’t force people to do something they don’t want to. You can foster their autonomy by making them feel they have their own choice
- You can also foster autonomy by presenting choices, e.g., “Well, it’s up to you”
- Key takeaway: Empower your customers by giving them choices and avoiding a forced feeling
- Disrupt and reframe
- Grabbing people’s attention with an unexpected approach
- Bamboozling people before presenting a persuasive statement makes them more likely to accept it, as they won’t analyse it critically
- Key takeaway: Highlight your audience’s current setup or thinking is holding them back and propose a compelling new approach
- Increments
- Break down your ask into smaller, more manageable steps
- Can you offer a trial? A foot in the door before they commit fully
- Example: Car dealerships offering test drives with no obligation, getting prospects’ foot in the door
- Norms
- Leverage social proof to demonstrate that others have successfully used your product or service
- Endorsements, reviews, awards, real-life case studies and testimonials boost confidence
- Key takeaway: If you can show that other people are doing it first, people will feel safer in buying into your product or service
- Motivations
- Understand the emotional drivers behind your audience’s decisions
- Motivation stems from the same root as emotion and movement—consider what emotion will motivate people to take action
- Key takeaway: Understand the emotional triggers that drive movement, like fear of being left behind
- Co-creation
- Involve your customers in the process, making them feel invested which then increases their satisfaction
- The IKEA effect is a cognitive bias where people tend to value objects more if they help create or assemble them themselves
- Key takeaway: Provide a “Lego kit” of choices for people to assemble their own solution
- Keep it simple
- Use clear and concise language
- Incorporate visuals; they are more persuasive in business decisions
- Add technical language to convey authority. Experts in your industry want to see you know your stuff, so don’t forget to add some jargon
- Key takeaway: Simple, visual messaging is more effective. Even politicians often find that clear, visual promises (like building a wall) are more successful than outlining complex policies. A wall is simply more visual and easier to understand
Insights from B2B case studies
Capuchin reviewed 16 B2B case studies and identified key psychological principles for success. Here are the highlights:
- Connect on a personal level: Communications should connect on a personal level with introductions, self-disclosure and courtesy. B2B brand building is very much about building relationships
- B2B branding is still branding to people: It is about engaging people emotionally to build mental availability and tap into motivations, building for the long-term rather than focusing on short-term metrics
- Common emotional themes: Humanity in a tech-obsessed world; partnership in a tough world; understanding loneliness at the top; providing security in choice; championing entrepreneurship; leveraging the fear of missing out
- Simplicity and usability: While an emotional brand is important, providing concrete and usable information is paramount in B2B branding. Communication should be simple, short and well-paced; the message should be easy to receive and to understand
- Targeted communications: Tailor communications to each client. Building a B2B brand requires consistent top-down direction with nuanced conversations between local stakeholders; it is more of a dialogue than a monologue
- Differentiate your brand: Focus on a key, easily understood strength to differentiate the brand from “a sea of corporate sameness”. Identify the singular, emotional driver of usage for your brand (in existing and prospective markets)
- Solutions over products: Customers are interested in solutions to their problems, not the product itself
- Be a painkiller, not a supplement: Change attitudes among prospects, shifting their perception from “I have bigger fish to fry” to “I need to sort this now”
Boost your B2B marketing impact
By understanding and applying these psychological principles, you can create more effective and persuasive B2B marketing campaigns, that resonate with your audience, build trust and drive results. Remember, it’s not just about selling a product; it’s about building relationships, understanding your audience’s needs and providing solutions.
Want to learn more?
Now it’s your turn to take action! Start by applying these principles to your next B2B marketing campaign and see the positive impact on your results. For more insights on behavioural science, visit Capuchin Behavioural Science.