Why you should choose behavioral approaches

Well, that’s frustrating!

You want your target audience to show different behavior; your customers, citizens or perhaps your colleagues. You put together a well thought out plan. You have strong arguments as to why your target audience should take action and a pitch-perfect campaign in support. And yet you don’t get the desired effect. People don’t get moving. Or, even worse: resistance occurs.

How is this possible?

Behavioral change is complex, and you don’t just achieve this with a fancy campaign and a set of logical arguments.

• We make many of our decisions unconsciously: most of our behavior goes on autopilot.
• People often react immediately based on primary emotions, such as fear or joy, and only then think.
• We humans are quite irrational: we let ourselves be guided – without realizing it – more often by emotions, habits and others around us than by purely sensible consideration.
• There is often a gap between knowing something, wanting it and actually doing it. And sometimes we do things without really wanting or knowing.
• Far too often, the arguments you think are important are not the same arguments the target audience thinks are important.
• And sometimes the desired behavior is too difficult and too much is asked of the skills, tools or confidence that the target group must have.

Working with behavior

So how do you approach it? With a solid approach based on behavioral psychology, you arrive at better solutions that fit human nature. At MarketResponse, we build on years of experience in behavioral research. Here are the lessons we’ve learned:

• If you want to change the behavior of your target audience, you have to understand very well how that behavior works.
• Changing behavior requires a grounded and structured approach. There are several (process) models and an almost endless list of behavioral factors and behavioral techniques. Don’t be fooled and follow the process.
• Formulate the problem and your goals carefully. Where can you expect the greatest impact with changed behavior? And is this behavior even changeable? This step can be trickier than you think.
• Get a deep understanding of the behavior. What is the current behavior? Why do people do it this way? And what keeps them from, or encourages, the desired behavior? Combine existing (scientific) knowledge with fresh insights from the daily practice of your target audience to find answers to these questions.
• Then you have to make choices: which factors that drive behavior have the most impact? And in which subgroup?
• Developing your behavioral approach requires the most impactful appropriate behavioral technique.
• Then comes developing your solution: will it be a campaign, is your choice architecture right? Your solution is combines the power of theory (the chosen technique) and workability in practice.

After these steps, you’re ready to roll out your intervention. Or maybe you’ll start an experiment. Either way: measure the results to identify the effects.

Last but not least, an approach using behavioral psychology is inspiring and energizing!

Also want to get started with behavior? We’d love to help you at MarketResponse!

Please feel free to contact Floriska, Wouter or Lotteke.