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How Do B2B Buyers Behave? Behavioral Science for Marketers
28 Plays1 month ago
What really drives B2B buying decisions? In this episode of B2B Marketing Pint, Brendan Ziolo and Brian O’Grady sit down with behavioral scientist Pauline Kabitsis to unpack how behavioral science can help marketers build better campaigns, landing pages, onboarding flows, and product experiences.
Pauline explains why context matters more than generic best practices, why too much information often hurts performance, and how the best marketers stay focused on one key behavior at a time. The conversation also explores where AI is helping marketers, where it is creating more clutter, and why a little friction can sometimes increase perceived value instead of killing conversion.
If you market to humans making high-stakes business decisions, this episode is a useful reminder: B2B buyers are still people. Their choices are shaped by attention, risk, trust, effort, and emotion, just like any other buyer.
Expect practical examples, smart debate, and a myth-busting finish that challenges the idea that B2B marketing plays by a completely different set of rules.
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Transcript
Intro
Episode Introduction
00:00:27
Brian O'Grady
Ladies gentlemen, boys and girls, all the ships at sea, this is B2B Marketing Pint. Buckle up. You're in for some learning. You're in for some fun. Brendan, who are we talking to?
Guest Introduction: Pauline Kibitzis
00:00:40
Brendan Ziolo
Well, I have the pleasure today of introducing Pauline Kibitzis. ah She's a behavioral scientist. So all our fellow marketers are scratching their heads already, I'm sure.
00:00:54
Brendan Ziolo
um But she's done a lot of very cool work. I've seen a couple of great presentations where she's used that background to not only guide product and features and development, but some tips for us marketers too.
Pauline's Work and Beer Tradition
00:01:08
Brendan Ziolo
When she's not hanging out with Brian and I, she consults with Irrational Labs, who's worked on projects with companies that some of you may have heard of, like PayPal, Airbnb, and LinkedIn.
00:01:21
Brendan Ziolo
And she also runs her own behavioral science and research consultancy called Decode. And there she's worked with maybe a few non-tech companies like UN n agencies, World Bank, some health insurance insurers,
00:01:36
Brendan Ziolo
And I'm sure many, many more that she will weave into the conversation where possible. um Like I said, I saw her present some great talks and I couldn't wait to have her on the podcast.
00:01:47
Brendan Ziolo
So Pauline, what did I screw up on your bio and welcome aboard. don't.
00:01:53
Pauline Kabitsis
No, you screwed up nothing. I thought most certainly it would have been the last name because that typically gets mispronounced, but it was perfectly articulated. So thank you both for having me. This is awesome.
00:02:07
Brendan Ziolo
All right. And as is tradition, ah which we prepped you on, ah what are you drinking today?
00:02:14
Pauline Kabitsis
Oh, yes. So Brendan drove over to my place a Lone Pine. So I have not had this before, but I do like IPA hoppy beers looks like it. I think you said, Brian, it was or Brendan, you said it was in.
00:02:34
Pauline Kabitsis
Where's the brewing company? I can't remember.
00:02:35
Brendan Ziolo
It's in Gravenhurst, and I think it's on the back there, Sawdust City Brewing Company.
00:02:37
Pauline Kabitsis
griev
00:02:40
Brendan Ziolo
So it's a good one.
00:02:41
Pauline Kabitsis
OK, yeah, it is.
00:02:43
Brendan Ziolo
So hopefully you enjoy it.
00:02:45
Pauline Kabitsis
Yeah, I'm excited. I was saying before we started that I feel like I've executed a lot of self-control because I have not opened it yet.
00:02:55
Pauline Kabitsis
what What about yourself?
00:02:55
Brian O'Grady
Well, we're about to change.
00:02:58
Brendan Ziolo
ah Well, I am as I, it's ah my dry January continues from 2021.
00:02:58
Pauline Kabitsis
it
00:03:03
Pauline Kabitsis
and
00:03:04
Brendan Ziolo
So I'm still drinking non-alcohol and I went back ah and got a heart, some, something from Harman's, but most appropriate for time of year, ah ah hockey beer called overtime.
00:03:15
Brian O'Grady
Hmm.
00:03:19
Brendan Ziolo
So I have not had this, but I'm a big fan Harman's.
00:03:19
Brian O'Grady
Nice.
00:03:22
Brendan Ziolo
So hopefully it's a good one. And Brian, what are you drinking?
00:03:27
Brian O'Grady
I love the name of that beer. Well, it's not Dry January here, although Dry February is coming this year. There is travel involved, which meant that Dry January was a non-starter this year.
00:03:40
Brian O'Grady
Because I'm coming to you live from Canmore, Alberta, where there's some pretty hot skiing. And I already owe Canmore an apology because what I should be doing, if we weren't so busy here on B2B Marketing Pipe, being marketers, is what I should have done is gone and checked out one of the amazing local brewpubs I saw when I cruised through town yesterday and brought something to the table.
00:04:00
Brian O'Grady
But I did not. I brought one of my old standbys. So as a result, I'm going to ask all the viewers in Canmore and lovers of Canmore beers to tell me what I should have brought to this episode so I
Behavioral Science in Marketing
00:04:13
Brian O'Grady
can correct it next time.
00:04:14
Pauline Kabitsis
Here's
00:04:14
Brian O'Grady
But instead, we've got a classic. It's hard to go wrong. Gotta love the Dutch.
00:04:21
Brendan Ziolo
Please, please can more people help them find a better beer.
00:04:21
Brian O'Grady
I'm going to open mine.
00:04:26
Brian O'Grady
<unk>s For the record, there's nothing wrong with this beer, but a micro-brewed can more special would be even better. Shall we?
00:04:36
Brian O'Grady
All right.
00:04:37
Pauline Kabitsis
yours.
00:04:39
Brian O'Grady
Cheers to a good podcast.
00:04:40
Pauline Kabitsis
Mm-hmm.
00:04:42
Brian O'Grady
Brendan's still pouring.
00:04:44
Brendan Ziolo
i'll I'll keep pouring while Brian Brian you can kick it off so I can keep pouring my beer
00:04:49
Brian O'Grady
I love it.
00:04:50
Pauline Kabitsis
and
00:04:51
Brian O'Grady
In that case, I will try to riff on your name since we haven't screwed it up yet, Pauline. And I'll say this is the beginning of us trying to kibitz with Miss Kibitzis.
00:05:01
Brian O'Grady
think about that Thank you. And here's what we want to know because I admitted this to you in our pre-show. I'm a bit of a fan boy of this topic area and I may get a little excited.
00:05:01
Pauline Kabitsis
Yes.
00:05:14
Brian O'Grady
So let's, let's go right to something that might also get another B2B marketer excited. If our fans, B2B marketing fans are listening to this over a pint as they should be,
00:05:26
Brian O'Grady
And they're thinking, okay, guys, that's cute about the beers and the Canmore and stuff. But can someone tell me what's up with a behavioral science person with regards to marketing? I'm intrigued.
00:05:38
Brian O'Grady
But how the heck could I apply that in reality, take it from from theory to practice? Do you have a a gem or a tidbit that one of our B2B marketing audience members could walk into a boardroom next week and apply?
00:05:54
Pauline Kabitsis
Yeah, it's a great question because oftentimes when I enter a room and say I'm a behavioral scientist, people ask me if it's like a criminal minds thing and I'm analyzing their behavior and making making my assumptions. But that's not actually ah the type of behavioral science that I apply. ah Behavioral science that I practice is the study of human decision making, and it uses psychology to understand why people do the things that they do.
00:06:20
Pauline Kabitsis
And then behavioral design is the application of that knowledge. So we use the knowledge of psychology to actually design products and services that make a desired action easier for someone to take.
00:06:33
Pauline Kabitsis
um And the critical part here to really get right with behavioral design is that context really matters. So I know you said, you know, what is one thing that they could take into their boardroom next week?
00:06:44
Pauline Kabitsis
And I'm going to give you a bit of a long-winded answer and I promise it'll make sense at the end. But generally, when we think about marketing, um we try to think about you know reducing information overload, making our core message clear to our users, maybe using more colors to draw attention, less copy. and That's sort of like marketing 101. You're both kind of g nodding your heads. you know Don't put too much text on the page.
00:07:08
Pauline Kabitsis
Um, even though this is marketing one-on-one, by the way, I feel like I often see a lot of marketing materials that don't necessarily follow these very simple principles. Um, but we'll, we'll leave that we'll leave that to the side for now.
00:07:22
Pauline Kabitsis
Um, so let's say you work though in the marketing department for the government of Canada, for example, and you're trying to help Canadians register their businesses. Do you follow the same marketing principles is the question. You know, you're still marketer, you're just working in a different industry.
00:07:37
Pauline Kabitsis
um And this is a question actually that ah a researcher by the name of Elizabeth Linus asked at Harvard People Lab. And they sent basically Americans two types of direct mail campaigns. One looked very markety, so it had all of those principles, you know the bright colors, less copy, you know boxes and whatnot. um And then they sent other Americans ah direct mailers that looked kind of boring, you know black and white, pretty standard layout, more text heavy.
00:08:07
Pauline Kabitsis
And what they really wanted to see is which of these two actually leads to more people taking action. And so before I reveal the answer, do either of you have any guesses of which of these two got more people to sign their register their business? Go ahead, Brian.
00:08:26
Brian O'Grady
um
00:08:26
Pauline Kabitsis
Hand raised.
00:08:27
Brian O'Grady
Can you tell me more about the audience as a marketer? I would have to ask about the audience so I know how best to approach them.
00:08:32
Brendan Ziolo
Thank
00:08:34
Pauline Kabitsis
Yeah, so the audience is a ah business owner, small business owner in Canada, and they are looking to do something but to register their business.
00:08:45
Brian O'Grady
OK, then off the top of my head, i will say the less bling that doesn't make it feel like I'm being pitched will outperform in that example.
00:08:56
Pauline Kabitsis
it Perfect. Yeah. And so that is what they found. The like more traditional, boring, designed marketing. Yeah. you you Have your sip. You deserve it.
00:09:05
Brendan Ziolo
okay
00:09:06
Pauline Kabitsis
ah It caused 45% more people to actually take the action that they wanted them to take versus the like very markety heavy marketing.
00:09:06
Brian O'Grady
Thank
00:09:13
Pauline Kabitsis
example. um And I say this because they asked people to make predictions like I just asked you, Brian, I may have teed you up here because I was a little bit priming in my response. But when they asked marketers, which of these two forms do you think is going to be more effective?
00:09:28
Pauline Kabitsis
Eighty nine percent of people actually went with that more markety version. So most marketers did think, you know, let's apply all the same principles, less copy, bright colors and more people are going to um take action.
00:09:41
Pauline Kabitsis
And the reason the less design was actually more effective in this case is it because it aligned with what we say in behavioral science is a consumer's mental model. So we have a sense of like when I'm receiving information from the government, I generally have a sense of like what that information should look like.
00:09:57
Pauline Kabitsis
And if it doesn't match my mental model, if it's too designy, then I don't feel like it's true information.
00:10:03
Brendan Ziolo
Thank you.
00:10:03
Pauline Kabitsis
It kind of seems like a scam. So the formal elements sometimes can actually signal a level of authority and consequence that you need, particularly if you're a B2B marketer working for a company like an insurance company, for example, or a bank.
00:10:18
Pauline Kabitsis
um The type of marketing principles that you might apply there are going to look different than if you were, you know, B2B SaaS company marketing to your customers. And so I give
Contextual Marketing Strategies
00:10:28
Pauline Kabitsis
this example because it's a very long winded way of answering your question that there is no real magic bullet behavioral science principle that I can um give to listeners today that is going to reliably kind of move the needle on key metrics. um We always say in a field like this, the devil is really, really in the details.
00:10:47
Pauline Kabitsis
And so there's lots of principles we can draw from. and to know which of these principles is actually the one we should be taking, it really depends on, you know, the consumer, the the client, the context.
00:10:58
Pauline Kabitsis
So your question was absolutely straight on when you said, well, who's receiving it?
00:11:00
Brendan Ziolo
Thank you.
00:11:02
Pauline Kabitsis
Who's the the marketer and I would have to say I need way more information before I can give you a principle that will move the needle for you next week.
00:11:09
Brian O'Grady
That is awesome. And if I had gotten it wrong, we just would have killed this episode and restarted. But because I want our audience to respect our authenticity and our alleged authority, that's why I'm not using my radio voice for this podcast.
00:11:24
Brian O'Grady
Brendan, over to you.
00:11:28
Brendan Ziolo
So yeah, so great example, Pauline, and i like the context side of that, but I want to circle back to something else you said there, which was the...
00:11:39
Brendan Ziolo
ah overwhelming number of choices, number of words, number of colors, or whatever the case may be. And we see that all the time, even when the audience might be expecting or not expecting that.
00:11:55
Brendan Ziolo
So again, to put you a bit on the spot, you know, when it comes to whether it's dashboards or landing pages or emails or whatever the item is, and I know you said you always want a lot of context. So feel free to ask a follow on question here or ask me for some info. um But is there like a rule of thumb that you recommend people do when it comes to, you know, cutting down on the clutter? Like, how do you get to that less is more context that while it didn't work in your first example would work in other ones?
00:12:28
Pauline Kabitsis
who Yeah. And all'll I'll go by saying that the reason we call this overwhelming amount of information, information overload, and it's basically counter to, i think, what sometimes people like to believe, at least when I'm working with them, which is like, let's give everybody just all of the information. And if they are knowledgeable and they have all of the right information, then they'll make the most utility maximizing decision. You know, we'll make sure that they're armed with what they need. And as you both know, the reality of that is not necessarily true. We're trying to optimize our energy. We're not going to be reading all that information. And so if there's one kind of rule of thumb that I could give to marketers listening to this podcast, it would be,
00:13:11
Pauline Kabitsis
to take a pause before you design anything, whether it's a campaign, whether it's a dashboard, whether it's a landing page and ask yourself, what is the key behavior that I want to drive with this marketing asset?
00:13:25
Pauline Kabitsis
And when I say key behavior, I mean, what is it that you want users to do or customers to do when they look at the thing? um And that sounds really obvious, but I'll give you an example of ah something that we might use in our day to that doesn't necessarily take this into account. So ah when you're using YouTube, for example, pull up you know the YouTube homepage. If I were to ask you, like, what is the key behavior? What does YouTube want their customers to do? Most of the time i get a swath of responses. People say they want you to search. People say they want you to click a video on the homepage. People say they want you to like follow. Like it's very unclear what it is that they want you to do in the way that they've designed that homepage. And so you're not telling consumers, you're not telling businesses what is the next best action that they should be taking. You're leaving it up to them.
00:14:16
Pauline Kabitsis
Take that on the reverse and look at Netflix. Netflix is very, very articulate and clear about what key behavior they want their customers to take. In the first seven seconds of opening the app, they want their customers to watch something.
00:14:31
Pauline Kabitsis
um And so how does that impact or reflect in their designs of the app? Well, you see a really big top of fold trailer for a movie or a TV series that has been selected based on your algorithm to be highly likely that you will like.
00:14:48
Pauline Kabitsis
And it auto plays. So it gets you even more likely to then continue to watch it. And so I think the one thing you can really do to avoid the too many options, too much information overload is to first define what action you want people to take when they look at your dashboard or your landing page and then design around that. Make sure everything that you're putting on that landing page is driving toward that key behavior.
00:15:16
Brendan Ziolo
Yeah, that's awesome advice that I think every marketer forgets at one point and many marketers forget many times.
00:15:23
Pauline Kabitsis
Mm-hmm.
00:15:26
Brendan Ziolo
um And i've been in I've been in the room where there becomes a massive debate when you do try and find the one thing and you know you end up with five or 10 different answers and then the end result becomes...
00:15:36
Brendan Ziolo
Well, we can address all of these. And that's, I think, where you end up with it started cluttered, you met to simplify, and then you maybe even made it more cluttered in some examples.
00:15:41
Pauline Kabitsis
Mm-hmm.
00:15:48
Brendan Ziolo
So, yeah, that's a great reminder. And and now we can all point to behavioral science in this podcast when the debate arises next time.
00:15:58
Pauline Kabitsis
Mm-hmm. And it's funny, like if you're in a boardroom and you ask this question, it's like, if if you're confused as the designers of this product, like if multiple people in the room are saying different things, then like your user is for sure confused.
00:16:10
Pauline Kabitsis
Yeah.
00:16:11
Brendan Ziolo
yeah and i found it interesting when you gave youtube because i thought like when you asked the question i was like well let's watch a video but yeah you're right i guess there are multiple answers there but yeah netflix it's it's crystal clear and yeah i've noticed the the autoplay is sometimes annoying but it's it's definitely driving an action
00:16:31
Pauline Kabitsis
Mm-hmm.
00:16:33
Brian O'Grady
have my own
00:16:33
Brendan Ziolo
All right, Brian, ah why don't you queue up the next one? I think Pauline's doing too well here. We need to ask a tougher question, I think.
00:16:40
Brian O'Grady
little harder. I will.
00:16:41
Brendan Ziolo
Yeah.
00:16:41
Brian O'Grady
Thank you for that. I will riff on the previous with one. One augmentation. I hope it's an augmentation. One other thought. My theory on why that happens, what you folks just described, is that marketers work themselves out of the ability to understand their target audience because day in and day out, you're becoming more and more expert on your topic and you know too much.
00:17:07
Brian O'Grady
And then your audience, they don't care nearly as much about that topic as you do. They're coming, they're showing up to solve problem X. They're showing up to watch a video. They're not interested in all the other things you've learned about it in your three years on the job.
00:17:19
Brian O'Grady
And so in my experience, we as marketers have to be careful not to work ourselves out of being able to talk to our target audience effectively.
00:17:29
Pauline Kabitsis
again Yeah, I do. i think that I think that's probably why like behavioral science consulting, the industry I'm in exists. It's like a fresh set of eyes to look at. Like when when we work with marketers, you know,
00:17:43
Pauline Kabitsis
It's always, you always get the response of like, oh yeah, we know that. But it's like, oh, you didn't apply it because you've been so ingrained in in this ah like body of work, you know, your consumers so well, or you know your clients so well.
00:17:48
Brendan Ziolo
Thank you.
00:17:54
Pauline Kabitsis
um So sometimes you need that fresh set of eyes to say, hey, how do you, why are you actually doing this? Or why are you trying to target every audience segment here? Who's your you know main segment? And let's focus the design on that.
00:18:06
Brian O'Grady
Exactly. Okay, well, let's see how well the hottest industry right now is doing with
AI in Marketing: Potential and Limitations
00:18:11
Brian O'Grady
this you know topic, if they're applying these principles or these concepts, or they need to relearn them all over again, just because it's the hot new topic.
00:18:11
Pauline Kabitsis
Mm-hmm.
00:18:19
Brian O'Grady
We always like to include an AI question in our podcast, because it's hard to do marketing today without talking about it. But is it working from your perspective as a behavioral scientist?
00:18:29
Brendan Ziolo
Thank you.
00:18:29
Brian O'Grady
Are they getting it right? Are they getting it wrong? Do the tools address the principles that you work with every day? If they do, great, but if not, what should they be doing instead?
00:18:43
Pauline Kabitsis
her I think we're still very much in like a learning and growth phase with AI. And so they're not necessarily hitting the nail on the head yet with marketing tools. But I do think eventually it will transform the the way that we we will do marketing. And I'll give you an example. I saw a company recently who is actually tailoring landing pages based on ah consumers coming into the flow. but more tailored than simply, you know, geolocators or search terms.
00:19:13
Brendan Ziolo
Thank you.
00:19:17
Pauline Kabitsis
They're actually completely adjusting like the copy and the the imagery on the landing page using AI and using predictive analytics. So it's not there yet, but I think it's pretty cool that that's probably something that will be quite highly effective given how personalized it is once it starts being sharpened as a tool.
00:19:35
Pauline Kabitsis
I think right now, um I use AI in my work for marketing and I'll ask it to like do a diagnosis, which is basically, you know, look at the screen, look at the landing page or look at this direct mail or or look at this LinkedIn ad and and look at it from a psychological perspective and diagnose like what are some of the key elements that might be causing confusion for a user.
00:19:58
Brendan Ziolo
Thank you.
00:20:00
Pauline Kabitsis
And what it does is it just gives you too many things. It doesn't offer, a focus area. And so it makes it really hard to then design a solution because it's just telling you all of these things are of equal importance and it's giving you basically a long list of like biases and heuristics psychologically. um And I think that this is true. This is true in my line of work when we apply to marketing. I think this is also true when you just look at the way that marketers in organizations apply ai you know, they use it to create the first draft. The first draft is extremely long.
00:20:36
Pauline Kabitsis
Oftentimes it's perhaps not as pared down as you would like it to be or what it would be if you hadn't used AI. And it certainly doesn't have that one nugget or that one insight or the one thing that's really driving the campaign. It's really a collection of ideas. um And so, yeah, I think that that's where we're getting AI wrong right now. It's giving us too much information and we're having a hard time figuring out what information is highly relevant and going to move the needle and what information is sort of tangential or secondary to, to your goals.
00:21:12
Brian O'Grady
Yep, that jives with my experience with AI where i you ask a simple question, you get a two-page answer.
00:21:17
Pauline Kabitsis
And then it's creating more work for the recipients. Like you're, it's so easy to create something now that we're all just stuck in this phase of like way too much information. Whereas before it took us forever to create something, So we were way more thoughtful about how we spent our time and effort on the insights in our white paper, for example.
00:21:38
Brendan Ziolo
Right. So I have a follow on AI question. So, I mean, it's definitely becoming more prevalent in Mark. I mean, it's becoming more prevalent period, I guess is. is the simple point. But in marketing, in particular for this podcast, like, are there any human behaviors or he heuristics that you think marketers need to understand more of now and not less?
00:22:03
Brendan Ziolo
Or like, are there areas of behavioral science that you think really become more and more important as AI, like you said, develops the first draft or reviews and give suggestions or whatever the case like, what's the balance between AI and the human involvement, like from your perspective and your and your background?
00:22:25
Pauline Kabitsis
as a One way I've been thinking about using it recently is to go back to first principles a little bit. So I used to like prompt it with like a, you know, you're a behavioral scientist or you're a marketer and you are creating platform.
00:22:42
Pauline Kabitsis
ah Instagram ad for this company, and you want it to be um highly effective and include one CTA and whatnot.
00:22:52
Pauline Kabitsis
And I realized that it wasn't generating the type of recommendations that I as a behavioral scientist would actually recommend. And so i would go back to first principles and actually write down like, what are the key things i want to pull out in this ad. Why do I think people aren't actually clicking through? We know that people have limited attention. We know they're scrolling through.
00:23:17
Pauline Kabitsis
i know the CTA button is not a color that anyone's gonna notice, behind or in front of that imagery that they have on that Instagram ad. And so clearly sort of articulating out what it is that you want, what's the key behavior by yourself before you even touch an AI product and then using AI as a partner to then co-develop the and the the asset.
00:23:32
Brian O'Grady
or
00:23:40
Pauline Kabitsis
I think that is where you get the most power out of AI as opposed to relying on it to create a first draft and then working backwards because it's really hard to remove things.
00:23:52
Pauline Kabitsis
ah that we call that loss aversion, right? We feel losses to twice as much as we feel gains. We feel bad, you know, taking things out. um It's a lot easier to add things back in. And so start with like, what are the key questions? What's the behavior you're trying to drive? Why is it hard for people to do what you're trying to get them to do?
00:24:09
Pauline Kabitsis
How would you make it easier? Give that guidance and then see what AI comes back with and pare it down from there. I think one other thing um that kind of scares me about like the human element of AI is I've started to see um synthetic users come about in some of the like user research work.
Real vs Synthetic User Insights
00:24:31
Pauline Kabitsis
And basically the idea is that you would train an AI model on like your existing customer data. and then use those AI models to inform future designs of your marketing assets or your products. And so instead of ah interviewing a real user, you would actually like interview or ask for feedback from your synthetic AI user.
00:24:52
Pauline Kabitsis
And I think this is a really interesting, but slightly scary, notion because we are essentially trying to get human insights from non-humans.
00:24:57
Brendan Ziolo
Thank
00:25:03
Pauline Kabitsis
um So I will be very interested interested to see how that sort of area of AI develops, but I'm very skeptical about it right now, particularly as someone who like studies human behavior and the quirks of someone's behavior. I'm not entirely sure. you know we do say people are predictably irrational and you can predict oftentimes how they might behave, um but I don't know if a computer should be made your synthetic user when you're user testing new features or new products or new new campaigns, for example.
00:25:35
Brian O'Grady
Cool. Having just watched some of the alien series, I'm i'm quite fresh on my synthetic humans.
00:25:36
Brendan Ziolo
Thank
00:25:41
Brian O'Grady
But I guess, I mean, B2B marketers are pretty familiar with the concept of personas where in theory we define, well, this is Rhonda, she's left-handed, she's 45 and her concerns are this, and this is Bobby and Bobby's concerns are different. And we were used to using those personas.
00:25:57
Brian O'Grady
If they were able to actually make that work and get those personas behaving like Rhonda and Bob, that could be very cool. I it'll work or not.
00:26:06
Pauline Kabitsis
Yeah, I think that's why it's an interesting area to watch. And I don't i think personas are really helpful because they're like nice heuristics and models for for people to think about when they're creating their marketing campaigns, for example, or their assets. um But I don't want it to take away from like the human element of research, which is like capturing the unsaid things, capturing things in the subconscious that you might observe people do, but don't actually do. And this is actually one of the faults of a lot of market research agencies is that they'll ask people on an interview, like explicit, why why do you like this or whatnot?
00:26:41
Pauline Kabitsis
and And the classic response will be either to make the interviewer feel good or they'll report on something that they think they do, but they actually don't do. you know There's a lot of things like, Brian, you said you should have gone to get a beer.
00:26:54
Pauline Kabitsis
at a brewery and then you didn't, right? But in your mind, you were like, I would have done that. And you probably would have said, if I asked you before you went to Canmore, you probably would have said yeah I'm to stop off at a brewery to pick up a beer for this podcast.
00:27:05
Brendan Ziolo
you
00:27:06
Pauline Kabitsis
And so if I use that for my market research my research, and then that was used to inform whatever it was that I was making after, i would be i would be incorrect in my statement. And so it is really interesting to see how sometimes what people report is not necessarily how they behave in the real world. And I think if we start using synthetic users more for that type of research, we're going to get synthetic responses.
00:27:28
Brian O'Grady
Yeah, self-reporting versus reality. Not quite thing. I love it. Okay, well, let's get really
Adding Friction for Value Perception
00:27:34
Brian O'Grady
real. We've been in the theoretical for a bit here, which I love, but there might be some B2B marketers out there saying, hey, I'm stuck in a feature war with two killer competitors.
00:27:37
Brendan Ziolo
Thank you.
00:27:46
Brian O'Grady
What can I do? what can What can I use behavioral science to do? that's going to unlock some real engagement or some real revenue lift for my product or my service versus my competition, because they're not clever enough for my competition to listen to B2B marketing pipe, but I am.
00:28:04
Pauline Kabitsis
Yeah.
00:28:05
Brian O'Grady
I want to go away with this nugget of how, what am I going to apply if I'm one of these companies stuck in feature war? How do I, how do I get some more money or some more engagement tomorrow?
00:28:15
Pauline Kabitsis
So again, I'll caveat this recommendation with it. it It'll depend on your your context, your product. But I think a lot of the times when we're building out new features, we think about making them as effortless as possible to use.
00:28:29
Pauline Kabitsis
make it really, really easy. But actually, um we see a lot that sometimes adding a little bit of friction can go a long way in creating perceived value for your product.
00:28:39
Pauline Kabitsis
So for example, when ah Betty Crocker, the cake mix launched way back when, they initially launched with ah just the mix and the water.
00:28:40
Brian O'Grady
Yes.
00:28:50
Pauline Kabitsis
So super easy to make a cake. All you had to do is put water into the mix. um Nobody was using this or very few sales was very low for them. So they started asking around, why are people not using our Betty Crocker mix? And eventually they came to the realization that people just didn't feel like they were baking a cake.
00:29:10
Pauline Kabitsis
There wasn't enough effort in the mix to make them feel like the cake was something that they had created themselves. that they would serve at a birthday party or or to friends over dessert.
00:29:21
Pauline Kabitsis
And so all Betty Crocker did was add an egg to the mix. They said, okay, let's get the customer to do something. We're not going to create a lot of friction, but just a little bit of friction. We're going to get them to add an egg into the cake mix. And all of a sudden, you know, ah they saw sales go up. And I, I use this as a, as a metaphor for how we should be thinking about things, especially in the age of ai where AI can really make things feel really magical.
00:29:48
Pauline Kabitsis
and easy to use. And I would have you question whether or not you want to make it that that easy to use. We actually seen a lot of academic research that's coming out right now that having people invest a little bit of time into your AI model, whether it's the AI asking you a few questions before it gives the output, or whether it's the AI telling you the effort it's gone into create your output, goes a very long way.
00:30:13
Pauline Kabitsis
in getting customers to feel increased value in the product. And so, you know, when you're launching that new feature, I would ask yourself, you know, what is your egg?
00:30:24
Pauline Kabitsis
What is your egg in that feature launch?
00:30:27
Brian O'Grady
I love it. that's ah That's a great example.
00:30:29
Brendan Ziolo
Thank
00:30:29
Brian O'Grady
And it it triggers ah a memory for me from back in the Nortel Usability Lab days. I'm i'm dating myself here. I know of of a researcher who ended up putting a lead weight inside the handle of ah of a new desktop phone that was super tech because it's just plastic and wires.
00:30:46
Pauline Kabitsis
Mm-hmm.
00:30:47
Brian O'Grady
It didn't need any weight to do its thing, but the perceived value was not there. It's just a piece plastic. It's like a toy. So they put lead weights in the handles and all of a sudden it felt like a $3,000 desktop phone or whatever the price tag was.
00:30:59
Brendan Ziolo
Bye.
00:31:02
Brian O'Grady
So that's a great example. I never thought of adding friction. I do spend most of my days trying to remove friction from web experiences. So now I might try adding some back in. Great, great answer. Brendan, can you bring us home?
00:31:15
Brendan Ziolo
Well, first off, for the record, I'm sure I would have screwed up the Betty Crocker cake with mix and water. So I don't know if the egg is helping here.
00:31:22
Pauline Kabitsis
Mm-hmm.
00:31:25
Brendan Ziolo
um But it's good to know. And you'll be happy to hear Pauline after the one of the presentations I saw you give. I actually use the friction example because someone was like, you know Now, personally, I still think he may have too many steps and too much friction, but it was it was funny because he's like, what would you do? And I said, well, before last week, I would have said one step, one button, but, and we had a long conversation about it because he saw it as a way to maybe get better quality, right?
00:31:54
Brendan Ziolo
From the process, he's like, if someone's going to click, send me the send me the doc, or I think it was try the demo or whatever, right?
00:31:54
Pauline Kabitsis
Yep.
00:32:04
Brendan Ziolo
he was like, yeah, I get that. But he goes, is everyone just going to click that and they're not really interested? Whereas if we do, you know, make them ask, answer another question, then they're more qualified.
00:32:14
Brendan Ziolo
So next week, we, next week, we see the results of our, our tests.
00:32:16
Pauline Kabitsis
Yeah.
00:32:19
Brendan Ziolo
So we'll see, we'll we'll see how it plays out.
00:32:20
Pauline Kabitsis
Oh, you'll have to let me know.
00:32:23
Brendan Ziolo
I think we ended up doing a three and a two step process and we'll see who wins. And then we may do a one step just to have the baseline there for future reference.
00:32:33
Brendan Ziolo
Yeah.
00:32:33
Pauline Kabitsis
Good.
00:32:34
Brendan Ziolo
Yeah.
00:32:34
Pauline Kabitsis
Yeah. You'll have to let me know because like, even if you think about Noom, the weight loss, like if you've ever gone through their onboarding, the number of steps is absurd. it probably takes like 20 minutes. Um, but they do it on purpose because they want qualified. They want people who are actually interested in weight loss because if they're going claim that their weight loss product works, they need people who are highly motivated to stick to the plan that they develop. And so, you know, there's clever ways. Sometimes you actually want some, some more of that friction, especially depending on your goal.
00:33:02
Brian O'Grady
Cool.
00:33:03
Brendan Ziolo
Well, i know i know myself and I know Brian fairly well, and we could keep talking for hours. um Brian wouldn't make it to the ski hill, which would be bad, and we'd have to get more beer delivered and all that kind of fun stuff. So as has become our tradition, ah we're going to wrap it up with one final question for you, which is our myth-busting question.
B2B vs B2C Marketing Myths
00:33:27
Brendan Ziolo
So is there one, you know... widely held belief in B2B marketing, and I'm hoping we didn't steal it already with the friction discussion. So maybe another one ah that basically behavioral science has proven, you know, is completely wrong. So something that every B2B marketer says and You're just, you shake your head every time you hear it, you know, and it's like, why do they still do this?
00:33:53
Brendan Ziolo
So what's the myth you want to bust?
00:33:53
Pauline Kabitsis
yes
00:33:55
Brendan Ziolo
The floor is yours. it's your It's your time to tell them all to figure this out.
00:34:02
Pauline Kabitsis
So I thought long and hard because there are, i think one of the fun things about behavioral science is there's a lot of counterintuitive insights. um But i always hear a lot of the examples i give are B2C because we work a lot with B2C organizations. And um People always say, well, what about B2B? B2B is different. B2B marketing is so different from B2C.
00:34:26
Pauline Kabitsis
And I just want to bust that myth and tell you that it's not. And I'll tell you why. at the end of the day, who yeah are you selling to when you're selling B2B? You're not selling to the enterprise as a whole.
00:34:37
Brian O'Grady
these.
00:34:40
Brendan Ziolo
Yeah.
00:34:40
Pauline Kabitsis
You're selling to Dave, you know, the procurement officer who needs to make sure that, you know, he doesn't look bad in front of his organization, He made the right call. And so I would argue that a lot of the biases that ah apply and the heuristics that apply to B2C marketing are also quite applicable to B2B. There's obviously a little bit of variation there, right? Like B2B, might have less price sensitivity. um They might be more reliant on social proof because like they're more reactive to risk. But at at the end of the day, there's a lot of principles that we use in B2C marketing. When we think about consumer behavior, that is directly applicable to B2B because the end consumer is the human.
00:35:22
Pauline Kabitsis
The end buyer is the human.
00:35:25
Brian O'Grady
I can get behind that. That's a great, that's a great summary. They're all humans in the end. And one of the more, more recent marketing concepts I've bumped into, particularly with social selling is people don't buy from companies, people buy from people.
00:35:38
Brian O'Grady
And I think that's another way of expressing what you just shared there. And if you can keep that in mind, it's going to help improve a lot of user experiences, I think.
00:35:48
Pauline Kabitsis
Absolutely.
00:35:49
Brian O'Grady
Awesome.
Episode Conclusion
00:35:50
Brian O'Grady
Well, I don't want to do, I don't want do that.
00:35:50
Brendan Ziolo
All right, well on that, On that note and on that myth um that we'll all have to go back to the drawing board and re redo all our B2B is different messaging. um Thank you very much, Pauline. It was great to meet you since we met fairly recently and awesome that you were able to join us on the podcast. This is a fascinating topic. So,
00:36:14
Brendan Ziolo
Hopefully you you'll come back when we when we have more time and we can split that off. But really appreciate your time today and joining us and hope the beer met your expectations.
00:36:26
Pauline Kabitsis
It certainly did. Thank you for having me and thanks for for the extra Lone Pines, which I will most certainly enjoy over the very frosty weekend we have ahead of us.
00:36:37
Brendan Ziolo
All right, everyone, if you like this episode, if you have any questions, comments, ideas for future episodes, definitely leave us a comment and we look forward to more fascinating guests and topics in the weeks ahead.
00:36:50
Brendan Ziolo
Bye, everyone.
00:36:52
Brian O'Grady
Cheers, Pauline.
00:36:53
Pauline Kabitsis
Bye.