Reflexity

If you seek ways to improve your online marketing campaigns but have run out of ideas, look towards behavioral science for inspiration. Behavioral science is a discipline that collects and studies data on how people react when faced with a decision and how decisions, such as those made by peers and governments, influence individuals. Freakonomics and Predictably Irrational are two books on this subject which present interesting and easy-to-read examples of societal reactions to various circumstances, with outcomes that will surprise you.

One interesting example from Predictably Irrational is an experiment based on the price of drugs and people’s perceived effectiveness of the drug. The author and his fellow scientists found that when people were given a ‘new’ pain-killer, which they were told was very cheap, their perception of the pain-relief it provided was less than when they were given a drug (the exact same drug) which they were led to believe was very expensive. The test subjects responded that they experienced greater pain-relief when given a drug that was perceived to be more expensive.

If people find they obtain better pain-relief results from a pricier drug, should we therefore aim to keep the health care system as expensive as possible, thus providing society a perception, and indeed a very real feeling of ‘better’ health care?

These are interesting thoughts for the Obama Administration to ponder while formulating social security and health care programs. That being said, France and other European nations’ health care systems are cheaper and more effective than that of the United States.

So what will analytics be able to tell you if you change your price, incentives, imagery and viewer access to reviews? Let behavioral experts shed light on your site’s visitor behaviour and be inspired to test your site according to the interesting insights provided on the human decision processes.

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