The neuroscience of studying monkeys can tell us a lot about buyer behavior in pest control…

Including why the general public thinks they are smarter than the ads on tv, the marketing online, and the infomercials that have been proven to create $200 million franchises like P90X. 

“Why are we not able to look back through our decision history, and find countless examples of emotional decisions? 

The answer is that our conscious mind will always make up reasons to justify our unconscious decisions.

 It does this to maintain the illusion that our conscious mind is in charge.”

 – Michael Harris, Neuroscience Confirms We Buy on Emotion & Justify with Logic & yet We Sell to Mr. Rational & Ignore Mr. Intuitive

The article goes on to talk about a study done on monkeys where quite literally, the logical side of their brain conjured up a story to justify the emotional side of the brains decision (it’s a bit more complex than that, so if you’re interested, read the article.) 

And according to Harvard Business School professor Gerald Zaltman, 95% of our decision making takes place subconsciously.

So if you ask a past or current customer why they bought? They’ll almost certainly answer with a logical reason.

 When in reality?

That isn’t why they purchased pest control at all. 

That’s just how they justified the purchase to themselves, their spouse, and their friends.

So while emotion gets people to want to buy, and is 95% of the process?

 Logic gets them to make the final decision to buy.

(The 5%) 

And to help you do just that, I created a template for you to use that makes both emotion and logic work together seamlessly in digital marketing. 

Use this for online ads, social media sites, blog posts, and even your website home page and about page.

Emotion + Logic Template

Step 1: Lead with the emotion + benefits

Step 2: Move to the facts

Step 3: Transition to the service / you offer

Step 4: Add a call to action.

I’ll give you a specific example on how to use this in action below, using last week’s spider example, just modified a bit.

[Emotions + Benefits]

 “If you’re like a lot of our customers, then after the spiders are gone, you won’t have the anxiety of going down to the laundry room. You won’t jump out of the shower because there’s a spider dangling above your head. And of course, you won’t have to deal with the screaming and panicked stampedes of your children throughout the house when they spot a spider the size of a pinhead.”

[Facts]

“While most spiders are harmless, many are not, and thir bites can cause health issues. These include wolf spiders, brown recluse spiders, and black widows. 

And often where there’s one spider, there are more. The egg sac of a spider can hold 100-2,000 eggs, depending on the type of spider. And, most spiders lay their eggs in the spring or the fall.”

[Transition to Service/Offer] + [Call to Action]

“So if you’re at all concerned, or just want to get rid of a small problem before it gets bigger,”

[Call to Action] 

“Call or email us at [insert your email], 555-555-BUGS.”

[BONUS POINT: Tie it all up in a bow with a one-liner benefit that references the emotion]

“We’ll help make your laundry room more bearable, your showers more relaxing, and parenthood a bit more peaceful (if such a thing exists).” 

Now, the one big flaw in this formula?

 Is that it works best the more pest specific you can be. 

You don’t want to talk about ants, if they really have bed bugs.

So if you know what type of pest a potential customer has, it works that much better.

 Which may feel impossible to do in an online, one-to-many marketing situation. 

Which is why we created a way to help you do just that: identify pests on a mass scale.

 Our newest marketing solution for pest control professionals helps you get eyes inside each home of a specific affluent neighborhood in your area. 

And, it will help identify if and what insect pests exist in that home, without ever having to step foot inside.

It’s a combination of a physical mailer sent out EDDM to your route of choice, and our SmartMonitors.

It’s hooked up to an automatic back-end that identifies insect pests for your potential customers, sends them marketing based on that pest, and gives you the lead and an analytics dashboard.

If you’re intrigued at all, take a look at a short demo here.

Or, click here to schedule a call where we can walk you through it all.