[Best of Season] AMP085: How To Use The Psychology Of Habit Formation To Be A Better Marketer With Best-Selling Author Nir Eyal

CoSchedule started the Actionable Marketing Podcast (AMP) in 2015 and has recorded and published more than 300 episodes. CoSchedule has worked with some of the smartest minds out there that share their stories with you through this podcast. This season, CoSchedule brings back some of the best of the best evergreen content. 

Has your smartphone ever beeped or vibrated to let you know that something, some piece of information or message, is waiting, just for you? Without even thinking, you read, listen to, or watch, and become completely absorbed in it. How have these pieces gained so much power over our behavior and attention? How do software companies hook us, and what can marketers learn from this phenomenon?

Today’s guest is Nir Eyal, who says today’s smartest companies have melded psychology, business, and technology into habit-forming products. Nir is the best-selling author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products. He’s an angel investor and expert in behavioral design. He unveils some psychological principles behind some of today’s biggest and most valuable companies.

 

Some of the highlights of the show include:

• Skill of the century is the ability to cultivate focus
• Behavioral Design: Engaging, habit forming products built with consumer psychology in mind
• People use the Hooked model to engage with a product or service
• Step 1: Internal trigger (reason why you use a product - to modulate your mood, to feel something different; products and services cater to emotional discomfort)
• What’s the user’s itch? What’s their pain point that occurs frequently enough to build a habit around?
• Step 2: Action (the simplest behavior done in anticipation of a reward and relief from discomfort; technology shortens the distance between the need and reward)
• Lewin’s Equation: “People act in accordance to their personality and their environment” - the easier something is, the more likely people are to do it
• Step 3: Reward Phase (the itch gets scratched, the customer’s need is satiated, and their problems are solved)
• Element of Variability: Something of mystery, something of uncertainty
• 3 Variable Reward Types: Rewards of the tribe, the hunt, and of the self
• If you can form a habit, you can engage people with your brand through a community/content habit, and monetization is the result of engagement
• Step 4: Investment Phase (increases likelihood of the next pass through the hook by loading the next trigger and storing value)
• Content, data, followers, and reputation get users to invest in your product
• Companies should make a deliberate effort to understand consumers better; what makes people click and tick, so you can build services that they want

 

Links:

• NirandFar.com
• Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products
• Habit Summit
• Stack Overflow
• CoSchedule

 

Quotes by Nir Eyal:

• “Where we always start is what’s the user’s itch? What’s their pain point that occurs frequently enough to build a habit around?”
• “The easier something is, the more likely people are to do it.”
• “Monetization is a result of engagement.”