139: Logic vs. Emotion: Understanding Head Buyers and Heart Buyers

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Professional Creative Podcast. Today we are going to talk about logic versus love, understanding head buyers and heart buyers.

I'm Bonnie Christine and this is where all things creativity, design, business and marketing unite. I'm a mama living in a tiny town tucked right inside the Smoky Mountains, running a multi seven figure business, doing the most creat and impactful work of my life.

But when I first set out to

become an entrepreneur, I was struggling to make ends meet and wrestling with how to accomplish my biggest dream of becoming a fabric designer. Fast forward to today. I'm not only licensing my artwork all over the world, but also teaching others how to design their creative life and experience the same success. I'm here to help you spend your

life doing something that lights you up.

I'll help you build a creative business that also creates an impact, changes people's lives, gives you all of the freedom you want, and is wildly profitable. Welcome to the Professional Creative Podcast.

There are really two different kinds of people in the world. Two different kinds of buyers in the world or customers. And if you stop, stop and think about it, you will fall into one of two categories as a buyer as well. There are head buyers. These are the people who, you know, let's say they buy a car, they're very logical, they pull reports, they do research, they analyze the price, they think about safety and all the practicality. And they show up well researched, already having done all of the work ahead of time. Then there are heart buyers. This is the person who sits in the car to see how it feels and smells, how it drives, how they feel in it and how they like the whole experience. Right. So oftentimes when we think about purchases, we're either logical and you can be both depending on the circumstance. Right. Like I'm actually more of a head buyer when it comes to buying something like a car. But. But I'm more of a heart buyer when it comes to investing in, let's say, an experience online, a course or something like that. If it makes me feel a certain way, if I know and like the person who's teaching it, then I'm all in right away. I won't even read. I'll know right off the bat. Other times I lean more towards the head buyer where I have a lot of questions. I need to do a ton of research. I'm undecided, so you can toggle back and forth in between the two. But it's important to know that you are always selling whatever it is that you're selling to Both, and they act very, very differently. So as an entrepreneur, it's important to really know your audience and what type of buyers they are and what kind of mix they are so that you can meet them, where they're at and reach them with the right kind of messaging that really will help them make a decision if they're a head buyer and also if they're a heart buyer. So let's go back to really understanding the head buyer. The head buyer makes purchases based on logic. They typically need to know that they'll get a return. They're going to want to know what your return policy is. They don't buy impulsively. They need to sleep on it. They need to talk to the key decision makers in their life about it. They need to budget for it. They need all the information. And then they need to have time to sit with it. They take longer because they need time. They need to be convinced that there's a good ROI or a good decision. So a return on their investment. They're data driven. They often have questions, so they'll be in your inbox or in your live chat or in your DMs. And if you sell a tangible product, they are going to want the dimensions, what it's made of, how it's sourced, what the quality is and how to take care of it. And then they also want to know that they're getting a good deal or that the price is justified. Now, we'll talk about heart buyers in a minute, but while we're in this headspace, if you will, of the head buyer, let's talk about how you sell to a head buyer. How to head buyers like to be sold to. Well, I'm very much sitting, actually, I'm being a head buyer right now in this moment about a purchase decision that I'm making. And I'm all over it. I'm in like Reddit and Facebook groups and I'm reading all the reviews and testimonials and I'm just hemming and hawing and debating and thinking and emailing and asking. Right? So it's less emotional. So when you're, when you're talking to a head buyer, there's less emotion in the copy. It's less about the music or the creativity. It's more about the facts, the testimonials, the details about what you're selling, and proof of the transformation. You'll want to drive home what they will receive in return. The focus will be on functionality and value and that roi. Again, the return on investment. So you can use data and very detailed information. You can demonstrate long term value. You can have a longer kind of information page or sales page because your head buyers are going to read every single word on that page. You can supply comparisons and competitive analysis and case studies for these people who are really, really considering and they're not sure. So one way that I do this is when we come to a bigger purchase decision. Something like Surface Design Immersion, my signature course that we teach once a year. Well, I know that I'm going to have a lot of both types of buyers. And so this past launch we felt like we had more head buyers than ever before. And we also had a somewhat different result. Meaning our first few days were a little bit under what we were expecting, but then the last few days were bigger than what we were expecting. And that makes sense because once you kind of make something available, your heart buyers, well, they're going to purchase right away. Then your head buyers are the ones who are on the fence. They're asking questions, they're reading, reading everything that you put out. They're there for The Q&As, they're there for the behind the scenes sneak peeks. They're there for the testimonials and the case studies because they're deciding, they're considering and they're gathering information.

I want you to just imagine what

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Perhaps you use it to wrap gifts

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Now let's talk about understanding Heart buyers. Well, they're more emotional based on feeling. They can oftentimes be impulsive or maybe they just know what they want, right. They will be more quickly to buy and much more passionate about the purchase as well. They are often willing to spend more because it's about so much more than just the roi. It's about how they feel, how the experience makes them feel and more. They want to know how the purchase will impact their lives and change their lives. They want to imagine themselves participating in the purchase and really what it's going to impact long term. They want to envision what your product will look like in their life and what it will mean for their life. They love seeing products out in the wild or transformation stories that are real life, so photos of it or case study videos. They also want to know more about you and your story because because it's so emotional you're part of it. They want to know about the artisan behind the craft, the teacher behind the course. They want to know more about you. So how do you sell to the heart buyers? Well, they respond to more of the emotional side, obviously more moving and inspirational words. So your creative is really important. Your photography, the colors, the videos, the music, it all influences us. When we're in the heart buying space, we want to hear more heartfelt testimonials and more like emotional storytelling and more of your brand narrative. Heart buyers respond to experiential marketing so what it would feel like to come through an experience. And they love social proof and influencer endorsements as well because of the feeling that it gives you to do something like someone else. It is part of the emotional journey so you can think about selling to both. You just have to craft your message in a way that really speaks to both of them. So you want to construct messages that resonate with each and every group. So when I think about designing our sales page for the immersion course, well, it's really long. We've got everything you would ever want if you're a head buyer, but we also have a button that says Enroll now right in the middle of the page. When you land on it because I want to know. I mean, I don't even have to assume that I've got heart buyers. I know that I have heart buyers and I want to really attend to them as well. We want to consider context and timing, meaning the messaging at the beginning of something like a launch can be more emotional and as it goes through the week, if you have, let's say a seven day open cart, as it goes through the week, it kind of gets a little bit more heady, a little bit more technical, if you will. Like, this is the actual information you need in order to make a decision. And then you can allow head buyers more time. You can think about offering them the ability to live chat with you or jump on a call with you or talk with your customer support team. You definitely want to speak to objections of both. And the objections may be a little bit differently. So for a heart buyer, it may be like, I love this, but I don't know if it will work for me. And for a head buyer, it may be more like, I don't have the money or I don't feel like I have the time. So you can kind of combine these logical and emotional objections and messaging to where it really speaks for both. You always want to give the emotional buyer an opportunity to make a decision now and the head buyer to feel like they are able to arrive at a well researched decision. So watch how your audience is behaving and keep in mind that your audience will be different year over year because people change, the environment changes and the needs and the wants change. And we experienced a little bit of that this year as well. No matter what you do, be sure that you stay genuine and you always maintain integrity. This is not about crafting messages that aren't true. It's about really being attentive to both. I think that you'll agree with me that when we are sold to, well, we love to be sold to. I love being sold to as long as I'm being sold to. Well, and so I want to be spoken to or I want to receive messaging that really adheres to both the heart buyer in me and the head buyer in me. Because sometimes I'm that emotional, impulsive, let's go buyer. And sometimes I'm that very calculated, very detailed, very researched buyer as well. So, my friends, create the beauty that you want to see come alive in the world. And remember, there's room for you.