Marketing is often seen as a dark art, with specialist practitioners charging substantial fees and often seeming to speak a foreign language. And it’s developing and evolving alongside technologies that allow different types of measurement and influence, making elements of it even more opaque.
In this blog, we take a look at neuromarketing, a blend of neuroscience and marketing that studies the way in which people react to advertising and brand-related messaging by scientifically monitoring responses, most commonly brainwave activity and eye movement.
What We Think, Not What We Say
Traditional marketing often utilises surveys and focus groups to gain insight into preferences and the reasoning behind decision-making.
However, in his 2008 book, Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy, branding consultant Martin Lindstrom revealed that while people said they believed warning labels on cigarettes were effective, the labels themselves stimulated neural activity in an area of the brain associated with craving. It’s not a revelation that people can say one thing and mean another, but in cases like this that disparity is not necessarily intentional. Neuroscience gets to the often unconscious truth, and neuromarketers can learn from this.
How is Neuromarketing Used?
Neuromarketing can be used to help optimise marketing strategies, advertising campaigns, and product designs. Keep reading to find out how:-
Advertising
Measuring how people respond to advertisements; visually and emotionally, allows more advertisements which grab attention and are memorable to be created.
Store layouts and shop windows are another example of how advertising can be used. By designing store environments that align with cognitive and emotional preferences, it will help to influence customers behaviour and increase sales.
Pricing
Understanding how price points are perceived, and the best time to reveal price, can influence decisions about pricing and advertising.
Product Design and Packaging
Knowing how people unconsciously respond to what they see and touch allows products and packaging that grabs attention and is more likely to be bought to be produced.
A good example of this is product placement. Using neuromarketing to determine the best placement for products in stores can help maximize the likelihood of those being noticed and bought.
Website Design
Learning how websites are perceived and analysing the user experience can result in increased engagement and sales conversion rates.
Does it Work?
Apple’s product launches are a masterclass in neuromarketing. In 2011, in a New York Times editorial, the above-mentioned Martin Lindstrom suggested, on the basis of fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) data, that the way iPhone users felt about their phones was akin to romantic love. That followed on from a three-year study that began in 2004 (and was documented in Lindstrom’s 2008 book) that revealed images of dominant brands stimulate the part of the brain activated by religious symbolism.
What Does that Mean for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs)?
It’s all very well talking about this stuff, but SMEs don’t have the resources of Apple, or Google, Time Warner and Coca-Cola, who also harness neuromarketing techniques. However, we can still benefit from neuromarketing insights.
Here are some tips based on neuroscience findings that you can use to inform email and advertising activity, and website design.
Pictures are Effective
Use an image – your logo is fine, but you could use something else if that’s appropriate – right at the start. The brain will process an image before it processes words.
Stimulate Emotions
Insert emotional content in the headline, or the subject line of an email. This will encourage people to read more.
Make Readers Feel Something
Aim to evoke a sensation – people will feel something, leading to a purchasing decision. This can be done through words and also the inclusion of additional images.
Prompt a Response
Provoke a response by including a call to action that conveys a sense of urgency.
Value for Money
It makes sense to aim for the biggest possible return on marketing spend. Neuromarketing promises to deliver by understanding and leveraging people’s unconscious responses to things like words, colours and images. Assuming you don’t have the budget or inclination to go all in, trying our simple tips may well get better-than-usual results from your marketing activity. Traditional techniques such as split-test marketing on smaller samples can help confirm assumptions and choices, improving the outcome overall.
We hope you have found this blog helpful and the GreenStones team would love to hear if you’ve been able to implement your new found knowledge of neuromarketing in your business.