Availability Heuristic

Availability Heuristic

Imagine this …

You just finished reading a business book that drove home the point that meetings are a very inefficient use of time and should be used sparingly.

The next day you’re in your weekly planning meeting with company leadership. They go around the table asking each decision-maker for a recommendation for how to improve the team’s productivity.

When asked to share your thoughts on how to improve the company, what do you say?

In today’s edition of?Why We Buy, we’re taking a look at?Availability Heuristic—why we use recent information when making decisions about the future.

Let’s get into it.


THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE AVAILABILITY HEURISTIC ??

Our brains are kinda lazy. They’re constantly trying to create mental shortcuts to access information more effectively.

There are two things that affect the strength of those shortcuts:

  1. Recency
  2. Frequency

That’s why the ideas from the book you read last week or the story on the news this morning are the first thing to come to mind when asked for ideas.


No alt text provided for this image



What do the world’s smartest marketers have in common? They understand buyer psychology.

Join 44,900 smart marketers from companies like Apple, Spotify, and AdWeek who read Why We Buy weekly.

Subscribe and you’ll get our buyer psychology cheatsheet for $0.



INSIDE YOUR BUYER’S MIND ??

What did you have for lunch on Sunday??

Hard to recall, right? That’s because it’s neither recent nor frequent.

Remember this when designing your marketing strategy.?Your buyer is just as overwhelmed with information as you are.?You’ll need to remind them a few times before they’ll be able to recall what you told them.?

Repeating the same message might feel repetitive to you, but trust me—your audience isn’t paying nearly as much attention to you as you may think they are.?


HOW TO APPLY THIS ??

Alright, so how can we apply this right now to sell more?

Create artificial recency

Right before you launch something new, start putting out content relating to, but not directly about that product. For example, if you’re releasing a product that makes email easier, start creating content about how stressful email is. When you finally go live, the recency of that pain point will still be fresh in their mind.

Repeat your key ideas

Repeating your key differentiators over and over again might feel obnoxious to you, but your buyers won’t even notice. By increasing the frequency of only a few key ideas, you’ll make it easier for your buyer to recall selling points when asked about your product.?

Recognize your own cognitive bias

When making decisions, are you referring to information that you’re seeing every day on Twitter and LinkedIn? If you are, remember to take a step back and look for sources of truth: your customers, employees, and partners.?Make a practice of talking to your customers?to improve the information at your disposal.


THE SHORT OF IT ??

The best marketers use behavioral psychology to their advantage.

Wanna up your marketing game? For the next 72 hours if you sign up for my Why We Buy newsletter?you’ll also get a FREE copy of my Buyer Psychology Cheatsheet.

Subscribe here (the next geeky buyer psychology topic will hit your inbox on Tuesday!).

Ferdous Al Hasan

Copywriter | Website UI Designer | Founder Of Fo&Design

6 个月

Although I know about the Availability Heuristic, but I couldn't properly apply it. Thanks! it's really very useful for me ??

回复
Parves Shahid

Product Leader. Curious about everything at mangofries.com

1 年

Super interesting. Similar to how you guys launched Unignorable.

回复
Ramana Murthy H. V.

Business Excellence Analyst — Help Business Transformation through deploying PLUMBLINE Framework building Sustainable, Evolutionary, Visionary and Agile (SEVA) Business Models

1 年

Thanks for sharing nice insights on Availability heuristic! Would it help to highlight cognitive biases of prospects while addressing Pain points using Recency to reflect untold pains?

回复
Sandeep Ankin

CMU Spring'24 | Product @CTTEC | Founder @Actufy | An Engineer Who Knows How To Build a Business Around a Product

1 年

I actually remember it. I eat the same lunch every day lol. Just rice and curry. Great way to describe availability heuristic though. We give great importance to information in our hand. This doesn't allow us to look at the big picture.

回复
Joe Portsmouth

Building dynastypulse.com ?? Your bulleted executive summary for fantasy football.

1 年

What a great insight. Repeat those key messages!

回复

要查看或添加评论,请登录

Katelyn Bourgoin ??的更多文章

  • Action Bias

    Action Bias

    Imagine this… Today is the day. After months of hard work, you’re about to release your latest product.

    27 条评论
  • Regret Aversion

    Regret Aversion

    Imagine this… It’s been a long, stressful day. You finish up work, close your laptop, and hop in your car to head home.

    37 条评论
  • Labour Illusion

    Labour Illusion

    Imagine this… You’re driving home after a weekend camping with friends. It’s Sunday night and you’ve got a busy week…

    42 条评论
  • Belief Bias

    Belief Bias

    Imagine this… You want to reduce your caffeine intake. Rather than quit caffeine cold turkey, you decide to swap out…

    33 条评论
  • System 1 and 2 Thinking

    System 1 and 2 Thinking

    Imagine this … You’re on the way home from work when you remember that you’re out of shampoo. You take a quick detour…

    39 条评论
  • Pain of Paying

    Pain of Paying

    Imagine this… You’re ready for a vacation. The past few years have left you a bit frazzled, and you know it’s time for…

    33 条评论
  • Motivating Uncertainty Effect

    Motivating Uncertainty Effect

    Imagine this… It’s Monday morning. You yawn open your laptop to check your email.

    30 条评论
  • Loss Aversion

    Loss Aversion

    Imagine this… It’s the start of the month, so it’s time to catch up on finances. As usual, you’re looking through your…

    17 条评论
  • Negativity Bias

    Negativity Bias

    Imagine this… It’s almost the end of the year which means, yep, it’s that time. You’re prepping for your Cyber Monday…

    44 条评论
  • Liquor and Guessing: A Time-Honoured Marketing Tradition (That Customers Hate)

    Liquor and Guessing: A Time-Honoured Marketing Tradition (That Customers Hate)

    You wanna hear something strange? In the last 2 weeks, 5 different marketers—from 3 different countries—have contacted…

    9 条评论

社区洞察

其他会员也浏览了