I don’t know how it was for you. But when I prepared for university exams, three wrong answers erased one correct answer. When it comes to marketing, it’s worse. One negative association cancels out three positives. Because people have a negativity bias. Negative things have a stronger and longer-lasting impact on emotions and memory than…
Category: Marketing Psychology
The Objection Funnel: Why Credibility Can’t Replace Clarity in Consulting Firms’ Messaging
Most marketers think social proof sells. But it doesn’t. It reassures. And this difference changes how to do messaging right. Imagine going to a consulting firm’s website. You’d like to figure out what they do. But you struggle. Because first, you read an aspirational mission statement that means nothing. Then they bombard you with social…
How Buying Triggers Make Your Marketing Matter to Buyers
What leads your clients to look for a solution like yours? What makes them realize they have a problem? The answers to these questions matter. Because when you know your clients’ buying triggers, you can: Think about the buying triggers in our lives. Like becoming a parent. Your life changes when you learn you’ll become…
Why Buyers Are Becoming Immune To “Push” Marketing (And How To Do It Right)
You know about this. Marketing tactics fall into two categories: push and pull. “Push” tactics are interruptions. They interrupt a potential buyer and ask for an action. Meanwhile, “pull” tactics are the opposite. You make buyers come to you by offering them content they might be interested in. There is an inherent problem with push…
Category Ladders: How to Get Buyers To Think Of Your Brand First
What brands come to your mind when you hear “accounting firms”? You can probably list 3-4 brands. First, you’d think about Deloitte. Then you’d continue with the other ones you know, like PwC, Ernst & Young, your own accountant, etc. The same applies if I tell you “toothpaste” or “energy drink.” Buyers remember a shortlist…
How Goal Dilution Kills Your Brand’s Believability (And How To Avoid It)
In 1996, two Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin realized the largest internet search engines were doing it wrong. Yahoo and MSN manually curated sites like a directory. So you could only search for certain things. AltaVista had a slightly more advanced algorithm. It ranked sites depending on how many times your search…
Why Customers Want Freedom *From* Choice (And How You Can Provide It To Sell More)
It’s Friday night. You finally have a chance to relax on your sofa after a long week. You decide to watch a movie with your partner. So you get some snacks and open Netflix to choose a movie. You have a quick look at Netflix’s suggestions. Nothing interesting. So you scroll to the next category.…
The Isolation Effect: Why “Isolated” Brands Win (And How To Become One)
In 1892, the Financial Times was struggling. They had started the newspaper a few years ago. And they were competing against other newspapers that covered business and finance news. The shark in the pond was Financial News. But the Financial Times team believed they had better content than them. They didn’t just cover the news.…
Satisficing: Why Customers Choose The Least Risky Instead Of The Best
In the 1970s, IBM was under attack from all sides. They were the leaders in the business computer market. And IBM System/360 computers were the iPhone of the 60s. But just like any new technology, there was a rush. Competitors were announcing their new breakthrough computers every month. RCA, Digital Equipment Corporation, Xerox… Some were…
Why B2B Customers Are Also Driven by Emotions
There is a common misbelief about how B2B buyers vs consumers make a purchase decision. You’ve probably heard it before. It goes like this: Consumers are emotional. They are prone to impulse buying. So they buy things without thinking rationally. But B2B buyers are the opposite. They are totally logical. They evaluate options rationally and…
