Using Behavioral Economics for Lead Generation

Several Gearyites and I recently attended LeadsCon at The Mirage in Las Vegas on March 4^th-5^th.  It was my first time at this particular conference.  I was impressed at the organization and the speaker lineup.

I really enjoyed listening to the keynote speaker, Dan Ariely (James B. Duke Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University and visiting Professor at the MIT Media Lab).  He spoke about the psychology behind lead forms and how user interface designers make a huge impact on our own decision-making.   Research and heatmaps have been used to determine which areas of a site draw more attention and clicks.  At the end of the day, have we succeeded in providing users with what they want, or have we led users to perform a certain behavior/action?

Dr. Ariely says that more often than not, people don’t really know what they want.  Marketers are more than happy to help you figure this out.  Knowing your audience means knowing how and what to present at any given time to produce a desired effect.  Accordingly, testing different ideas and approaches provides the most benefit towards a better understanding of the target audience and its behavior.

Becoming complacent with a campaign’s performance is not an option.  Marketers must experiment with landing pages, media placements, creative executions, etc.  Regular monitoring and optimization is necessary for a successful campaign.

In the world of lead generation where everything depends on performance, Behavioral Economics can be used to your advantage in achieving campaign goals.