Marketing to Mindstates

1. Understanding the Nonconscious Mind: The Key to Effective Marketing

We are not rational beings influenced by emotion. Instead, we are emotional beings who hope to rationalize our behaviors after we make them.

The power of the nonconscious. Our brains make over 35,000 decisions daily, with the vast majority processed nonconsciously. This System 1 thinking is fast, automatic, and heavily influenced by emotions and context. In contrast, System 2 thinking is slow, logical, and requires effort. Marketers must tap into System 1 to create effective campaigns that resonate with consumers on a deeper level.

Breaking through the filter. In today's VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous) world, consumers are bombarded with thousands of marketing messages daily. To stand out, marketers must understand and leverage the nonconscious factors that drive human behavior. This approach allows brands to create messaging that feels natural and intuitive to consumers, increasing the likelihood of engagement and action.

2. The Four Factors of the Mindstate Behavioral Model

When you integrate all four factors from the Mindstate Behavioral Model into your messaging and creative, it will directly tap into your consumers' nonconscious.

The Mindstate Behavioral Model. This framework consists of four key factors that influence consumer behavior:

1. Goals: What consumers want to achieve
2. Motivations: The emotional drivers behind their goals
3. Regulatory approach: How they pursue their goals (promotion vs. prevention focus)
4. Cognitive heuristics: Mental shortcuts used in decision-making

Integrated approach. By understanding and incorporating these four factors into marketing strategies, brands can create more effective and persuasive messaging. This model provides a scientific basis for designing campaigns that resonate with consumers on a deeper, nonconscious level, leading to increased engagement and sales.

3. Activating Goals: The Foundation of Consumer Behavior

Goals provide a target for our decisions and actions to move toward and direction for our daily lives. When we act, it's always to move closer to a goal.

Understanding consumer goals. Goals can be functional (e.g., saving money) or higher-order (e.g., feeling like a good parent). Marketers should focus on identifying and activating higher-order goals, as these create stronger emotional connections with consumers.

Research techniques. To uncover consumers' goals, use methods such as:

• In-context research (observing behavior in natural settings)
• Storytelling and fill-in-the-blank exercises
• Projective techniques (e.g., image sorting, collage building)
• Deprivation exercises

By understanding both functional and higher-order goals, marketers can create messaging that resonates more deeply with consumers and drives action.

4. Priming Motivations: The Emotional Engine of Decision-Making

Motivations drive people at a deep emotional level. Understanding people's true motivations will help you shift people from intending to act into actually acting.

The nine core motivations. These universal drivers of human behavior are:

1. Achievement
2. Autonomy
3. Belonging
4. Competence
5. Empowerment
6. Engagement
7. Esteem
8. Nurturance
9. Security

Identifying and leveraging motivations. To uncover consumers' primary motivations, use techniques such as:

• Image sorting exercises
• Storytelling
• Role-playing scenarios

By aligning marketing messages with consumers' core motivations, brands can create stronger emotional connections and increase the likelihood of action.

5. Framing Choices: Aligning with Consumers' Regulatory Focus

When you connect with their higher-order goals, you can evoke a lot of emotion in consumers.

Regulatory focus theory. This concept explains how people approach goals:

• Promotion focus: Seeking positive outcomes and maximizing gains
• Prevention focus: Avoiding negative outcomes and minimizing losses

Framing strategies. Align your messaging with consumers' regulatory focus:

• Promotion focus: Emphasize benefits, growth, and opportunities
• Prevention focus: Highlight safety, security, and risk avoidance

By framing choices in a way that matches consumers' natural regulatory focus, marketers can make their messages feel more intuitive and compelling.

6. Triggering Behavior: Leveraging Cognitive Heuristics

Cognitive heuristics completes the fourth stage of the Mindstate Behavioral Model. So far, we've learned how to activate a consumer's goal, we've primed his motivation, and we've framed his choice in a way that matches his regulatory fit and focus. At this point, we should have created a psychological hot state in our customer and he wants to act.

Understanding heuristics. Cognitive heuristics are mental shortcuts that people use to make decisions quickly and easily. Some common heuristics include:

• Scarcity effect
• Social proof
• Anchoring
• Loss aversion
• Availability bias

Applying heuristics in marketing. By incorporating relevant heuristics into marketing messages, brands can:

• Make decision-making feel more natural and intuitive
• Reduce cognitive effort required from consumers
• Increase the likelihood of immediate action

Identify the key heuristics used by your target audience and incorporate them into your messaging to trigger desired behaviors.

7. The Eighteen Mindstates: A Framework for Targeted Marketing

A mindstate is a temporary state of mind when a person shifts from rational to emotionally intuitive decision making.

Understanding mindstates. The eighteen mindstates are created by combining the nine core motivations with the two regulatory approaches (promotion and prevention). Examples include:

• Optimistic Achievement
• Cautious Belonging
• Optimistic Nurturance
• Cautious Security

Mindstate profiles. Each mindstate has a unique profile that includes:

• Characteristics and desires
• Goals to activate
• Motivations to prime
• Approach to frame
• Triggers to consider
• Feelings to evoke

By identifying the relevant mindstates for their target audience, marketers can create more targeted and effective messaging that resonates on a deeper level.

8. Applying the Mindstate Behavioral Model to Real-World Marketing

Your job as a marketer is to use messaging and experiences to increase your consumer's emotional arousal, and you need to do that. But most importantly, you need to engage them in a way that triggers an actual behavior.

Implementation process:

1. Conduct research to identify consumer goals, motivations, and regulatory focus
2. Determine the relevant mindstate(s) for your target audience
3. Use the mindstate profile to guide creative development
4. Incorporate relevant heuristics to trigger desired behaviors
5. Test and refine messaging based on behavioral outcomes

Balancing art and science. While the Mindstate Behavioral Model provides a scientific framework, it's essential to maintain creativity and brand identity. Use the model as a guide to refine and enhance your marketing efforts, rather than as a rigid formula.

By integrating behavioral science into marketing strategies, brands can create more effective, emotionally engaging campaigns that drive real business results.

Last updated: August 10, 2024