How To Use Behavioral Sciences For The Benefit Of Digital Marketing?

Marketers are constantly seeking to understand the elements that influence consumers’ purchasing decisions. To this end, they experiment with many theories and do market analysis. Recently, they have been using behavioral sciences more. The objective is to be able to predict customer reactions in order to serve them better. But how can we put these behavioral sciences at the service of our digital marketing? Here are more details about it.

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Behavioral Sciences: What Is It Actually?

Behavioral sciences bring together all the disciplines that deal with the actions, gestures, and activities of living beings. Their role is to establish behavioral principles in humans and animals. To do this, they are responsible for interpreting instinctive behaviors using proven methods and techniques. These sciences have, for example, given rise to neuromarketing.

That is the application of neuroscience to the development of sound marketing strategies. Other trendy behavioral sciences, such as sociology, psychology, psychiatry, cognitive sciences, and anthropology, are also used in digital marketing. They are already used in the education, environment, and health sectors. They allow you to build solid internal mechanisms. But why use them for digital marketing?

Why Put Behavioral Sciences At The Service Of Digital Marketing?

The different digital marketing strategies developed by a company or a brand apply, above all, to humans. In reality, all businesses aim to fill a particular human need in return for remuneration. It is, therefore, only possible to implement effective products or services by understanding how humans operate. And that’s where behavioral science comes into play.

These disciplines focused on human behavior make it possible to understand the mechanism of choice and purchasing decisions. You will, therefore, be able to know why a customer is ready to choose one product rather than another. Neuroscience and cognitive science help to understand emotions and unconscious reactions. Which will help you, for example, to implement effective sensory marketing.

Thanks to these sciences, you can define the proper social interactions to generate to sell better. Behavioral sciences allow the analysis of mental processes that influence the behavior of consumers, the public, and audiences. They also reveal the unconscious parameters that affect the purchasing decision and insights. Thanks to behavioral sciences and neuroscience, you will have total control over your digital marketing.

What Links Between The Purchasing Decision And Behavioral Sciences?

According to Dan Kennedy, at least 95% of a purchasing decision is influenced by emotions. This can then be justified by 5% logic among specific consumers. But generally, most people buy because they want to satisfy a desire, a desire, and not necessarily a rational need. To speak like Dan Kennedy, the purchasing decision is based on e-generic factors, namely:

greed or greed;
fear or insecurity;
emotional emptiness;
the need to appear better in society or pride;
fear or guilt;
honor;
bragging etc.

As you have understood, it is emotions that generally push consumers to buy a specific thing. These are what pushes him to choose one supplier rather than another. In other words, companies capable of controlling the emotions of their targets will be able to generate the best offers. Those who can manipulate the emotional level of consumers are doomed to success.

This is why it is necessary to rely on behavioral sciences to produce sustainable digital marketing. These disciplines allow us to have a precise idea of the cognitive functions that generate the purchasing decision. Through these sciences, you will be able to guide customers through every step of the purchasing process easily. Indeed, a good mastery of mental processes will allow you to:

to influence consumer needs and desires;
to guide the customer in choosing the solution to satisfy their desire;
to act on the choice of the supplier;
to influence its ability to accept the price proposed for the solution;
to push the customer to buy the product now and not later, etc.

Behavioral Sciences: How To Put Them To Work For Your Digital Marketing?

You are now convinced that behavioral sciences are beneficial for understanding the attitudes and habits of your target. But how can you use them for your digital marketing?

Using Behavioral Sciences To Edit Your Sensory Marketing

Sensory or experiential marketing is known for its ability to generate a multi-sensory climate around the product or brand. That is, it associates product or brand identification with the use of the senses. Which creates particular emotions in the customer and pushes them to make the purchasing decision. In this aspect, behavioral sciences will be beneficial. They will be used to:

identify cognitive biases in order to offer an effective and sustainable sensory experience;
identify behavioral routines in order to propose a sales funnel adapted to the target;
understand emotions to generate standard ad hoc strategies;
play on consumers’ emotions to build brand loyalty, etc.

Thanks to psychology and cognitive sciences, companies will understand all the human mechanisms that drive the purchasing decision. In this way, they will be able to implement a sensory process that will strengthen the engagement of their customers. For example, the brand can choose music specific to it. This will be the auditory imprint of the company wherever it is represented. This is a practical use of hearing in sensory marketing.

Behavioral Science Will Help You Stay Ahead In Content Production

Implementing effective digital marketing requires the implementation of quality content. For good reason, it is thanks to content marketing that brand-customer contact is generated and maintained. It is then appropriate to be able to create more engaging content in order to attract new customers and retain old ones. It is in this context that behavioral sciences can better serve brands. They will allow:

to identify the real needs of consumers through the analysis of insights;
analyze customer habits regarding the type of content they consume;
identify the digital channels used by the target clientele;
to establish an editorial line of content that meets the needs of Internet users;
to implement engaging content that improves the company’s positioning on search engines;
to develop engaging content on social networks, etc.

Using these sciences, your company will be able to set up tailor-made content marketing.

Edit A Super-Effective Email Marketing Strategy

With digital marketing, emailing has regained remarkable efficiency in terms of making contact and exchanging with the target. Today, it is essential to run a lead generation campaign effectively. With behavioral sciences, you can strengthen your emailing by acting specifically on subject lines. In reality, it’s subject lines that help grab the reader’s attention.

Unfortunately, the proposed field is limited and requires the use of only a few words. Thanks to behavioral sciences, you will be able to find the appropriate words that hook the reader and arouse their interest. This way, your messages will have a high opening rate in mailboxes. For each email to be sent, you must insert a successful word or group of words in the subject line. Digital marketing specialist Nancy Harhut has identified a few that work. It is :

exclusivity;

urgent ;
it’s free ;
new ;
Soon ;
last chance ;
Today ;
hurry up ;
Finally ;
presentation etc.

For this marketer, words that make the reader feel privileged have more effect in the subject line. Terms that also announce a limited date or an offer limitation give a better opening rate to your emails. And it is the analysis of mental processes that made it possible to understand these behavioral reactions of Internet users.

Develop Super-Catchy Storytelling

Behavioral science has demonstrated that stories deeply touch human sensibilities. They activate the parts of the brain that provide the most grounded sensory experiences. Psychology has proven that man often finds a model that he recognizes in narrative structures. This, therefore, creates a personal attachment to the stories, and this is why storytelling is very engaging.

Thanks to behavioral sciences, you will be able to better stand out by producing storytelling that captivates. They will help you identify the sensory elements that will allow you to create particular emotions. This will generate a feeling of attachment to your brand among your target audience. Thanks to a specialist in these sciences, you will be able to write well-structured storytelling with the appropriate terms.

Add Credibility To Your Information Via Graphs And Charts

Behavioral science has made it clear that plain text data presentations are literally confusing. Indeed, readers have the habit of skipping paragraphs where statistical data is translated into text form. If you then want to convince customers through your figures in a text, you automatically fail. The human brain appreciates simple, simplified information.

This is why it more easily integrates information presented on graphs and diagrams. Better still, psychology has proven that readers associate graphs with objectivity or science. Your target better considers all the information you can transmit through these schematic methods. This allows you to make your data more credible and accessible.

Create Good Landing Pages

Landing pages are what create the first contact with your prospects. It is, therefore, vital that they give a good impression of your brand and, above all, that they are engaging. It is precisely in this sense that behavioral sciences can serve you. They have already enabled many companies to segment landing pages by prospect profile. Thanks to behavioral sciences, you will know the type of landing page to develop:

a prospect who comes to your site via a product sheet;
an Internet user who lands on your web page via an email;
a potential customer who clicks on your link from social networks, etc.

Indeed, behavioral sciences will help you develop content specific to each prospect according to its source. Their application will allow you to detect the type of information that should be served to each Internet user to move and attract them. Psychology has shown, for example, that people are more interested in content that shows how a product will make their life easier. Instead of showing off the features of your product, it is more relevant to emphasize the problems it solves.

Improve Your Customer Service

The responsiveness of your customer service is critical in the purchasing and customer loyalty process. Slow customer service seriously harms the customer experience and ruins the sales rate. You must, therefore, build an interactive system that will allow you to respond to your buyers quickly. Behavioral sciences can help you:

use the correct formulas to better interact with your customers;
make customer returns fluid;
put in place the best negotiation approaches;
arouse a positive emotion after a purchasing transaction;
calm angry customers because of an inconvenience with the delivery service or product;
better manage promotional offers dedicated to loyal customers, etc.

Rest assured, behavioral sciences will provide you with a definite helping hand throughout the sales process. But what are their limits, really?

What Are The Limits Of Behavioral Sciences?

Behavioral sciences are essential for digital marketers. For good reason, they make it possible to predict the reaction of prospects and use cognitive biases to generate successful marketing campaigns. However, we must keep in mind that men are not entirely rational beings. The excellent proof is that a purchasing decision is influenced more than 95% by emotions.

Behavioral sciences, therefore, only provide a global overview of mental processes and the reactions linked to them. They cannot, thus, dictate to the letter the conduct of an individual in a given situation. These sciences cannot predict the exact actions of an Internet user when faced with a message sent. These depend on the conditions in which he receives the message, his emotional state, the time, and many other parameters.

The recommendations made by behavioral sciences are based on the reactions observed in the majority of humans. The ideas proposed by these disciplines must then be considered as guiding principles and not irrefutable laws. Ultimately, behavioral sciences enable digital marketing to develop effective strategies that take into account cognitive biases and mental processes. However, is it really essential to associate these sciences with business strategies?