Neuromarketing — How To Apply It to Your Digital Marketing
Combine neuroscience and marketing, we get neuromarketing. This new field deals with the study of the brain’s response to marketing stimuli. It involves the use of Magnetic Resonance Imaging to study how human brain activity changes in response to color, images, and text elements.
Marketers use the results from these experiments to understand consumers’ decision-making patterns and the reasons behind them.
People subconsciously decide what they want to purchase. People get attached to products. Neuromarketing is about understanding these decisions.
If you understand this field (just the basics will help), you can understand consumer behavior in a lot of ways. You’ll be able to understand why a customer chooses your product over another. It will open many new ways of marketing your products.
Hyundai and PayPal are a couple of brands that use this technique. They have used this field to understand consumers, change their packaging, and create ads based on the results.
The following are a few benefits of understanding the basics of this field:
- Engage customers with amazing content.
- Understand why people choose one company over another.
- Learn what things lead to people clicking on a button and making a purchase.
The following tips will help you apply this marketing method to your existing marketing strategy.
Reciprocity
If you compliment someone, they will compliment you back. It’s just basic human nature. And it’s also related to neurological functions.
We feel obligated to return the thing someone gave us. This can be used in marketing in several ways. For example, you can provide something of value on your website for free. Doing this will give you an edge as it creates more trust.
You can apply it to backlinking as well. For example, you create a useful piece of content on your website and mention another website in it. Now, you can contact that website’s owner and ask them to link you back. If they feel like your content has value, they will most likely give you a backlink.
When you provide people value, they might spend money with you. This simple principle of reciprocity can improve your brand image as well.
Adopt a Sensory Approach
This applies to businesses that have physical shops. Adopting a sensory approach in the form of pleasant smells and lighting can give you a competitive advantage. It will grab customer’s attention and give an interactive experience.
Journal of Targeting and Analysis for Marketing says that sales can change a lot by responding to physical movements. For example, high-pitched voices move people’s attention to light objects. And low-pitched voices move their attention to dark objects.
Use a smell to create long-lasting memories for your customers. Similarly, use lighting to highlight specific products.
Appeal to Emotion
Emotions and psychology play a huge role in marketing. People connect with an emotion-driven campaign rather than a campaign that just shouts “Buy My Product!” So the next time you are writing content, appeal to their emotions.
Start focusing on how the product can solve people’s problems as compared to listing out the features. That’s why the product description written by a copywriter is far different and better than the one from the manufacturer.
A person might not care if the dress is made of merino wool, but if you tell them that it’s very skin-friendly, they are more likely to buy it. Similarly, showing how a product can improve a person’s life is far better than showing how it works.
You can study different psychology techniques for a better understanding of sales, but I am giving you two here: happiness, greed, and fear. These three are very effective.
You might have seen it in “buy one, get one free” promotions. Greed is the psychological strategy that’s working here.
There’s something about an offer saying, “The Sales Ends Tonight! Hurry Up!” We are automatically more interested in it. It’s the fear of missing out.
Like these techniques, brands use different methods to trick us. We are all familiar with “charm pricing.” Brands add specific price points like $9.99 instead of $10 to increase sales. Sometimes, they remove the dollar sign completely.
Lower Barriers to Entry
People who can sign up for a free trial are more likely to convert than those who need to submit their credit card information. It’s a fact that people want a lower number of barriers to entry. This rule can be applied to other sign-up forms as well.
I talked about the free trial here. So the topic of “free” is also worth mentioning. People like free stuff. It’s a fact.
You can see and apply this application in many different ways. It can be your website newsletter. If you give people a free e-book or case study there, they’ll give your their email addresses in exchange.
Smile
Seriously, there’s something about a smile that can make someone’s day. From pizza delivery guys to waitresses to CEOs, everyone uses this tactic.
Laughter is contagious. You should deal with everyone in your life with a smile on your face. And when it comes to marketing, you should include a personality with a smile in your ads, content, and other places.
Reading this paragraph might be making you smile. Let me change it. Try imaging a frown.
Does your mood change? I didn’t do it deliberately, but I wanted to show you the power of a smile and how a frown can ruin it.
Final Words on Neuromarketing
Neuromarketing can help your business in many ways. To understand it, you don’t have to read dozens of research papers. Just use the tips I discussed in this article.
How do you use emotions in your marketing? Do let me know in the comments below.
