Why Hasn't Behavioral Finance Helped Your Marketing?
You've been to the conferences. You've taken notes on loss aversion, recency bias, and mental accounting. The sessions all say understanding behavioral finance will make you a better advisor and marketer.
So you've started paying attention. You read articles, follow thought leaders, and try to work these insights into your LinkedIn posts and client emails. But your marketing results haven't changed. Your engagement numbers look the same, your conversion rates haven't moved, and you're still frustrated that your expertise isn't coming through.
The problem isn't that behavioral finance is wrong. The problem is that most behavioral finance training teaches concept recognition without providing methods for changing behavior. Multiple studies show the same result: financial education successfully teaches concepts but barely changes behaviors. [1] Investors learn about loss aversion, for example, then panic-sell anyway.
That gap between knowing and doing shows up in your marketing too.
When you focus on identifying prospects' emotions and biases, you're trying to guess at internal states you can't observe or measure. What you need instead is behavioral science, which focuses on observable behavior and how to design environments that make desired actions easier.
The distinction matters more than you might think.
What's the difference between behavioral finance and behavioral science?
Behavioral finance identifies cognitive biases and emotional patterns that affect financial decisions. Behavioral science designs environmental systems that change observable behaviors.
Both are valuable. One explains decisions. The other changes them.
Most behavioral finance you see at conferences and read about in articles has become what I call "pop” behavioral finance. It shows you patterns like anchoring or herd mentality and tells you recognizing them will help you and your clients make better decisions.
And that's useful. But here's what it doesn't give you: actual methods for changing behavior.
Behavioral science, particularly Applied Behavior Analysis, starts with three observable elements: what happens before a behavior (antecedent), the behavior itself, and what happens after (consequence). Change any of these elements, and you change the behavior. [2]
This isn't about denying that emotions exist or matter. Emotions absolutely influence decisions. But when you're creating marketing materials, you can't see what prospects feel. You can only observe what they do. Did they read past the first paragraph? Did they download the guide? Did they schedule the call?
In marketing terms: what prospects see before engaging (antecedent) determines whether they engage (behavior), and what value they get determines whether they engage again (consequence).
This shifts your focus from diagnosing emotions to creating environments, observing what prospects actually do and redesigning the steps to make desired behaviors easier.
It’s also why marketing hooks fail where invitations succeed.
What behavioral science strategies work for financial advisor marketing?
Four strategies make the difference. First, ask about past behavior instead of emotions. Second, remove barriers that make prospects abandon your content. Third, give immediate value at every step. Fourth, provide alternatives when prospects aren't ready for calls.
Here’s how each one works.
Ask about past behavior, not current emotions
When you create content, you probably ask questions like "Are you worried about market volatility?" or "Do you feel anxious about your retirement plan?" These seem like good questions for building relationships.
Except they're not, at least not from a marketing perspective. Here's why: You're asking prospects to tell you how they feel. And feelings? They don't predict what people actually do. A prospect might genuinely feel anxious but not act on it. Or they might claim not to worry but then panic-sell at the next market dip.
What actually predicts behavior? Past behavior in similar situations. That's the observable data point.
Instead of "Are you worried about volatility?", try "When the market recently dropped 10%, what did you do?" Instead of "Do you struggle with emotional spending?", ask "Walk me through your last unplanned purchase over $500." These questions focus on observable patterns, not fleeting emotional states.
The principle is simple: what happens after we do something (the consequence of our behavior) determines whether we do the same thing in the future. [3] So when someone tells you what they did, you're learning what actually drives their decisions.
Your strongest social media posts probably reflect this. The advisors getting strongest engagement aren't the ones writing posts about common financial fears. They're the ones asking prospects to reflect on specific past decisions and what happened. That moves the conversation from abstract emotions to concrete behavior, which is where actual change starts.
Remove barriers before prospects encounter them
Antecedent control means changing what prospects encounter before they take action. For your marketing, that means removing obstacles before prospects hit them, including anything that makes them abandon your content before getting value (“What’s in it for me?”).
Most advisor marketing assumes prospects need more motivation to engage with your content. But that’s actually backward. Research shows that removing barriers upfront works better than trying to motivate people to push through them. [4]
Look at your content. If you're writing 2,000-word articles with no clear section breaks and dense blocks of copy and expecting prospects to "have the discipline" to read them, you're relying on willpower. More often than not, that fails. Not because prospects lack discipline, but because you've created an environment full of barriers.
So, what does removing barriers actually look like? Scannable paragraphs. Clear, AEO-optimized headers that tell prospects what's coming. Breaks every 200-300 words. Immediate signals that what you’re writing about applies to them.
You're not "dumbing down" your content. You're keeping prospects reading.
Take a look at your LinkedIn posts, your website, your email campaigns. Every time you make a prospect work to extract value, you increase the likelihood they'll stop moving forward. Every time you remove a barrier or make the next step obvious, you make continued engagement more likely.
This is what improves completion rates and increases prospects taking the next step.
Don't ask them to overcome obstacles through self-control. Design the environment so desired behavior is the easiest path.
Build immediate reinforcement into every step
Reinforcement is a consequence that increases the likelihood a behavior will occur again. The timing matters: immediate reinforcement is far more powerful than delayed reinforcement.
Your marketing probably has a common problem: the desired action (scheduling a discovery call) has delayed and uncertain reinforcement, while the competing action (clicking on a secondary link) has immediate reinforcement (escaping the mild discomfort of committing to a call).
That's why trying to convince prospects that a call will eventually lead to better financial outcomes (delayed) rarely works when clicking away feels better right now (immediate). [5]
The solution isn't to pressure prospects into calls. It's to build immediate reinforcement into each step of how prospects engage with you. When someone lands on your LinkedIn profile, they should get immediate value from your About section, not just a pitch to schedule time. When they click your lead magnet, they should get practical insights, not a glorified sales page.
This is how you align your marketing with how behavior actually works. Each small step gives prospects immediate value (I learned something, I got clarity, this person gets me), which makes them more likely to take the next step.
Behavioral science bears this out. Research shows that every action people take serves one of four purposes: Getting attention, accessing something they want, avoiding something uncomfortable, or getting automatic satisfaction. [6] Your marketing should deliver on at least one of these at every step.
For example, content that teaches something concrete provides access to valuable information. Content that acknowledges specific frustrations delivers social validation and attention. Content that shows you understand without pressuring offers escape from aggressive sales tactics.
This improves click-through rates. Stack these immediate reinforcements, and you create a path where each step makes the next step more likely. That's how you build engagement that leads to calls, not through forcing a cold ask.
Provide functional alternatives to avoidance
Pay attention to the behavior you're trying to eliminate. When prospects don't respond to your outreach, click on your calls-to-action, or disappear after an initial conversation, what's actually happening?
These are escape and avoidance behaviors. The prospect isn't engaging because not engaging gets them away from something uncomfortable (usually feeling pressured or losing control). You don't need to eliminate that avoidance. You need to understand what it's doing for them and offer a better way to serve that same need. [7]
If prospects are avoiding scheduling calls because discovery calls often feel like being sold to, provide an alternative that serves the same function (avoiding a sales pitch) but moves them forward: "Not ready to talk? Get our quarterly market commentary instead, no commitment required." The prospect still gets to avoid the call (which is what they wanted), but now they're on your email list and seeing your thinking regularly.
If prospects abandon your lead magnet landing page, maybe the function is avoiding giving away contact information to someone who will pester them. Provide an alternative: "Download without email, or give us your email for quarterly updates." Both serve the avoidance function, but one keeps them connected.
This is how you improve your conversion rates. Prospects who aren't ready for calls stay connected through alternatives.
These behaviors work because they help prospects escape something uncomfortable. Your marketing becomes more effective when you honor that function while providing a path that serves both their needs and yours, rather than moralizing about "resistance" or "lack of commitment."
How do you start applying behavioral science to your marketing?
Pick one strategy that fits where your marketing is struggling right now. Then watch what prospects actually do, not what you think they feel.
You don't need another certification to get started. You just need to place the emphasis on what’s actually going to move the needle in your marketing.
If your content isn't being read, start with practice two: remove barriers before prospects encounter them. If prospects aren't responding to your calls-to-action, start with practice three: build immediate reinforcement at each step. If people keep ghosting after initial contact, start with practice four: provide functional alternatives.
The critical shift is from "How do I make prospects feel differently?" to "What observable behavior do I want to increase, and what environmental changes will make that behavior easier?" That's behavioral science, and it works better than guessing at emotions.
Watch what actually changes: time on page, click-through rates, response rates, downloads, scheduled calls. This is how you know whether your setup is working.
And don’t forget that your marketing either succeeds or fails because of how it’s been designed, not because your prospects lack discipline or are too emotional. That puts control back where it belongs: with you.
What's one thing you can change in your marketing today?
Start with your LinkedIn About section. Instead of listing services, which makes prospects have to work to process the information, use 2-3 sentence paragraphs to tell a specific story about what you've seen prospects struggle with and what works better. Include one clear next step that provides immediate value.
If that sounds a lot like one of your client calls, I wouldn’t be surprised. That’s because you already practice behavioral science with your clients, although you probably don't call it that.
When you build their financial plan, you're not just teaching them about compound interest and hoping they'll develop more self-control. You're designing systems (automatic contributions, rebalancing rules, accountability check-ins) that make desired financial behaviors easier than undesired ones.
That's antecedent control and reinforcement design. And you're already an expert at it.
Now it’s a matter of applying that same systematic thinking to how prospects encounter you before they're clients. When you review your marketing content, ask yourself: “What behavior do I want? What antecedents are preventing it? What consequences are reinforcing the competing behavior?” Then redesign the environment.
Ultimately, the shift from buzzword to behavioral science isn't complicated. It just requires you to go beyond the “people make decisions based on emotions” framework to designing clearer, easier, more inviting pathways for your prospects to follow.
Sources
Kaiser, T., & Menkhoff, L. (2022). Financial education affects financial knowledge and downstream behaviors. Journal of Financial Economics, 145(2). Fernandes, D., Lynch, J. G., & Netemeyer, R. G. (2014). Financial literacy, financial education, and downstream financial behaviors. Management Science, 60(8).
Cooper, J. O., Heron, T. E., & Heward, W. L. (2020). Applied behavior analysis (3rd ed.). Pearson.
Baer, D. M., Wolf, M. M., & Risley, T. R. (1968). Some current dimensions of applied behavior analysis. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1(1).
Kern, L., & Clemens, N. H. (2007). Antecedent strategies to promote appropriate classroom behavior. Psychology in the Schools, 44(1).
Skinner, B. F. (1938). The behavior of organisms: An experimental analysis. Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Iwata, B. A., Dorsey, M. F., Slifer, K. J., Bauman, K. E., & Richman, G. S. (1994). Toward a functional analysis of self-injury. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 27(2).
Vollmer, T. R., & Iwata, B. A. (1992). Differential reinforcement as treatment for behavior disorders: Procedural and functional variations. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 13(4).
