We’re coming to the end of our deep dive on using neuroscience and the purchase formula in your campaigns. We’ve discussed why the purchase formula is so important, and why increasing reward activation in the brain is vital to conversion success – and we’ve taken a look at some of the practical applications for your own campaigns. But what if you want to go deeper?

Let’s take a look at some examples of how you can use these campaigns in your own industry. We’ll run through 3 specific examples, including campaign structures and content ideas, this blog will give you everything you need to get moving with some behavioral insights – let’s rock and roll!

The sales supporting nurture

There is a common misconception that B2B is vastly different from B2C. I hear the term “stuffy” being used a lot… But in reality, the main difference is purely in the number of decision-makers involved, and how protracted and long the sales cycles can be. This leads to all sorts of fabulous marketing tactics that B2C never gets to see.

One of the biggest challenges for Demand Generation marketers in B2B is keeping leads engaged during long sales cycles. Your consumer has a lot of choices to make, and a decision can be 6 to 18 months down the line…

Secondarily you have the issue of lead quality. Ever had the grate of the age-old back and forth between sales and marketing about lead quality and therefore the conversion rates? Ensuring only the best quality leads, that are ready to convert, are passed through to sales to weave their magic is paramount.

And finally, you have the thorn of conversion rate and average order value. If you have a highly qualified lead that has been well nurtured, you’re going to increase the average order value that comes from that lead. These magical leads know your value, know why you’re the right choice for them, and know that you’re worth what is being asked for. Unfortunately most of the time it’s not that magical and getting that bump can be hard.

The sales supporting nurture series fixes all of these issues.

Designed to run alongside a longer sales cycle, the purpose of this series is to increase your conversions and average order value by educating, motivating, and inspiring your prospects. A good sales supporting nurture series delivers highly valuable and engaging content that deals with objections, common questions, concerns, pricing, and inspirational hero-led case studies.

How to structure your sales supporting nurture series

As a form of nurture that works alongside sales – your sales supporting nurture should be designed with sales. Sitting down with your sales team and uncovering the most common objections and questions will give you a good starting point.

Here are some sales supporting nurture content ideas:

• X steps/things you need to do/think about before buying a {insert product or service name}
• Everything you need to know about {insert product or service}
• {Your product/service} vs competitors or perceived competitors (could be multiple blogs)
• Why you are having {problem x} and how to fix it
• Common myths and misconceptions of {insert product or service name}
• How {audience} achieved X using {insert product or service}

The purpose of this series is to deliver as much valuable bottom-of-funnel information as possible. What do your leads need to know to help them make a purchase decision? This should give you your basic structure. Make sure to include blog posts, case studies, pricing information, buyers guides, and objection-busting materials.

When well structured, a sales supporting nurture campaign will mean that sales have more meaningful conversations with prospects that are far more highly qualified. Which brings us smartly to the next question: When should you use sales supporting nurture?

To get the most out of your campaign, we trigger the series when sales intent is displayed and the lead enters the sales cycle.

Onboarding for increased reward activation

Ecommerce is terrible for missing out on relationship building as an industry. While a lot of B2C and B2B companies focus on building longer relationships with their customers – ecommerce can get blinkered by the need for repeat sales, forgetting that there is a consumer attached to the end of that sale.

As a result, a lot of ecommerce businesses build their campaigns around a sales goal and miss out on increasing that reward activation. Unfortunately, reward activation is required to get that next sale! While almost all of the 5 practical applications of the purchase formula will help an ecommerce business connect with its customers better, there is one area of opportunity that stands head and shoulders above the others: your onboarding.

Onboarding? Sure that’s only for services? Absolutely not!
When a purchase is made, to be satisfied with that purchase, and therefore recommend or repeat purchase, we have to go through 5 specific steps first:

1. Research

Being clear on how to use the product/ what to do next.

2. Implementation/ usage

Using the product for the first time.

3. Proving

Understanding that and proving to themselves that they made the right choice.

4. Optimization/ owning

Making the product or service their own by using it and personalizing it.

5. Enjoying

If both previous steps are positive, they will enjoy the product and use it.

To have a happy customer, you need them to have a smooth transition through all 5 stages. That means higher reward activation.

While SAAS and service-based companies tend to take their customers through these steps – usually because the product is complex. Ecommerce misses out on these stages because the products seem too simple to use the process. Unfortunately, the brain cares not one little sausage what we think – it needs its stages to be completed to have its reward activation.

So let’s take a look at how you can structure out an onboarding series for maximum reward activation.

How to structure your onboarding series:

Take a look at each of the 5 stages – how can you adapt them to your own business?

Always start with a warm welcome, but beef your welcome up by helping them nail stage one – research. Then build additional emails to help them really get the most of the product. We like our onboarding series to be around 4-5 emails long.

1. Research

What do they need to know?

What information is really important for them at this point in time. This can be as simple as the next steps, and go all the way through to detailed plans, instruction manuals, and time scales. Set their expectations and make the next steps very clear for them. You can also use this as an opportunity to get them excited and think about how they’re going to use the product before it gets to them.

2. Implementation (usage)

What do they need to do to get it implemented?

Could there be any hurdles? What actions need to happen? How do you get them in a consumption routine? Remember that customers who use the product are the ones that tend to value it, and they are the ones who stick around. This can be as simple as suggesting funky ways to dress up an item of clothing they have bought, or offering next-level ideas around a widget they have purchased.

3. Proving

What are their goals?

How do you get them to prove to themselves that this was the right decision? Can you get them to attain success? Are there quick wins you can help them see? Fitness apps do this very well by helping people physically see their progress – how can you help them do the same?

4. Optimization (owning)

How can you help them make it theirs?

Often simply explaining how they can get the best out of being a customer, means you can help them own your product or service better. Help them see how they can get more out, squeezing every ounce of value.  Show them how they can level up and enhance their own experience. It’s particularly important to get them to put their own stamp on things at this stage.

5. Enjoyment

Finally, when your customer is in the throes of using your product or service, mirror their enjoyment. Inspire them with other people who are also doing awesome things.

Companies that take their customers through well-structured and inspiring onboarding receive better testimonials and higher average order values for a second purchase. So get building your own onboarding!

Crafting welcome campaigns that make brains happy

Welcome campaigns are a series of emails that go to your brand new sign-ups to your list. No matter what reason they have for entering your system – your new friend needs to be treated well and made to feel important.

Humans steer away from things that don’t make us feel valued but are also drawn to the things we can easily understand, things that align with our own values, and things that we have context around. This is the brain saving space and computing capacity.

Welcome campaigns provide an excellent opportunity for us, marketers, to help people understand who we are, why we matter, and most importantly: what that means to the consumer. This means your following emails will get higher engagement and higher reward activation.

All of this is very important for most businesses, but for Not For Profit organizations, this is vital. A welcome campaign is one of the most important tools in your marketing arsenal as a result.

You need a welcome campaign because:

• It clarifies who you are, including your all-important values
• Shows your prospects how you can better their lives
• Increases likelihood of conversions down the line
• Builds trust in your brand and creates likeability
• Sets the scene for your readership & makes them comfortable

Approaching your welcome campaign strategically helps better position you for sales opportunities down the line.

So let’s take a look at what you should include in your welcome campaign, and how to build it out.

How to structure your welcome campaign

We like to structure our welcome series over 3-4 emails that help consumers really understand who you are and give them that all-important context as to how you fit into their lives. Let’s take a look at an example email flow:

Email 1: A welcome email that sets the scene

Tell them what to expect and what they will be getting from you over the next few days. Introduce the people behind the brand in this email, but don’t go into too much detail, tease the next few emails. This is your broad opportunity to communicate who you are and allow them to click through to more content. The most important part of this email is telling them what they should expect from you as you communicate with them in the future.

Email 2: Send a “who you are” email

In here you can tell them who you are and give them a good idea of what it is you do. Talk about the things about you/ your business that they would be interested in. This is where you can really showcase the impact you’re making as an NFP. Make sure you slant this to things you know they are interested in/ are passionate about. Show them your passion too.

Email 3: Send a “why you’re different” email

Talk about the major successes and triumphs you’ve achieved for your cause, and how your mission, vision, and values have enabled you to achieve them. Link off to more resources that people can read about further.

Email 4: Send a “how to get the most” email

Talk about how they can get the best out of being on your list. What should they keep an eye out for? This is your opportunity to showcase how you’re going to add value to their lives and how you do the work that you do. How can they achieve their goals? How will you help them do that?

Context is king when it comes to getting higher engagement and setting the scene with your audience – and a welcome campaign helps you do precisely that while going a little bit deeper and getting that all-important reward activation…

Here are some other prompts to spark off your welcome series copy:

• Welcome them to your family. make them feel part of something
• Let them know that they are with like-minded people
• Who are you?
• What do you stand for?
• Why are you different?
• What should they expect from you?
• How often?
• Build your credibility – awards/testimonials/social proof
• Get your prospects excited
• What’s in it for them?
• What should they do next?
• Let them know that you’re available to them if they want to get in touch

So there we have it! Over this series we’ve taken a look at some of the neuroscience behind how we buy, we’ve explored practical ways to apply it, and we’ve done a deeper dive into some of the campaigns that are most impactful for various niches and industries.

Throughout the series, I’ve labored how important that reward activation is. You need to work at it – the high conversions and better quality customers are worth the effort. The question now is: Where are you going to get started? Let’s keep the chat alive! Let me know how you’re using this to build better relationships with your audience!

We’re coming to the end of our deep dive on using neuroscience and the purchase formula in your campaigns. We’ve discussed why the purchase formula is so important, and why increasing reward activation in the brain is vital to conversion success – and we’ve taken a look at some of the practical applications for your own campaigns. But what if you want to go deeper?

Let’s take a look at some examples of how you can use these campaigns in your own industry. We’ll run through 3 specific examples, including campaign structures and content ideas, this blog will give you everything you need to get moving with some behavioral insights – let’s rock and roll!

Adding neuroscience spice to B2B: The sales-supporting nurture

There is a common misconception that B2B is vastly different from B2C. I hear the term “stuffy” being used a lot… But in reality, the main difference is purely in the number of decision-makers involved, and how protracted and long the sales cycles can be. This leads to all sorts of fabulous marketing tactics that B2C never gets to see.

One of the biggest challenges for demand generation marketers in B2B is keeping leads engaged during long sales cycles. Your consumer has a lot of choices to make, and a decision can be 6 to 18 months down the line…

Secondarily you have the issue of lead quality. Ever had the grate of the age-old back and forth between sales and marketing about lead quality and therefore the conversion rates? Ensuring only the best quality leads, that are ready to convert, are passed through to sales to weave their magic is paramount.

And finally, you have the thorn of conversion rate and average order value. If you have a highly qualified lead that has been well nurtured, you’re going to increase the average order value that comes from that lead. These magical leads know your value, know why you’re the right choice for them and know that you’re worth what is being asked for. Unfortunately most of the time it’s not that magical and getting that bump can be hard.

The sales-supporting nurture series fixes all of these issues.

Designed to run alongside a longer sales cycle, the purpose of this series is to increase your conversions and average order value by educating, motivating, and inspiring your prospects. A good sales supporting nurture series delivers highly valuable and engaging content that deals with objections, common questions, concerns, pricing, and inspirational hero-led case studies.

How to structure your sales-supporting nurture series

As a form of nurture that works alongside sales – your sales-supporting nurture should be designed with sales. Sitting down with your sales team and uncovering the most common objections and questions will give you a good starting point.

Here are some sales supporting nurture content ideas:

• X steps/things you need to do/think about before buying an {insert product or service name}
• Everything you need to know about {insert product or service}
• {Your product/service} vs competitors or perceived competitors (could be multiple blogs)
• Why you are having {problem x} and how to fix it
• Common myths and misconceptions of {insert product or service name}
• How {audience} achieved X using {insert product or service}

The purpose of this series is to deliver as much valuable bottom-of-funnel information as possible. What do your leads need to know to help them make a purchase decision? This should give you your basic structure. Make sure to include blog posts, case studies, pricing information, buyers guides, and objection-busting materials.

When well structured, a sales supporting nurture campaign will mean that sales have more meaningful conversations with prospects that are far more highly qualified. Which brings us smartly to the next question: When should you use sales supporting nurture?

To get the most out of your campaign, we trigger the series when sales intent is displayed and the lead enters the sales cycle.

Giving ecommerce some behavioral love: Onboarding for increased reward activation

Ecommerce is terrible for missing out on relationship building as an industry. While a lot of B2C and B2B companies focus on building longer relationships with their customers – ecommerce can get blinkered by the need for repeat sales, forgetting that there is a consumer attached to the end of that sale.

As a result, a lot of ecommerce businesses build their campaigns around a sales goal and miss out on increasing that reward activation. Unfortunately, reward activation is required to get that next sale! While almost all of the 5 practical applications of the purchase formula will help an ecommerce business connect with its customers better, there is one area of opportunity that stands head and shoulders above the others: your onboarding.

Onboarding? Sure that’s only for services? Absolutely not!

When a purchase is made, to be satisfied with that purchase, and therefore recommend or repeat purchase, we have to go through 5 specific steps first:

1. Research – Being clear on how to use the product/ what to do next.
2.  Implementation/usage – Using the product for the first time.
3. Proving – Understanding that and proving to themselves that they made the right choice.
4. Optimization/owning – Making the product or service their own by using it and personalizing it.
5. Enjoying – If both previous steps are positive, they will enjoy the product and use it.

To have a happy customer, you need them to have a smooth transition through all 5 stages. That means higher reward activation.

While SAAS and service-based companies tend to take their customers through these steps – usually because the product is complex. Ecommerce misses out on these stages because the products seem too simple to use the process. Unfortunately, the brain cares not one little sausage what we think – it needs its stages to be completed to have its reward activation.

So let’s take a look at how you can structure out an onboarding series for maximum reward activation.

How to structure your onboarding series

Take a look at each of the 5 stages – how can you adapt them to your own business?

Always start with a warm welcome, but beef your welcome up by helping them nail stage one – research. Then build additional emails to help them really get the most of the product. We like our onboarding series to be around 4-5 emails long.

1. Research

What do they need to know?

What information is really important for them at this point in time. This can be as simple as the next steps, and go all the way through to detailed plans, instruction manuals, and time scales. Set their expectations and make the next steps very clear for them. You can also use this as an opportunity to get them excited and think about how they’re going to use the product before it gets to them.

2. Implementation (usage)

What do they need to do to get it implemented?

Could there be any hurdles? What actions need to happen? How do you get them in a consumption routine? Remember that customers who use the product are the ones that tend to value it, and they are the ones who stick around. This can be as simple as suggesting funky ways to dress up an item of clothing they have bought, or offering next-level ideas around a widget they have purchased.

3. Proving

What are their goals?

How do you get them to prove to themselves that this was the right decision? Can you get them to attain success? Are there quick wins you can help them see? Fitness apps do this very well by helping people physically see their progress – how can you help them do the same?

4. Optimization (owning)

How can you help them make it theirs?

Often simply explaining how they can get the best out of being a customer, means you can help them own your product or service better. Help them see how they can get more out, squeezing every ounce of value.  Show them how they can level up and enhance their own experience. It’s particularly important to get them to put their own stamp on things at this stage.

5. Enjoyment

Finally, when your customer is in the throes of using your product or service, mirror their enjoyment. Inspire them with other people who are also doing awesome things.

Companies that take their customers through well-structured and inspiring onboarding receive better testimonials and higher average order values for a second purchase. So get building your own onboarding!

Nifty neuroscience for Not-For-Profit: Crafting welcome campaigns that make brains happy

Welcome campaigns are a series of emails that go to your brand new sign-ups to your list. No matter what reason they have for entering your system – your new friend needs to be treated well and made to feel important.

Humans steer away from things that don’t make us feel valued but are also drawn to the things we can easily understand, things that align with our own values, and things that we have context around. This is the brain saving space and computing capacity.

Welcome campaigns provide an excellent opportunity for us, marketers, to help people understand who we are, why we matter, and most importantly: what that means to the consumer. This means your following emails will get higher engagement and higher reward activation.

All of this is very important for most businesses, but for Not For Profit organizations, this is vital. A welcome campaign is one of the most important tools in your marketing arsenal as a result.

You need a welcome campaign because:

• It clarifies who you are, including your all-important values
• Shows your prospects how you can better their lives
• Increases likelihood of conversions down the line
• Builds trust in your brand and creates likeability
• Sets the scene for your readership & makes them comfortable

Approaching your welcome campaign strategically helps better position you for sales opportunities down the line.

So let’s take a look at what you should include in your welcome campaign, and how to build it out.

How to structure your welcome campaign

We like to structure our welcome series over 3-4 emails that help consumers really understand who you are and give them that all-important context as to how you fit into their lives. Let’s take a look at an example email flow:

Email 1: A welcome email that sets the scene

Tell them what to expect and what they will be getting from you over the next few days. Introduce the people behind the brand in this email, but don’t go into too much detail, tease the next few emails. This is your broad opportunity to communicate who you are and allow them to click through to more content. The most important part of this email is telling them what they should expect from you as you communicate with them in the future.

Email 2: Send a “who you are” email

In here you can tell them who you are and give them a good idea of what it is you do. Talk about the things about you/ your business that they would be interested in. This is where you can really showcase the impact you’re making as an NFP. Make sure you slant this to things you know they are interested in/ are passionate about. Show them your passion too.

Email 3: Send a “why you’re different” email

Talk about the major successes and triumphs you’ve achieved for your cause, and how your mission, vision, and values have enabled you to achieve them. Link off to more resources that people can read about further.

Email 4: Send a “how to get the most” email

Talk about how they can get the best out of being on your list. What should they keep an eye out for? This is your opportunity to showcase how you’re going to add value to their lives and how you do the work that you do. How can they achieve their goals? How will you help them do that?

Context is king when it comes to getting higher engagement and setting the scene with your audience – and a welcome campaign helps you do precisely that while going a little bit deeper and getting that all-important reward activation…

Here are some other prompts to spark off your welcome series copy:

• Welcome them to your family. make them feel part of something
• Let them know that they are with like-minded people
• Who are you?
• What do you stand for?
• Why are you different?
• What should they expect from you?
• How often?
• Build your credibility – awards/testimonials/social proof
• Get your prospects excited
• What’s in it for them?
• What should they do next?
• Let them know that you’re available to them if they want to get in touch

Wrap-up

So there we have it! Over this series we’ve taken a look at some of the neuroscience behind how we buy, we’ve explored practical ways to apply it, and we’ve done a deeper dive into some of the campaigns that are most impactful for various niches and industries.

Throughout the series, I’ve labored how important that reward activation is. You need to work at it – the high conversions and better quality customers are worth the effort. The question now is: Where are you going to get started? Let’s keep the chat alive! Let me know how you’re using this to build better relationships with your audience!

In our previous post, we chatted about the brain works when it makes a purchase decision (check it out here), but how do you take all that neuroscience and *actually* use it? We mentioned how nurture plays a significant role in helping the brain decide to buy, but how can you make that happen for you? We’re not about vague theories that have no real application! So let’s take a look at some practical applications for using these insights as we walk through 5 ways to pack a punch with the purchase formula in your very own campaigns.

1. Welcome campaigns

Never underestimate the power of a really good welcome campaign! The very first time a new contact joins your list, you should roll out the red carpet. When you provide a fantastic welcome and wow campaign you’re able to provide the brain with context as to why you do what you do, how you do it, and what that means for them. Welcome campaigns mean you have the opportunity to align your audience with what drives and motivates you, and that makes for a powerful connection when it’s aligned to the things they care about. The story you tell in your welcome campaign sets the tone for your relationship, it’s a foundation for all your communications going forward. A good welcome campaign will always come back to the audience, teaching them about who you are through helping them, and giving them far deeper and more meaningful connections with you as a brand.

The cognitive takeaway for your welcome campaign:

Level up your welcome campaign by showing them how you help them achieve their goals. Always look at the content and ask: “How is this meaningful to my audience? What value does this bring to them?” Focus on providing context that aligns with the things they care about so that you increase their reward activation and build a relationship.

2. Lead magnet follow-up 

When a contact signs up for an ebook, resource,  newsletter, or any of your other fabulous lead magnets the power of nurture comes to play!  Lead magnet follow-up gives you the perfect opportunity to add value – and value add is precisely what we’re after when we’re working to keep the brain happy. Lead magnet sign-ups tell us quite a bit about our audience, we learn things like:

• What’s a problem for them right now
• What they are interested in
• Where they are in their buying journey
• How ready they are to purchase

This information is vital for creating more targeted follow-up. Fantastic nurture-based follow-up uses this to create a series of emails and actions that help us add value relative to where they are, and provide the appropriate next steps for them in their journey.

The cognitive takeaway for your lead magnet follow-up campaign:

The easiest way to add value is to encourage consumption. Break up your lead magnet into its most vital components, split that over a series of emails, and add value over and above what you have given them. Educate your audience and focus on getting them to the next step in their buyer’s journey. This repetition and leveling up of the information you’ve already given them means the information will be more easily recalled in memory and is therefore labeled by the brain as more valuable.

3. Long-term nurture 

What do you do when your leads and customers are done with their existing campaigns? Do they fall into the void of nothingness – never to hear from you again? Perhaps a newsletter every now and then? A sporadic sale campaign?

Nurture shouldn’t stop just because your campaigns aren’t running right now. Nurture is forever. Your long-term nurture is precisely what it says on the tin – nurture that runs for a very long time. This type of nurture is the type of activity that can boost your conversions in the most impactful way because it raises the baseline engagement, helps you learn more about your audience, and is consistent enough that the brain knows how to deal with it. What’s that? Did you say: “Oh no… Something else I have to create a tonne of content for” Worry not! If you’re already creating content as part of your SEO/ inbound marketing strategy, or have existing blog posts and resources, you can use what you have in place. The important thing is to provide useful content over a longer period of time. We like to set up long-term nurture campaigns as a catch-all, the place everyone ends up in. These get triggered to go out once a week or every two weeks as a minimum. Giving you ample opportunities to build a relationship and show up with valuable information that your audience needs. This strategy is what increased the conversion rate for one of our clients by 351%. The consistent value add gives the brain time to build a healthy and positive reward activation for your brand.

The cognitive takeaway for your long-term nurture campaign:

Find out what your audience finds valuable, and drip educational content to them over a long period of time. Value is key to increasing the reward activation, and long-term nurture is one of the easiest and best ways to get higher activation in the brain.  Combine this with your existing content strategy to make sure you’re not adding too much work to your own plate! Bonus points if you track what they engage with, allowing you to personalize their journey later on down the line.

4. Sales-supporting nurture 

Sales campaigns are the traditional spot for nurturing for most companies – but we can do better! If you have a longer, more protracted sales cycle, you can use some strategic content to help your consumer understand their options and help them make the best decision possible. Sales-supporting nurture is content that helps the consumer understand their options, answers their questions, and gets them ready to have a far more meaningful conversion with sales (if you don’t have a sales team, sales supporting nurture will be the best salesperson you’ve never had). By sending this helpful and valuable content alongside the sales process, you’re ensuring your prospect not only has the information they need to make a purchase decision but also is motivated and inspired. Your prospects build a stronger relationship with you, sales have clearer and more qualified conversations, and you get to celebrate higher conversion rates together.

The cognitive takeaway for your sales-supporting nurture campaign:

The brain needs context and understanding to make a positive purchase decision. Your sales-supporting nurture can provide this by partnering with sales to answer questions and prepare your prospects in a way that makes them more qualified and nabs you those higher conversion rates. Work with your sales team to identify what prospects really want to know at the end of the funnel, and create drip campaigns that provide this high-value information.

5. Onboarding 

Is your job done when you’ve got the sale? Absolutely not! Profits often come from customer lifetime value: the art of getting a customer to make repeat purchases and stick around for long periods of time. To do that you need to make sure they’re happy right from the start! Onboarding is a fantastic way to get every customer and client to feel confident about their purchase, use it, and start to enjoy the process of your products and services. Simply by having this process feel positive – you can increase the reward activation in the brain – and that means more sales for you! Build a strong relationship with new customers by rewarding their purchase with a beautifully laid out and thoughtful onboarding campaign that shows them how to get the most out of their products and services.

The cognitive takeaway for your onboarding campaign:

Reward activation is all about that value add, and one of the best ways to add value is by delighting your customer, making them feel cared for and appreciated. The second moment of truth is the point at which your customer or client uses their product and starts to develop an opinion on it, help them enjoy it by wowing them. Show them how to best use their purchase, get them to use it, ask them how they feel about it – get them involved and show you care!

Wrap-up

There we have it! That’s 5 ways to increase reward activation in the brain. Each practical application always comes back to the core of:

•  Add value
• Nurture through education

Email is a fantastic tool for this, but don’t forget that you can spice up this strategy with omnichannel delivery. Your core focus should simply be on the best way for you to get that value to your end customers. Need some examples to see this in action? Stay tuned for next week where we’ll be taking a look at some campaigns that have used this strategy fantastically!

There’s a secret to very good marketing. It’s a thread that combines all exceptional marketing campaigns, from pureblooded email marketing through to true omnichannel marketing masterpieces: the purchase formula.

Good marketing helps communicate whether or not a product is right for the end consumer in a way the brain understands.

A little bit of insight into the neuroscience around how we make those decisions can go a long way to helping you create your own marketing masterpieces; so let’s take a look at how the brain makes a purchase decision, what the purchase formula looks like, and what that means for your email automation.

How the brain makes a purchase decision

The brain uses a purchase formula to decide whether or not to buy a product or service – it’s a very specific process that you can watch if you have your own fMRI scanner at home…

If you don’t have an fMRI scanner in the front room, not to worry. The lovely Professor Brian Knutson and his colleagues at Stanford university did it all for you!  They ran fascinating experiments into how the brain makes a purchase decision.

Whilst people lay in the neural imaging scanner, the psychologists showed them a picture of a product, then the price of the product, and then asked them whether or not they would buy.

The results gave us phenomenal insight into how the brain chooses to buy.

When participants saw a product they might like to purchase, the reward centers of the brain lit up like a Christmas tree. Behaviourally, this makes sense, you see something you want to buy – your brain emulates having that, and you get a nice little hormonal boost that triggers your “yes, I’d like that”.

But the fun really happened when the brain saw the price of the product.

Most psychologists expected that the logic centers would be activated- the prefrontal cortex and areas that are responsible for making those sound logical decisions we humans like to pride ourselves in. If you’re following along with Antonio Demasio and his work with logic and emotion – then you might have expected some emotion center activation too.

Neither of these things happened.

Our learnings didn’t stop there though.

Looking at the relative levels of activation, the amount of reward activation vs the amount of pain activation, researchers were able to predict whether or not that person would buy that product before the person had even decided whether they were going to buy.

And it’s this insight right here that led to the discovery of the purchase formula:

Net Value = Reward – Pain

Without getting all crazy and mathematical, the likelihood of your consumer purchasing is influenced by how much reward activation your consumers have about your product or service in relation to the amount of pain activation the price gives them.

The researchers also found two things:

1. The Net value must be positive
   The reward value must outweigh the pain value
2. The Net value must be high
   There must be a much higher reward activation than pain activation.

Here-in lies problem 1 – as businesses we tend to focus on price – making that seem as enticing as possible. We want to soften the blow around the money being spent. But this is the area we don’t have a huge amount of control over. While the pain activation can be reduced, we can’t get rid of it entirely.

In fact “comfortingly expensive” is a quantifiable factor that helps *increase* the amount of reward activation.

Instead, the area we have so much more potential to impact, and the one thing that we can do to increase our conversion rates – is to increase the reward activation that your prospects have in relation to your products and services.

And this right here is where your email comes into play.

Why email works so very well in helping the brain

To skew the purchase formula in our favor we need to increase the value of your brand and your products to your audience.

This activation isn’t something that happens in one touch at an arbitrary point along the customer’s journey. This works best when it’s sustained and drip-fed over time. It’s precisely why content marketing works so well.

Adding value and educating your audience over time is called nurture. It’s a cornerstone of exceptional quality marketing.

Nurture means you’re utilizing quality content to increase the reward activation in your prospects’ brains.

Nurture hacks the purchase formula.

That’s increased engagement, conversion rates, and customer lifetime value – all for you.

And email… Well, email is a phenomenal way to deliver consistent and valuable nurture.

Email and nurture – a match made in neural heaven

Email automation is a fantastic way to show up and give brains what they need.

By mapping out what your prospects and customers would find valuable and helpful at each stage of their journey, you can create automated campaigns that increase that all-important reward activation.

Your job is to find out what your audience needs, and when, and be ready when they need you. And that’s where a solid omnichannel marketing plan comes in.

Stay tuned for next week where we take a look at how you can apply these insights to your industry in a more practical way.