How Neuromarketing Impacts Cadence

Let's set the tone with a situation we're all familiar with:

You're following up with a big lead, an investor, or maybe someone who could offer you a job. Maybe it's just a follow up to remind someone they haven't bought what's in their online shopping cart.

Regardless you've had the same question- How do you know when to send that email?

You've likely doubted yourself. You've said things like, "I'm probably bothering them, I should hold off" or maybe (for the bolder readers) you've thought "they'll appreciate my persistence".

We have great technology tools to know when people are active with their inbox, but that doesn't tell us when they want to hear from you. Nor does it give you any clue as to whether you're still top of mind, or a forgotten thought caught in the mess of the week before.

Neuroscience and personality science can provide effective clues on someone's propensity to be bothered by that third follow up email. We call this establishing a cadence. Our ability to enact effective cadencing is limited to email today, but advertising is an obvious next execution vertical for us to go after.

Let's talk about the personality science behind our cadence recommendations first, and then talk about where the neuroscience of memory comes into play.

When we're looking to up the cadence of outreach you need to start with high plasticity traits. Openness and extraversion by their definition provide the contextual cues that you can be more aggressive with how often you reach out.

Extraversion leads to a natural inclination to want to be stimulated and engaged by people. Openness provides an additional boost for being acceptive to your message. Once you're familiar with a person, their Agreeableness trait would play a larger factor in their acceptance of your messages. 

The nature of your copy should adjust to meet the psychology of the individual, but as that cadence speed increases, you will need to shorten the length of your copy. This is about respecting your recipients' mental bandwidth- no one likes a spammer.

Neuroticism and its effect on memory.

Neuroticism has clear personality ties to not only higher rates of anxiety but also stronger responses to negative emotions.

What scientists have been able to correlate is that those traits can lead to stronger memory impression- especially in individuals that experience higher frequencies of those traits.

It goes without saying- you don't need to reach out nearly as often if the person scores higher for these traits because they're much less likely to forget about your last outreach. 

It's not hard to believe in the (not so distant) future, we will be able to boost the trustworthiness of brands through their advertising and email efforts with this audience by meeting them where they are. 

If that was all a bit much the guide for cadence should follow:

• As Neuroticism goes up→ Cadence slows

• Extraversion and Openness, on the other hand, have the opposite relationship. 

  • As plasticity traits rise→ so does your cadence rate

  • When you have a relationship with the individual, agreeableness should start to become that leading factor.

• Cadencing and copy will always have an entangled relationship. 

  • If you’re reaching out more often, your copy length should be shorter. 

    • It’s respecting your recipient.

    • Don’t be a spammer.

  • Keep your the subject of the content relevant to the respective personality

• Currently, Sorter can help with cadencing on email campaigns or direct response campaigns. Advertising is a little trickier, but we're working to tackle this as well.

  • Budget adjustments could potentially leave your brand not being received at all. 

    • Platforms like Facebook are continuously becoming more play to play

  • Adjusting retargeting budgets for the segments could be an effective lever

    • Reduce spend would potentially slower cadences

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