Using Behavioral Data in Subscriptions with Nancy Harhut of HBT Marketing

Budgets are tight and competition to get and keep subscribers has never been more fierce. But what if I told you that there was a way to nudge your prospects and subscribers to help them engage more deeply and rapidly? It’s possible.

Today’s guest, Nancy Harhut, has a wealth of easy and inexpensive tactics that can motivate your members to do the right thing at the right time. Nancy is the author of Using Behavioral Science in Marketing and Chief Creative Officer at HBT Marketing.

In this special live episode, which was recorded at the SubSummit conference in Dallas, Texas, you’ll learn how behavioral science can help you get more from your marketing spend, how to use tools like scarcity, social proof and choice architecture to acquire, engage, and retain your subscribers, and the role of emotion on motivating subscribers to act.

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Listen to the podcast here

Using Behavioral Data in Subscriptions with Nancy Harhut of HBT Marketing

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Robbie Baxter: Nancy, welcome to the Subscription Stories Podcast.

Nancy Harhut: Robbie, thank you so much. I’m really excited to be here.

Robbie Baxter: Yeah, this is a really fun recording cause we’re actually LIVE at the SubSummit in Dallas, Texas.

Nancy Harhut and Robbie Baxter at the SubSummit in Dallas, Texas

Nancy Harhut: I bet you that your listeners can feel the excitement and the vibe right now, I mean, it’s amazing!

Robbie Baxter: Yeah, it’s so much fun. You opened yesterday with a keynote talking about your book, Using Behavioral Science in Marketing. And I wanted to just open up by asking, what is behavioral science?

Using Behavioral Science in Marketing by Nancy Harhut

Nancy Harhut: That’s a good question, and I’m glad that you asked because, when people hear behavioral science, sometimes they think “Science” and their eyes roll back in their head, and other people think test tubes and lab coats. But really, Behavioral Science is simply the study of behavior. How people behave and more specifically how they make decisions, why they do what they do. And that’s what makes it so important for brands, for businesses, for marketers to understand. It turns out that people frequently make default decisions instead of making personal choices. They rely on these shortcuts for decision, and when marketers understand that, we can take advantage of it and increase the likelihood that customers will act in our targeted method.

Robbie Baxter: Yes, science sometimes seems overwhelming, but even for startup entrepreneurs, some of these findings from behavioral scientists can be applied with relative ease in their daily promotional activities.

Nancy Harhut: Absolutely, my philosophy is if you’re going to put a marketing message out there, a message out to try to attract members or subscribers, why not take an extra couple of beats and do it in a way that’s going to be optimized, those actions will increase the likelihood that the target market will follow those directions. And some of the Behavioral Science behind my recommendations is easily applicable. It’s changing one word over another, choosing to say things slightly differently. You’re conveying the same information, the way people perceive that information can determine, whether or not they say yes or they move on, therefore you want to increase the likelihood that they will say yes.

Behavioral Science is simply the study of behavior. How people behave and more specifically how they make decisions, why they do what they do. Share on X

Robbie Baxter: Yeah, I want to talk a little bit more about how you got into Behavioral Science. But before I do, I would love for you to share a couple of examples from yesterday’s talk about how subscriptions are using some tactics that you described in your book.

Nancy Harhut: Sure, when you think about it, how do we wanna get people to sign up? We want to maybe cross sell people. We want to retain people, The way we interact with them will determine whether or not they carry out these actions. One of the examples I shared yesterday was something that I myself received. It was a company that does wine by the mail, they wanted me to buy a bottle of wine. And of course, I like wine, so I’m like, “Ooh this looks good”. But, what they did is, they used a really interesting technique called The Endowment Effect. Because they told me that I had $15 credit in my account that would expire at 11:59 tomorrow, and that’s really very different than saying, “Hey we’re running a special, buy a bottle by 11:59 tomorrow and we’ll give you a $15 discount”. Yes, it is the same thing in mathematically. However, the fact that I already had the fifteen credits in my account gave me the impression that it was mine and that I was the owner.

That triggers something called The Endowment Effect which is basically this idea that we overvalue things that are ours. If there’s something we want to get, well, we value it that’s why we want to get it. But once it becomes ours, we place greater value on it. I thought that was just a brilliant application. It was like, “Hey here’s the $15 credits in your account, but it’s going to expire. And I went, Oh it’s my $15. I don’t want to lose it”. So I was way more likely to use it. Then if they simply sent an email and said it was a $15 discount but you have to use it by a certain date. I thought that was a really interesting example.

There was another example I showed that tapped into something called Availability Bias. It is the idea people are going to judge the likelihood of an event happening based on how easily they can recall a relevant example. We’re trying to get people to become our members, our subscribers. they’re going to judge the likelihood of an event. In our case, the event is their need for what we’re selling. Will I really need this? Would I be using it? They’re going to judge that based on how easily they can recall a relevant example. Before we ask them to buy we want them to consider a time in the past in which they would have said, “Oh, man, if I had only been a member then, or if I had only a member then, if only I subscribed then, it would have been so much better.” Or we get them to imagine a time in the future in which they could see themselves truly benefitting from it.

It turns out that people frequently make default decisions instead of making personal choices. They rely on these shortcuts for decision, and when marketers understand that, we can take advantage of it and increase the likelihood that customers will… Share on X

FabFitfun had a social post, which I thought was very funny. They were trying to sell a digital luggage scale. And they said they spun this scenario, you’re at the airport and your luggage is overweight, you’re frantically pulling pieces of clothing out of your suitcase and layering them on, that you look like the Michelin man as you’re walking through TSA.

Robbie Baxter: I’ve been that Michelin man, by the way.

Nancy Harhut: You either think of the time that did happen to you, or you think of the time you were at the airport and you saw somebody else doing it. Or you think of that time when you’re at the airport and they say, “Please put your suitcase on the scale” and you sweat a little and you’re like “Oh, I really hope it’s not overweight”. It just kind of brings you back there. And once you’re in that mindset, then they talk about their digital luggage scale and you’re like, “Hmm, probably a pretty good idea”. Whereas if they had just launched into it and said, Hey you should probably have a digital luggage scale before you go traveling next, you might say, “I don’t think I really need that,” but when they spin it with this idea of like oh my gosh there’s too much weight in your luggage, you’re pulling stuff out and you’re layering it on. It sets the stage or it lays the groundwork and it just makes people way more receptive to the message. Those were a couple of the examples that I shared yesterday and I think they’re really good examples of how brands and marketers for those brands can use Behavioral Science and it’s not that difficult. It’s just giving a little thought of your prospective customer’s mindset and asking, “Well, what might pave the way for my message?”

Robbie Baxter: I love it, What I noticed in those two examples that emotion is coming into play. You started by saying, don’t be afraid of science. It’s not all test tubes and metrics, when you give the examples, it really comes to life. This is about impacting people and making them feel things that drive them to take action, right? Logic makes us think and emotions makes us act.

How do you think about the role of emotions in building out a subscription marketing communications plan?

Nancy Harhut: Sure. You are spot on about emotion, a lot of times we think that if we just give people the right information, they’ll make the right decision, right? And sure, we do need to give them the right information. We need to talk about our product, our service, the particulars, the price and all of that has to be there. The truth of the matter is people make decisions for emotional reasons and tend to justify it with rational reasons. “Oh, the quality is good, the price was right”. But, before that happens, there’s an emotional response. We really need to think about what emotions we want to stoke in people, and some of them are obvious. Alright if you’re selling fashion, the joy of having some new clothes. The enjoyment there.

But there are other ways that we can hold in emotion. For example, people really like to feel safe and confident, and if we can make people feel that way about subscribing and becoming our member, that is going to be a very good thing to do. There’s the idea of reciprocity, when somebody does something for us, whether or not we asked for it. But when somebody gives us something, we feel this need to reciprocate, to somehow even the score, to repay the debt. When companies offer a little something in advance, it’s like a give-to-get idea. I may or may not have asked for it, but now that I have this free guide, free gift, or free sample, now I feel obliged to maybe make a purchase to even the score. This idea of feeling obligated can come into play.

Robbie Baxter: It’s so interesting. I just had an AHA! moment that’s why I do the podcast, so that I can learn from really smart guests. But I was thinking about free samples, and how you go to Costco and they have all the different free samples. They always knew that a free sample is a taste of something delicious so that you understand how good it is, and believe them, and then you buy it. But you’re bringing up this other piece that I think is equally important in this moment, which is somebody was standing there by the samples, and so if you’re offering me samples and I take one, I do feel an obligation now to do something for you, and the only thing I can do is buy it. So, I’d never thought of that, that there’s a reciprocity element that’s involved in free samples.

Nancy Harhut: I have a basement full of wine because I like to go to wine tastings. And you taste a few wines and then like “I can’t walk out without buying a bottle” And they were good, right? So you buy a bottle and it goes downstairs into the basement. And then I go next week to wine tasting. I’m not drinking them, now I’ve got all these bottles of wine down there, and I finally had to quit the wine tastings because of that very reason. They say, “Hey, it’s wine tasting you don’t have to buy” but exactly what you described happens. You’re standing there you’ve had a few sips of something and you feel like “I really should buy something” You nicely articulated the emotional and the rational, when you were talking about the free samples, It’s like “Well, I’m going to taste this to make sure that it’s as good as they say it is and to make sure I like it”. That’s very rational, right? But then the emotional part of it is, “Ooh, and now they just gave me something free and I should return the favor” It’s really very powerful and a lot of times people aren’t even aware of it. That’s another way that emotion comes into play. A third way is, that people like to feel special. We love to feel special, and if we can make our members and our customers, our prospects feel exclusive in some way, that’s a wonderful thing. If I think that I’m getting a special offer, because of who I am, maybe a group that I belong to, or because of some action that I took, I subscribed to your email or your newsletter or something. And as a result, I’m getting a special offer. I feel special, I feel like “Ooh” Or if I am given access to something or special perks that my friends and neighbors don’t yet have. I love that. That’s like psychological gold, right? It’s very motivating. People like to feel special, it’s another way where we can inject some emotion.

Robbie Baxter: Yeah, and that’s a great one here at the conference, because there’s a whole room full of vendors downstairs. I would imagine that if they had offers, learning from you right now in real-time and trying to think this through, if they had offers where they said, special offer for SubSummit attendees, good only until the end of SubSummit, that really puts some of your concepts into practice.

Nancy Harhut: Absolutely, I could start with, “Robbie, you are clearly a very successful business person and not everybody is”. Now you’re excited. That already works. Flattery will get you everywhere, then I can say “Because of the business you’re in, you could probably really use our services. I’ve got this special offer that only runs through the end of SubSummit and I’d like to offer it to you, and it’s going to give you this discount”, and you just package all those things in, then all of a sudden, I feel like I’ve been sought out and recognized, and I’m getting something special not everybody could get because I happen to be here. If I toss in a discount, a free sample, an upgrade, or something like that maybe even the reciprocity will kick in. You’re like, “Oh my gosh, not only did they give me this special, but they also added to it because we were chatting and I feel like I need to give him some business back.”

Robbie Baxter: I love this, it’s really interesting. This emotional piece is important, It’s really important. I think about subscriptions.

You have 17 tactics that you talk about in your book, Using Behavioral Science in Marketing, and that’s a lot. They apply in different situations and I’m wondering should you decide which ones to use based on based on channel? Like online versus in-person as we’ve discussed, or by industry like the wine industry versus let’s say professional services, like insurance. Or for the action you’re trying to do, acquisition versus engagement versus retention.

How should somebody think about these 17 different tactics?

Nancy Harhut: Yeah, that’s a great question, and there’s actually more than that. I have 17 chapters. I probably cover about 25 different tactics, and behavioral scientists have identified hundreds of them.

The question is which one do I use? That’s a great question. And it has less to do with the channel, because the truth of the matter is people are people, and we’re hardwired to rely on these decision-making shortcuts. Sometimes we’re aware of it, oftentimes we’re not. We just rely on them, and if I’m speaking with you face to face in a sales situation, if I’m emailing you, calling you, or sending you a direct mail postcard. It’s almost immaterial, it’s like channel agnostic that reciprocity is going to work, scarcity is going to work, or exclusivity – people are just people. They’re going to respond, and there are maybe certain tactics that you might want to pull out based on what you’re selling. But really it depends on the challenge in front of you.

The way we look at it is, a lot of times we think, “Why should people do what I want them to do? Why should they subscribe? Why should they become a member?” And that’s great, we need to ask that. But the other question that often isn’t asked, that needs to be is, “And why might they not?” So here’s all the reasons somebody should do something which is great, we need to have that. But we also need to think, “Why wouldn’t they?” And now that I start to think about why they might not want to do something, that’s what starts to open the window to, “Now which of these behavioral science tactics should I use?” I’ve got this great subscription service, people should sign up, they’d really enjoy it, I’ve targeted this properly. Why might they not? I mean, I know that they would be, they’d be a good market for it and I know I have a good product, but maybe they won’t because they don’t know who I am. So if that’s the case, I might want to look at a few different behavioral science principles. I might want to look at social proof. And social proof is the idea that when people aren’t certain of what to do, they look to other people, particularly people like themselves, and they follow their lead.

So if I’m like, alright, I’ve never heard of you and your subscription, but I’m reading these testimonials, for example, of all these people that seem a lot like me who have already subscribed. They’re happy. I guess I will. Or another way we could look at things is we could look at The Authority Principle. “I don’t know you, I’ve never heard of you. But you’ve been endorsed by the American Dental Association, or you’ve been endorsed by Good Housekeeping,or you’ve been featured on NBC or Shark Tank. Well alright, It must be good because Shark Tank, NBC, Good Housekeeping, and The American Dental Association wouldn’t be saying that you’re good unless you were”, we look at it that way.

The Authority Principle: Reading testimonials from other customers and endorsements from reputable sources builds trust and influences a customer’s decision.

But then again, Why would you say no considering this? We might say, the reason people might not want to is they think I’m too expensive. Well, in that case, we might look at other behavioral science principles, right? We might want to look at how we describe price. There’s something called the Magnitude Encoding Process. And basically what that means is the the amount of physical space that a price takes up suggests to people how big or small the actual price is.

Social proof is the idea that when people aren't certain of what to do, they look to other people, particularly people like themselves, and they follow their lead. Share on X

For example, if something is $100. You could write that as “$100.00”. That’s $100, right? Or, you could write it a, “$100”. That’s also $100. The first one takes up more physical space. The second one takes up less. The way the human brain works, the second one just feels smaller, because it takes up less space. So, we could think about how we want to express our prices, where on the page or screen we want them. The $100 in the upper left seems like a higher price than that same $100 in the lower left, because it’s lower on the page or lower on the screen.

The other thing we can do is we can anchor it to something else. And we’ve all heard the “cheaper than a cup of coffee.” In fact, I used that yesterday in one of my presentations. But the reason that works is we all know what a cup of coffee costs. We don’t know what this new subscription, this new box of the month, this new membership should cost. We have no idea but if we peg it too well like it’s a cup of coffee a day. So the real way to use these principles is to think about why somebody might hesitate? What might be holding them back? And then where can we leverage a behavioral science principle to overcome that barrier and make people feel like, “Yeah, I’m going to go for this”.

We’ve all heard ‘cheaper than a cup of coffee’ because we know its cost, unlike a new subscription, making it a familiar anchor to overcome hesitation and leverage behavioral science principles.

Robbie Baxter: There are many entrepreneurs at SubSummit, many of them with nascent businesses and just getting started. Would you advise them to make a list of all of the different tactics that you have in your book, and then think about the problem, then go through them and say which ones of these might work the best? Take a little bit of time to put together the template or maybe you already have that. And then they would just go through it, let’s say, an hour to sort of talk it through, or maybe a little longer with their colleagues. But is that kind of the approach that you would recommend?

Nancy Harhut: That could be a good way, we have a small agency and we’re so familiar with that. We kind of have them memorized, but that’s basically the process we go through, what do we want somebody to do? Why might they not do it? What’s the best way to overcome that?

I’ve talked to people who have read my book, and they have sticky notes all over the book and every time they read something that they think might apply to them in their particular business, they just put a sticky note there or they highlight it. I’ve spoken to a couple of people who said they created their own little flashcards, other people have put together exactly what you say, just a list. The book itself at the end of every chapter just has a quick recap, takeaways, and bullet points on how to use it . So even that would be easy enough.

The critical thing is trying to figure out why somebody isn’t going to want to do what you want them to do. Now that said, would you use different tactics perhaps if you’re trying to acquire someone versus retain them? Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. I mean, we talked about social proof and testimonials. You can use those for acquisition. You could also use them for retention just to keep reminding people that they made a good decision.

Robbie Baxter: I just thought of an example, because I was thinking the same thing that social proof is for acquisition when you were giving that example. But I was thinking about our water utility. I live in California. Water utility tells you how much water you use compared to your neighbors. And that also is working for driving behavior change, right? That I’m going to be like, “Oh I probably should get those timers.” I should get the timers installed because then I can use my water in the morning when it’s less likely to evaporate and I would use less. There’s social proof and there’s also sort of social pressure.

Nancy Harhut: I’m from Massachusetts and we have something similar with the electric utilities. And the interesting story behind that is they would send out these periodic mailings that said, “Here’s how much you’re using. Here’s what your most efficient neighbors are using. And here’s what the average person is using.” And you obviously wanted to be in that very efficient phase. And when they first were doing it, what was happening is that if you were using very little, and most people were using more, the people who were using very little actually started to use more.

Robbie Baxter: “I’m the only one that’s conserving.”

Nancy Harhut: From a social marketing perspective, it was a backfire. It was a social proof backfire because other people are using more and I’m not, I guess I should use more. So then what they did is they put a smiley face next to the people using very little and that reversed it. Then suddenly people who were using less saw the smiley face and they were like, “I’m good” and it didn’t prompt them to use more, but you’re absolutely right, social proof, social norms, we’re not really sure, I don’t know how much water should I be using, how much electricity should I be using, and then you get this report and you’re like, “Oh, okay, good.”

Social proof can be, it can be powerful. The other thing about social proof i a lot of times we want those five stars review, and I’m no different. If you read my book, give me a five-star review, I’d be very happy if you do. But, there’s research that says the optimum number is actually 4.2 to 4.7 This research came out of Northwestern University and the reason that that is ideal is if you have nothing but five star reviews, it’s suspicious. And people are like, what’s going on here? But 4.7 is like you can’t please everybody, but it looks like the majority of the people are happy, right?

The same thing with testimonials. We all look for that glowing testimonial. Nancy’s the best thing since sliced bread. It’s like, I want to use that. But what you really want in a testimonial is if you can find one of your members or your subscribers who starts at that place of skepticism, who says, “I wasn’t really sure that, you know, this was going to work for me. I wasn’t really sure this was going to be worth the price. I thought to myself, is this going to be any bit better than this other one I’ve been using? But then I tried it, and wow, I absolutely love it.” That is so much better of a testimonial because you’re starting at that point of skepticism, which is basically where your prospect is.

If you had already convinced them, they wouldn’t be reading those testimonials. There’s something in the back of their mind that’s holding them back. And if you can find a testimonial where someone is acknowledging it, someone like me had that same hesitation, they kind of rolled the dice and gave it a try, and they were pleased. It makes me feel like I should do the same thing.

Robbie Baxter: Yeah, and back to your original point about the tools you’re going to use, you want to start by understanding what is the hesitancy, or what is the problem that’s going to prevent them from doing the behavior you want them to do. If you know what those are, here are all the reasons somebody, for example, won’t subscribe if you’re thinking about the social proof, you might actually want to have at least one social proof point that ties back to each hesitancy. Too expensive, don’t believe it works, think that the thing I already have will solve the problem well enough. Why do I need one more hair product, for example. That would be a very good way to just systematically kind of shore up all the weaknesses, all the potential leaks in your bucket.

Nancy Harhut: Absolutely, you start to make that list and a lot of times at my agency, we look for the primary barrier and the secondary barrier.

The number one reason someone might not want to do what you want them to do, and then the secondary is we figure if we can attack those two, we’re in a good place. And if you’re talking about having that list of testimonials and having a testimonial that kind of addresses each of those points. This group of people is hesitant for this reason, here’s what testimonial I’m going to use. If this group of people is hesitant for this reason, here’s what I’m going to use. Maybe in some cases, you’ve got an established customer base, but then you’re maybe moving to a new area and those people haven’t heard of you so they’re going to require different messaging than the established base because they’ve already heard of you. So it’s thinking about, why they might not do what you want them to do. And then maybe putting together that list and you just swap in things.

Robbie Baxter: I can start to see all the tactics and how to put them into effect. We focus mostly on acquisition strategies. I would love to dig in a little bit on how you can use these same principles for engagement, retention, and then expansion of the relationship, or upsell or cross sell. Because those are things I think that are really important in the world of subscriptions. Sometimes acquisitions is the easiest part and keeping that subscriber around is the tricky place.

Nancy Harhut: Sure. I recently read a case study about Adobe and it has a suite of products that you subscribe to. So this is more of a B2B plan but it has to do with retention. What was happening is they increased their prices a little bit and, so they saw a bit of an uptick in people calling to cancel, to unsubscribe, right?

What do you tell people on the phone when someone calls to unsubscribe? “Oh, why are you unsubscribing? Why do you want to cancel your membership?” Because we want to find out. Because we think, if there’s a problem, maybe we can fix it or we can address it in the future. And it’s just always good to know why people are leaving. But they decided to flip the script. And instead, they ask people, why did you originally subscribe? So you’re calling to say you want to unsubscribe. And I say, “Okay, I understand. You can tell me why you subscribed in the first place.” And what that did is it reminded people of all the value that they were getting from the service. It got them just under a 9% save rate, which is pretty good, right? I mean, it was 8.8 or so. Maybe they stepped them down to a different plan or something but it managed to keep the customer as opposed to letting them go. So asking people why did you originally come to us instead of why do you want to leave? That could be an interesting tactic and good way to retain. Before

Robbie Baxter: I want to ask you because Adobe is in the press media today because yesterday the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued them for making it really hard to cancel.

Nancy Harhut: That is interesting.

Robbie Baxter: It sounds like, what you just described to me are not the issues that were mentioned in the lawsuit. But it brings me to a question that was on my mind about ethics.

If you are using tools to drive behavior the way you want, it implies that it might not be the behavior that the customer would have exhibited without your nudge or your push. As the FTC says, tricking and trapping people into subscribing, are these ethical thoughtful ways of helping people to understand the value they’re going to get, making it less abstract, making it more resonant with their own goals and challenges.

So how do you think about that? Where is the ethical line in this kind of powerful set of tools?

Nancy Harhut: That’s a great question and it’s one that a lot of behavioral scientists talk about. I would like to think that your listening audience is ethical, responsible, honest people. I’d like to think that my customers are the same, my clients are the same. And it’s like the word is always, use this responsibly. Don’t misuse it just like any other tactic or tool in your toolbox.

Ethical practices in behavioral science are crucial. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Always ensure your actions are truthful.

When email first came out, people would spam people. Now, a lot of us are a lot better about that. We don’t do it. There are still some bad players who do but we just know you shouldn’t be spamming people. It’s the same thing with this behavioral science. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. You should do it when it’s truthful.

Don’t tell me there are only five left when you have a whole storeroom of them. But if you only have five left, well for goodness sake do tell me because I might want one of those. So it’s a question of user intent really, you know, brand or, or marketer intent. You want to be honest and ethical. You want to be responsible. You want to use these for good. And when you put a marketing message out there, whether it’s acquisition or retention or cross-sell, some people are going to be like, yes I want to subscribe, or yes I want to upgrade, this is perfect, it couldn’t have come at a better time.

And then there’s going to be another group that’s going to say, no way, I would never do this, I’m not interested, or if I were to do it, I would only do it with this other company, this isn’t going to happen.

Then there’s that great section in the middle, and those people could say yes but they’re busy and their attention is fractured and they’re distracted. And in order for them to say yes, you first have to capture their attention. You have to make sure that they understand your message. You have to remember that you make sure that they retain it and you have to make it easy for them to respond to it. And if you fail in any of those four places, you’re going to lose them. But your competitor who maybe does succeed in one of those four places will get them. There’s a good chance they’re going to go somewhere. It’s just a question of where.

And that’s when we carry out our messages, we want to think about adding some behavioral science. Because the behavioral science tactics will make it more likely that someone will notice your message, understand it, remember it, and respond to it but do it ethically. Do it honestly. Do it responsibly. Don’t do anything you wouldn’t do to your best friend or your mom.

Robbie Baxter: Yeah, there’s a fabulous book and it’s called, Would You Do That to Your Mother? It’s about marketing ethics, which I love.

We’re coming kind of to the end of, um, of our conversation and it’s been fascinating and as I’ve said before, I’ve got a lot out of this.

What would you say is the most important takeaway for subscription pros? If there’s one thing that they start doing or stop doing as a result of this podcast, what would that be?

Nancy Harhut: I think if, if you had to boil it down to one thing, it would be just keep in mind that people don’t make decisions the way we think they do. We often think if I get the right message to the right person at the right time, I’m going to get the right result. I just have to get the right information in someone’s hands. And what we have to remember is very often there are other factors at play that influence people’s decisions. And they may not even be aware of them, but they do play a role. And when we keep that at the top of our minds, it will remind us to add some behavioral science, to think about how we want to phrase something, to choose that right testimonial, before you send out a message, know why someone should do this, but let also make sure you’ve added in the reasons that will address the barriers to why they might not want to do this. Remember that people make decisions not the way we think they do. They need a little bit more information, a little bit more of a nudge, or a prompt that will, that will go a long way to increase the likelihood we get those subscribers. We get the retention, we get the cross sell, we get the loyalty that we’re looking for.

Keep in mind that people don't make decisions the way we think they do. Share on X

Robbie Baxter: Step back before you dive in with your communication strategy and consider some of these principles.

Are you up for doing a speed round?

Nancy Harhut: I just broke out in a sweat, but yes, I’ll give it a try.

Robbie Baxter: Okay, first subscription you ever had?

Nancy Harhut: I think it might have been like American Girl magazine, or maybe before that, Highlights, which my parents got for me. I loved Highlights.

Robbie Baxter: Favorite subscription you’re using right now?

Nancy Harhut: Hootsuite for scheduling social media.

Robbie Baxter: Favorite personal subscription?

Nancy Harhut: Psychology Today.

Robbie Baxter: Awesome. The bottle of wine that you bought with your $15 credit?

Nancy Harhut: It was red, I can tell you that much. It was probably a Cabernet.

Robbie Baxter: The last email you received that made you take action?

Nancy Harhut: My business partner sent me a piece of copy I had to review.

Robbie Baxter: A book that you’re reading right now?

Nancy Harhut: The book that I’m reading right now is The Truth About Pricing by Melina Palmer.

Robbie Baxter: Awesome. Nancy Harhut, thank you so much for being a guest on Subscription Stories.

Nancy Harhut: Thank you so much for having me, Robbie. I really enjoyed this.

—

That was Nancy Harhut, author of Using Behavioral Science in Marketing and Chief Creative Officer at HBT Marketing. For more about Nancy and about HBT marketing, go to www.hbtmktg.com. And for more about Subscription Stories as well as a transcript of my conversation with Nancy, go to RobbieKellmanBaxter.com/podcast.

Also, I’ve got a favor to ask. If you like what you heard, please take a minute to go over to Apple Podcasts or Apple iTunes and leave a review. Mention Nancy in this episode, if you especially enjoyed it. Reviews are how listeners find our podcast and we appreciate each one. Thanks for your support and thanks for listening to Subscription Stories.

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About Nancy Harhut

Getting people to take action is what Nancy Harhut is all about. Her specialty is blending best-of-breed creative with decision science to prompt response.

Her book, Using Behavioral Science in Marketing shows how to apply behavioral science principles in key areas of marketing, including marketing communications, email, direct mail and ad campaigns, social media marketing and sales funnel conversion strategies

A frequent speaker at industry conferences, Nancy’s shared her passion with audiences in London, Sydney, Moscow, Madrid, Stockholm, Sao Paulo, Berlin, and all over the US, including SXSW.

Along the way, she’s been named Online Marketing Institute Top 40 Digital Strategist, Ad Club Top 100 Creative Influencer, and Social Top 50 Email Marketing Leader.

Prior to cofounding HBT Marketing, Nancy held senior creative management positions with Hill Holliday, Mullen and Digitas. She and her teams have won over 175 awards for digital and direct marketing effectiveness.

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Using Behavioral Data in Subscriptions with Nancy Harhut of HBT Marketing

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Using Behavioral Data in Subscriptions with Nancy Harhut of HBT Marketing

Important Links

About Nancy Harhut

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