Behavioural Economics Training Course: Nudges, Pricing Decisions and Customer Choice

Programme Summary

Behavioural economics in marketing, pricing and customer choice is the subject of this five-day training course for marketing, brand, pricing and customer experience leaders at managerial to strategic level, ending in a behavioural intervention and testing plan. Customers rarely decide as rational calculators, yet many offers, prices and journeys are designed as if they do. The approach moves from decision science and consumer biases, through nudges, pricing and choice design, to experiments, ethics and governance. Mars Training Centre UK delivers this programme on behavioural economics for marketing leaders.

The Business Case

Marketing budgets are often spent on persuasion that ignores how people actually decide, so offers are overlooked, prices are misread and good journeys lose customers at the point of choice. Leaders who apply behavioural economics can test small changes in framing, defaults and sequence before committing large budgets, and can explain why a change worked.

• Conversion at Decision Points: Improves as choice design removes friction and clarifies options.
• Price Perception and Margin Quality: Strengthen as anchors, bundles and framing are tested rather than assumed.
• Campaign Learning Speed: Increases as controlled experiments replace opinion in review meetings.

Principles and Evidence Base

• Prospect theory: Its treatment of loss aversion and reference points frames the diagnosis of customer decisions in Sessions 1 and 2.
• Choice architecture and nudge theory: Their treatment of defaults, framing and friction guides the design work in Sessions 3 and 4.
• OECD BASIC Toolkit: Its Behaviour, Analysis, Strategies, Intervention and Change stages structure the testing and ethics work in Sessions 4 and 5.

Intended Participants

• Leaders accountable for marketing strategy and campaign performance.
• Brand executives who decide how offers and propositions are framed.
• Pricing and revenue managers who set price structures, bundles and discounts.
• Customer experience leaders who own journeys at the point of choice.
• Digital and insight managers who run tests and report what customers do.

The programme suits retail, banking, telecommunications, travel and consumer goods organisations.

Learning Outcomes

1. Participants will be able to diagnose the decision biases that shape how customers respond to an offer.
2. Participants will be able to evaluate existing journeys and pricing pages for friction, framing and default effects.
3. Participants will be able to construct pricing structures that apply anchoring, bundling and reference points.
4. Participants will be able to design nudges and choice architecture that guide decisions without removing options.
5. Participants will be able to prioritise behavioural hypotheses and specify controlled experiments to test them.
6. Participants will be able to justify ethical limits and governance for behavioural interventions to an executive sponsor.

Programme Structure

Day 1: Behavioural Economics and Customer Decision Foundations

How do customers really decide, and where does that depart from rational choice?

• Prospect Theory, Loss Aversion and Reference Points
• Dual-Process Thinking in Purchase Decisions
• Cognitive Bias Catalogue for Marketers
• Decision Journey Map Across Two Sectors
• Behavioural Maturity Self-Assessment

Day 2: Diagnosing Consumer Behaviour

Which biases and frictions are present in a given customer decision?

• Behaviour Mapping From Trigger to Purchase
• Friction and Drop-Off Audit of a Customer Journey
• Default, Framing and Order Effects Review
• Social Proof and Scarcity Signal Review
• Behavioural Insight Synthesis From Customer Data

Day 3: Pricing Psychology and Offer Design

How does the way a price is presented change what customers choose?

• Anchoring and Decoy Effects in Price Lists
• Mental Accounting and Payment Framing
• Bundle and Tier Design
• Discount Framing and Reference Price Tests
• Subscription and Renewal Default Design

Day 4: Nudges, Choice Architecture and Experiments

How are nudges designed, tested and judged?

• Choice Architecture Design Principles
• Nudge Selection Matrix by Decision Type
• Controlled Experiment and A/B Test Design
• OECD BASIC Toolkit Analysis and Strategy Stages
• Test Readout and Learning Log

Day 5: Ethics, Governance and Behavioural Plan

Is the behavioural plan fair, governed and ready for sponsors?

• Applying Day 2 Frictions to a Chosen Journey
• Applying Day 3 Price Framing to a Chosen Offer
• Ethics Screen for Influence Techniques
• Experiment Governance and Approval Route
• Completing the Behavioural Intervention and Testing Plan

Methodology

The programme rests on case analysis and structured exercises. Participants audit real customer journeys and price pages from retail and financial services, form behavioural hypotheses, design tests and defend their choices to a simulated executive sponsor.

• Suggested activity: Auditing a purchase journey for friction, defaults and framing.
• Suggested activity: Redesigning a three-tier price list using anchoring and decoy effects.
• Suggested activity: Presenting an experiment design and its ethics screen to a mock sponsor.

Capstone Output

Each participant completes a behavioural intervention and testing plan for one journey or offer. It contains a diagnosis of biases and frictions, a redesigned price or choice structure, a ranked list of hypotheses, an experiment specification and an ethics and governance note. It is used at work to brief sponsors and to launch the first controlled tests.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this behavioural economics training suitable for marketing leaders without a background in economics?

Yes. It is set at managerial to strategic level and assumes responsibility for marketing, pricing or customer journeys, not prior study of economics or psychology.

Which frameworks does behavioural economics training for marketing rest on?

It rests on prospect theory, choice architecture and nudge theory, with the OECD BASIC Toolkit guiding how behavioural interventions are analysed, tested and held to ethical limits.

How is the behavioural economics intervention and testing plan used at work?

You use it to brief sponsors, secure approval for controlled tests and run the first experiments on a chosen journey or offer, with the ethics note setting limits for the team.