A strong message has to work quickly.
It needs to catch attention, make sense fast, stay memorable, and give people a clear reason to respond.
In B2B, silence can look like a lost deal. Often, it means the prospect is still deciding whether the offer feels credible enough to move forward.
That creates a problem for business leaders.
If a buyer is not ready to act, repeating the same message does not always solve the issue. The real problem may be doubt, distraction, or a lack of proof.
Data shows that 67% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free experience, meaning many prospects are evaluating vendors before ever speaking with sales, according to Gartner.
That puts extra pressure on the message itself, because buyers are often forming trust before they ever speak to sales.
That early trust is also tied to a company’s brand marketing strategy.
Nancy Harhut is the Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of HBT Marketing and the award-winning author of Using Behavioral Science in Marketing.
Her work focuses on helping marketers understand why people act on some messages, ignore others, and delay decisions even when there's interest.
Plus, she's got intel on how and why changing a single line of copy drove 150% more buyers to act.
For Harhut, many companies misread what is happening when a buyer does not move forward.
“[...] When somebody says no, yeah, there are times when it really means no, but very often it means more than that,” she says.
“[...] It means maybe not right now, or it means I need more information, or it means you haven't convinced me.”
In episode No. 138 of the DesignRush Podcast, Harhut explains how behavioral science can help founders, marketers, and sales teams understand what buyers need before they respond.
She also explains why the same offer can land differently depending on how much trust the message builds before asking for action.
Watch the full episode now on YouTube or listen on Spotify.
Who Is Nancy Harhut?
Nancy Harhut is the Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of HBT Marketing and the award-winning author of Using Behavioral Science in Marketing.
Harhut applies behavioral science to marketing, email, direct mail, social, and sales messaging to help brands improve response and buyer action.
When the Deal Goes Quiet
Most companies treat buyer silence as rejection.
Harhut sees it as a clue that something in the decision process is still unresolved.
A buyer may intend to respond, book the call, review the proposal, or start the project. Then the decision gets delayed.
Behavioral scientists call this the intention-action gap.
“[...] And it's this idea that we intend to do something, we intend to get to it a little bit later, we'll do it next week or next month or next year, we're going to do it. But then we don't.”
That is where many sales and marketing teams lose buyers without realizing it.
A delayed reply can look like disinterest. In reality, the buyer may still need confidence, proof, or a reason to act now.
One reason is present-focused bias.
People are drawn to the immediate reward. That makes any offer with a future payoff difficult to sell, even when the buyer understands the value.
A delayed yes can quietly become no action.
Harhut says hesitation can also mean the buyer has not received enough proof.
“[...] Once they feel confident, once we've removed those barriers, they're much more likely to do it. And if they have some lingering doubt, they're going to say no.”
That puts pressure on marketing teams to read buyer silence more carefully.
Every unanswered email may be pointing to a concern the message has not addressed yet.
As Harhut explains, companies need to understand the reason behind that hesitation before they decide how to respond.
Understanding the audience also starts with having clear ideal customer profiles.
1. Asking Why Prospects Hesitate
Many companies spend most of their messaging energy explaining why someone should buy.
Harhut says the first step is asking why they might not.
“[...] One of the biggest things that we can do is we can ask ourselves, Why not?”
That question changes the work.
A startup may need to overcome unfamiliarity. A company entering a new category may need credibility. A business selling an expensive service may need to reduce perceived risk.
“[...] Maybe it's because you're a company that's moving into a new area. You've never been there before, or maybe you're a startup, right? You never existed before.”
That is where behavioral science gives marketers practical tools.
Harhut points to social proof as one example.
“[...] Social proof is the idea that if a lot of other people, especially people like me, are doing something, I feel comfortable following their lead.”
That can include testimonials, customer counts, product adoption, or examples from a similar customer group.
Authority can also reduce doubt.
“[...] Ever since we were kids, we've been taught to recognize and respect authority.”
For a brand trying to build trust, that may mean using credible outside proof.
Awards, ratings, media mentions, and industry affiliations can all help make the decision feel safer.
The buyer may not need another sales message. They may need proof that choosing the company is a safe decision.
For businesses reviewing their messaging, working with conversion rate optimization agencies can help identify where buyer doubt is hurting form fills, demo requests, or sales inquiries.
2. Making Messages Easier to Process
Behavioral science gives marketers a practical way to make the buying decision easier for the brain.
“[...] Humans have developed certain decision-making shortcuts, certain automatic instinctive reflexive responses.”
Those shortcuts help people conserve mental energy.
Most people do not read a landing page from top to bottom.
They scan it for a reason to stay, trust the offer, and take the next step.
That is why message structure matters across the full digital marketing sales funnel.
“[...] So when I talk about brain-friendly messaging, brain-friendly content, I'm talking about serving up our marketing messages in a way that works with the brain and not against it," Harhut says.
She breaks brain-friendly messaging down into four jobs. It needs to be:
- Noticeable
- Easily understandable
- Memorable
- Actionable
“[...] So when I talk about brain-friendly messaging, I'm talking about creating the messages that have the highest likelihood of making somebody pay attention, of helping them understand the message, remember the message, and act on the message," Harhut adds.
This is where brands often lose buyers without realizing it.
The product may be useful and fairly priced.
But if the message is too complicated, too vague, or too easy to ignore, the buyer may never reach serious consideration.
3. Using Behavioral Cues to Reduce Buyer Doubt
Harhut points to several behavioral principles that can help marketers understand why buyers respond.
For email teams, these principles often show up as behavioral email triggers.
Labeling
Labels can influence behavior when they connect directly to the action a brand wants someone to take.
Harhut references a study before an election where one group of voting-age people was randomly told they were “the more politically active.”
On election day, 15% more people in that group showed up to vote.
“[...] Because they were told that they were part of a politically active group. And what would a politically active person do on election day? They would vote," Harhut says.
For marketers, the lesson is to choose labels carefully.
“[...] So you label somebody in a certain way and they will start to behave in that manner.”
Loss Aversion
Harhut also points to loss aversion, which explains why people often work hard to avoid a loss.
“[...] What behavioral scientists have found is people are actually twice as motivated to avoid the pain of loss as they are to achieve the pleasure of gain.”
That matters because many marketers lead only with benefits.
Harhut says companies should also consider what the buyer risks losing if they do nothing.
She points to a home insulation study where the message changed the response.
“[...] Well, when they told people they were going to lose 75 cents a day, 150% more people said, yes, I want the home insulation," Harhut says.
For business messaging, that can apply to wasted budget, lost time, or missed revenue.
Reciprocity
Reciprocity is another principle Harhut says can influence buyer response.
“[...] When you do something for someone, when you give them a gift, when you do a favor for them, even if they didn't ask for it, once they're the recipient, they feel obliged to return the favor," Harhut says.
Harhut saw that principle work in a Nationwide campaign aimed at financial advisors who had stopped selling its funds.
The team sent each advisor a personalized New Yorker cartoon in the mail after a year of failed emails and calls.
“[...] For example, with the Nationwide case study, we generated $68 million in incremental revenue and those were the client statistics, not ours," Harhut says.
The gift made Nationwide feel present and personal.
“[...] You didn't ask for this, you hadn't been doing business for a while and then it shows up and it's a nice gift.”
For Harhut, the point is to understand what is stopping the buyer, then use the right behavioral cue to reduce doubt.
Why Buyers Are Still Hard to Reach
Brands now have plenty of tools to reach customers, but attention remains difficult to win.
Harhut says one reason is channel fragmentation:
“[...] There are so many different options where you can reach people."
That gives marketers many ways to target buyers, but it also makes it difficult to know where the buyer actually is.
That makes a clear target audience harder to ignore.
The second issue is attention.
“[...] People's attention is fractured," Harhut says.
Even if a company reaches the right buyer in the right channel, that buyer may be moving between tasks, tabs, calls, messages, and decisions.
That makes clear messaging critical.
If the message is hard to understand, easy to ignore, or missing the proof a buyer needs, the opportunity can disappear before sales enters the conversation.
When the message is unclear or short on proof, the opportunity can fade before a sales conversation ever starts.
For B2B brands, trust has to begin earlier. The message needs to answer the first doubts well enough for the next step to feel worthwhile, not premature.
Harhut says founders should start by remembering that buyers often make decisions emotionally, then explain those decisions with logic afterward.
“[...] People don't make decisions the way you think they do," Harhut says.
“[...] They're not necessarily fully engaged. They're not very rational. They're way more emotional.”
That means a stronger response starts with diagnosing hesitation.
The buyer may need proof, authority, reassurance, or a reason to act now.
Harhut’s final point is that marketers have an advantage when they understand how buyers decide.
“[...] People aren't thinking the way we think they are," Harhut says.
“[...] But there are ways to trigger those automatic responses, easy, proven ways that result in a win-win. It's a good thing for your company. It's a good thing for your customer.”
For leaders, the takeaway is straightforward: stronger marketing starts with removing doubt before asking people to act.
