The reasons behind our everyday decisions have always intrigued me on a personal and professional level.

According to Geralt Zaltman, about 95% of our decisions are taken without thinking, by the unconscious mind. And getting close to customers´ unconscious mind is undoubtedly an advantage for marketers to draw areas of opportunity and map certain preconditions that shape the final decision to purchase: make micro-moments play to your advantage.

A simple yet powerful tool for diving into the unconscious mind of your customers is the 5 Whys Technique proposed by Taiichi Ohno. Being an engineer, his purpose with this technique was to uncover the underlying cause of a technical problem, but I love how it can be applied to marketing to initiate that line of thinking.  

All you have to do is repeat the question “Why?” 5 times to cascade a series of triggers that reveal opportunities for how your product/service can answer a customer´s need. 

1️⃣ “Why would someone buy my language course?”
Because she wants to learn japanese

2️⃣ “Why would she want to learn japanese?”
Because she´ll go to Japan this summer

3️⃣ “Why is she going to Japan?”
Because she wants to live and breathe Japanese culture

4️⃣ “Why does she love Japanese culture?”
Because she´s fascinated by manga 

5️⃣ “Why is she fascinated by manga?”
Because it gives her the sense of belonging that she needs

💡 Impress your manga crew. Learn Japanese with Kallama.

Not to underestimate the complex and intrinsic world of human behaviour which is definitely not this linear, I still find it a useful method to initiate a brainstorming session to deep dive into decision making patterns, to eventually draft more relevant communications to such micro-moments of your target audience.