The Reciprocity Principle and the Return on Investment

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The reciprocity principle is basically when you give someone something, they feel obliged to return the favor. It's built into us since early days of mankind where we really needed to get along because we would die if we got ostracized. When marketers use behavioral science in a more structured and efficient way, it can help them achieve what they're looking for.

Interested in a secret, underused marketing trick? Use rhyme in your design! You may easily recall examples like “Bounty: the quicker picker upper” or “Duracell: no battery is stronger, longer”. By including rhyming words in your marketing, your content is actually more memorable and more believable. This is just one of the 25 behavioral science tips that our expert guest, Nancy Harhut outlines in her comprehensive new book, “Using Behavioral Science in Marketing”.

Nancy Harhutt is Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer at HBT Marketing, a consultancy that specializes in applying human behavior techniques to marketing. Her new book Using Behavioral Science in Marketing: Drive Customer Action and Loyalty by Prompting Instinctive Responses is an easy-to-use guide on how to apply behavioral insights.

“Behavioral science is tailor made for marketing. At the end of the day, marketers are trying to convince people to do something, we're trying to influence behavior.”

While Nancy’s book is written for those in the marketing field, it is applicable to anyone trying to negotiate, influence or strategize with others. One of the things that makes the book such a helpful guide is Nancy’s use of industry stories to illustrate the effectiveness of her applied behavioral science techniques, and she shares some of these with us in our discussion.

Kurt and Tim talk with Nancy about the weightiness of temporal landmarks, such as birthdays and fresh starts; why rhyming is an underused secret in marketing; and the reason why the reciprocity principle can be so effective with clients.

Whether your job title is in marketing or you frequently find yourself trying to influence others behavior, you will gain some useful insight from Nancy’s interview. If you are a regular listener of Behavioral Grooves, please consider becoming a supporter too, through the Behavioral Grooves Pateron page.

Topics

(3:24) Welcome and speed round questions.

(6:11) How behavioral science can be incredibly useful in marketing.

(9:04) How Nancy first used the autonomy bias in a marketing campaign.

(13:43) How do you measure marketing results?

(17:28) What are the differences between labeling and framing?

(24:14) The secret of rhyming in marketing.

(30:29) How birthdays can impact our behavior.

(36:00) Is marketing missing any tricks?

(43:29) How the default settings on Spotify changed.

(49:05) What music would Nancy take to a desert island?

(51:32) Grooving Session with Kurt and Tim.

Links

Nancy Harhut’s book: “Using Behavioral Science in Marketing: Drive Customer Action and Loyalty by Prompting Instinctive Responses”: https://amzn.to/41CAC72

Nancy Harhut: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancyharhut

Stephen Sondheim: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Sondheim

Frank Lesser: https://www.franklesser.com/

Stephen Schwartz: https://stephenschwartz.com/

Episode 351, How One Small Word Can Transform Our Motivation, Success And Relationships with Jonah Berger: https://behavioralgrooves.com/episode/words-can-transform-jonah-berger/

Ogilvy: https://www.ogilvy.com/

Behavioral Grooves Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/behavioralgrooves

Musical Links

West Side Story “Maria”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39WPioTx1zQ

The Beatles “Help”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q_ZzBGPdqE

Wicked “Defying Gravity”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEq3xM-i0Ng