Over the past several years, several significant points have been shared by experts in Neuroscience, including insights on how we tend to process information, respond to differing stimuli, and make decisions. Here are a few points for you to consider as you craft your marketing, sales, and presentation strategies and work to win new clients.
We are wired for novelty
Our brains filter the thousands of messages received each day. Ones that seem like ones we have already heard and seen are dispensed of without our conscience knowing it to save time and energy. Given the fact that we are bombarded by thousands of stimuli daily, we have no choice but to impose these filters and shortcuts.
As marketers, we need to develop new twists to our brands so that we can capture the attention of our buyers. We see this both in the products we buy and consider and the creative advertising and storytelling around these brands. Finally, one interesting twist in being novel and unique is that it does not pay to be so new and different that the consumer does not understand you and see something familiar in you.
Our brains are always working
While our brains have limited energy and capacity, they are always working. Problems that we have started working on during the day will be revisited even as we sleep. Think of the times that we all take an issue with us to bed and want to rest and yet somehow cannot. On a brighter note, think of the times that a great idea came to you while taking a walk, a shower, or cutting the grass.
The fact that our brains are always working has a lot of positive and practical applications. It suggests getting started earlier on new plans and creative projects as well as stepping away from these new projects in order to be fresh and improve them.
Our old brain and emotions drive us.
Our old brain and its instincts to protect and defend us and is reflected in how we quickly size up people (within seconds) determining whether we can trust the salesperson or marketer trying to win us over and create a relationship. While we want to think of ourselves as rational, almost all of our decisions are driven by emotions ranging from yearning for acceptance, approval, safety and security, and beauty to our belief that we deserve this product, that it will be a smart move, or that we are doing the right thing. We are driven by these emotions, often making decisions based on more than one emotional driver. We then rationalize the decision pointing to major reasons that the decision is justified.
As marketers, we must understand these customer motivations, including those that drive our customers most, and develop platforms and messages that appeal to these emotions. Alternatively, our programs will not have the results we desire.
Our brains are only ready for so much.
Messages that are too complex and not readily understood are also filtered to avoid confusion and save energy. The old maxim to make it simple even when distilling complex subject matter is ever so true.
Similarly, our attention spans are very limited. Because we tend to remember the beginning and ends of presentations, there is a case for us to make our presentations highly engaging and interesting while informative and to divide our presentations into multiple parts.
Tools like powerful storytelling aligned with the client’s pain and journey, videos, and informative infographics and visuals can aid client engagement, education, communications, and sales needs.
We form impressions very quickly
Studies show that we form opinions of people and products very quickly, literally within a few seconds. What our potential customers see and sense about us including our body language, our tonality, our message, and how much we are interested in the customer we are speaking to are extremely important, setting the stage for opportunities and wins, or being dismissed as not the right fit.
Preparing for your audience so that are perceived as prepared, thoughtful, confident, and worth the client’s time and energy is essential. A strong elevator pitch and presentation opening and closing are vital as well.
Behavioral Economics confirms these key points
Evidence of some of our major tendencies revealed by Behavioral Economists include the fact that making things simple works and that we are driven more by the fear of loss than we are by opportunities to earn rewards, even when the measured rewards significantly exceed what would be lost. These speak to the limits and biases of our psyches despite evolution.