There are thousands of decisions we make every day. From a micro perspective like what we eat or wear today, to life-changing decisions such as taking a job or buying a house. What drives consumer behaviour and underlies our decisions?

Here’s what a typical decision-making process looks like on paper.

• Identify the problem.

• Gather information.

• Assess your evidence.

• Evaluate alternatives.

• Choose between alternatives.

• Implement our decision.

But are we that rational overall? What works on paper doesn’t necessarily translate into reality.

It’s proven that the brain-gut connection affects our decision-making process. In fact, one of the most respected research publications, Harvard Business Review, has touched on the topic and explored ways to lean into our intuition.

“Intuition is frequently dismissed as mystical or unreliable — but there’s a deep neurological basis for it. When you approach a decision intuitively, your brain works in tandem with your gut to quickly assess all your memories, past learnings, personal needs, and preferences, and then makes the wisest decision given the context.”

The million dollar question is how can we as marketers tap into that gut feeling?!

It comes down to the way we approach problems and what we aim to solve. The trick is that marketing is a creative field and there’s never only one right answer. Even more, the right answer can often be illogical.

For starters, we need to ask if we aim to improve the objective features or subjective value?

Let me explain. A new railroad is built between two cities. Engineers think about how to build it in a way that the ride is as quick as possible. They prioritise technical construction details, materials, route, etc. They optimise for time.

Whereas, marketers think about how the travel time could be spent as well as possible. They ponder what services and convenience can we offer to the travellers to make the journey enjoyable, e.g. wifi, catering, comfy seats, etc. They optimise for travel quality.

Neither of them is wrong. The question is, how do consumers decide?

The same goes for buying transportation tickets. What are you optimising for, time or price? What’s the default mode in your system? What if the customer is interested in price instead of a quick arrival time? What if they have enough time to take a detour for a cheaper price?

This became especially crucial with automated ticket sales. Losing the human contact in the purchasing process automatically presumes that everyone has the same interest. That we’re all in a rush to get from point A to B. Think twice, because you might have an error encoded into your system.

“Accounting is the language of business.” - Warren Buffet

I agree to disagree. Words are the language of business, not numbers. It’s the people behind businesses. It’s the people perceiving value, making purchase decisions, and driving companies’ revenues. How we perceive value is emotional, subjective, and often cannot be put into numbers.

Just look at how we buy property. We go to a website and start filtering houses based on exclusion: price, location, number of floors and rooms, etc. In reality, more often than not, people actually buy a property they eliminated in the first place. They make a more emotional decision after visiting the property. It boils down to what are the shortcomings others can’t stand, but I don’t mind?

Analyse this. Do you pick a pet, a friend, or a partner the same way? Of course, not! Why do we tend to alienate the human factor from the purchasing process? As intuition plays a huge role in how we decide, we shouldn’t do that.

In maths, 100 x 10 and 1,000 is equal. In marketing, it’s never like that. Marginal gains for a lot of people don’t move us the same as a life-changing win for one person.

Perspective is everything. Framing and packaging can give you so many ways to tell the same story in a different way. All these options create value for different customer segments.

As a marketer, the best you can do is to keep an open and creative mind, not to paint yourself into a corner. Be brave in testing multiple ideas, because you never know what works best. Even if you have a rational reasoning, as you saw, it doesn’t always work.

It starts with learning who your target audience is and creating a persona based on that. You can read more about this content creation hack from my recent blog post.

Remember, the key is what you’re optimising for. With consumer behaviour, the answer is never linear. Be creative in how you approach problems, because there can be many right answers. Rationality doesn’t always take you far.

“The opposite of a good idea could be another good idea.”

A famous quote by Rory Sutherland, who describes the fundamental creativity of theoretical physicists, Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr. Keeping your options open can lead to new and creative ways of approaching a problem. Taking the courage to think outside the box, instead of eliminating answers from the get-go can make your brand truly stand out.

Want to take your marketing even further?

If you found this content useful, you should check out this post about a content creation component to earn audience attention.

What if I told you these minor changes in marketing can explode your brand?

If you want to grow your brand with some simple hacks anyone can do, let me know. Get a head start, because many tech companies are missing out on this!

Are you ready to shift gears? I’d be happy to help you out with creative input for your content and social media marketing.