Time flies – we’ve published ten episodes of The Brainfluence Podcast already. This seemed like the perfect time to provide a quick guide to these sessions with some of the world’s top experts in persuasion, psychology, neuromarketing, and more. Each episode is about 30 minutes of audio, and the show notes page for each episode (linked below) includes a full text transcript as well as links to any resources mentioned in the discussion. To avoid missing any future episodes, subscribe to The Brainfluence Podcast at iTunes, Stitcher, Podbay.FM, or the player of your choice.
Nathalie Nahai was our top choice for our first installment of The Brainfluence Podcast. Who could be more perfect for our listeners than “The Web Psychologist?” In Episode #1: Web Psychology and Online Persuasion with Nathalie Nahai, Nathalie talks about design’s influence on the brain, a website’s appeal to the brain levels, the surprising differences between the way people from different cultures respond to web content, and more. We also spend time on a few of the topics she convers in her fantastic book, Webs of Influence: The Psychology of Online Persuasion.
In Episode #2: The Psychology of Habit-Forming Technologies with Nir Eyal we met the author of Hooked: A Guide to Building Habit-Forming Products. Nir Eyal is the founder of two tech companies and an advisor for start-ups, incubators and venture capitalists in the bay area. Nir’s book has created a lot of buzz, at first in Silicon Valley and now far beyond. In our chat, Nir talks about his Hook Model. Based in part on BJ Fogg’s Behavior Model, the Hook Model defines the four key phases in making an application, website, or other product habit-forming or even addictive.
In Episode #3: The Seven Characteristics of Flow with Steven Kotler,we talk about flow, a concept that has been written about for many decades and is now getting mainstream acceptance. Author Steven Kotler is a New York Times best-selling author, award-winning journalist, and fellow Forbes contributor. He co-founded the Flow Genome Project, and is dedicated to teaching others about flow and how to achieve it. In this episode we chat about flow basics, hacking flow, and whether open offices help or hurt workers achieve highly productive states of flow.
One of the criticisms of neuromarketing has been the lack of published data supporting the validity of neuromarketing technologies. Neuromarketing pioneer Carl Marci wants to change that. In Episode #4: Multimedia Engagement with Carl Marci, the founder and CEO of neuromarketing firm Innerscope Research discusses a recent academic study that provides evidence of effective neuromarketing use. Carl and I also talk about the science of empathy, differences and interaction between television and online marketing, immersive and flexible engagement, and the use of neuromarketing as a tool to boost website conversion rates.
Gini Dietrich is tired of public relations practitioners being called spin doctors. In Ep #5: Building an Impactful Online Reputation with Gini Dietrich we talk about some of the concepts in her book Spin Sucks: Communication and Reputation Management in the Digital Age. Gini and I talk about why 20th century PR techniques like “spray and pray” press releases and a reliance on “spinning” everything into a positive message don’t work today. Transparency and authenticity are far better. Gini gives advice on content marketing, community management, and even dealing with trolls and haters.
I’ve been writing about neuromarketing for a decade now, and it was a great privilege to welcome Dr. David Lewis, often called “the father of neuromarketing,” to the show. In Episode #6: Shopper Science, Big Data, and Neuromarketing with Dr. David Lewis, we learn the story of the mostly accidental birth of neuromarketing. David and I discuss his book, The Brain Sell: When Science Meets Shopping. We delve into such diverse topics as consumer neuroscience, shopper science’s evolution and its impact on retail, ethical boundaries, and “Big Data.”
Owner Magazine’s Chris Brogan is not normal, and that’s a good thing. He is proud to have thrived as what he calls a “freak.” His new book, The Freaks Shall Inherit the Earth, describes how people dismissed as oddballs are often the most successful entrepreneurs. In Episode #7: Chris Brogan on Freaks, Owners, and Entrepreneurs we also learn about Monchu, Dunbar’s Number, the different species of freaks, and more. Watch for Chris’s great answer when I ask if some people should forget entrepreneurship and stick to their day jobs!
The role of the salesperson has changed dramatically in the last few decades, and it continues to evolve. John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing fame explains how todays salesperson can succeed in his new book, Duct Tape Selling. In Episode #8: Marketing Makes Better Salespeople with John Jantsch we learn how salespeople are no longer just a source of product information. Is the ideal salesperson a one-person marketing department? Listen and find out.
There’s no guest in Episode #9: Gliding Down The Persuasion Slide – you are stuck with just one voice, me! I do an audio explanation of my Persuasion Slide™ model with a particular focus on conscious vs. unconscious motivation, maximizing conversion by eliminating friction, and more. The Persuasion Slide is a great tool to analyze your ecommerce or lead generation website as well as many other kinds of persuasive processes.
Chris Nodder is a usability expert who has written a fascinating new book, Evil by Design. It looks at user experience and how evil, or at least aggressive, websites manipulate user behavior. In Episode #10: Psychology of Usability Design with Chris Nodder we discuss a few of the seven deadly sins in the context of web design. Sloth, for example, takes advantage of our brain’s inclination to always take the easiest path; skilled UX designers ensure that path leads to their desired outcome. You don’t have to be evil to apply Chris’s knowledge to boosting your own web results!
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