This guide outlines why neuromarketing is being used more in business, and how it can promote your brand.
Neuromarketing has been around for the past decade and it has only recently become a trending topic among companies and businesses looking for new ways to push their products on the market. As a new means of researching target demographics and getting valuable data, does neuromarketing provide everything you need in order to successfully promote your product and develop a subsequent marketing strategy?
The essentials of neuromarketing
As the name might suggest, neuromarketing is a way of testing your products or services through live exercises with a target audience of choice. Neuromarketing can be done in two ways: through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) or electroencephalography (EEG).
The first involves putting your subject into an MRI where they will be scanned for a particular amount of time and shown different visual stimuli accompanied by particular sounds. This will allow you to scan their “pleasure center” and detect how they react to a certain product that they are being shown without them saying a word about it.
The second and much more accessible way of conducting neuromarketing research is by using EEG and putting small electrode caps connected to a machine onto your subject’s scalp. While much cheaper and accessible, EEG doesn’t reach deep enough towards the pleasure center of the brain and might not give you the information you need in its entirety.
The purpose
Now that we understand what neuromarketing is, the question is how do we use it to our advantage? It’s important to note that professional advice on neuromarketing is expensive (up to 1,000$ per hour) and as such it’s not really a viable solution for pushing products as a small business owner.
Small businesses are better off opting for surveys and hands-on demonstrations of their products simply due to the fact that neuromarketing might cost more than it’s worth. One of the best ways to create marketing content for small businesses is to visit writing service and ask for professional help on the matter. For others, however, this is an amazing opportunity to detect how exactly a person reacts when they see a product for the first time.
The applications of neuromarketing
The applications of neuromarketing are vast and it all depends on your product and marketing team’s creativity. Keep in mind that using this method of marketing research also requires a different approach to analyzing data. Neuromarketing will require you to hire a psychologist or someone who can understand brainwaves and tell you exactly what causes pleasure in regards to your product.
- One of the best ways to use neuromarketing is to place a shelf in front of a person and ask them to pick the item that they need or like the most – one of the items being our product. This can be followed by questions and live use of said product so that we can get as much information about the pleasure center of our test subject as possible.
- Using simple text exercises with your brand and tagline is also a good way to use neuromarketing. Using EEG will allow you to track eye movement of your subject and detect how long it takes them to find your brand and their subsequent reaction to it. Family-friendly and hand-made fonts that seem inviting and warm are the best choices when building your brand through text – let your test subjects decide.
- Developing new product packaging designs is much easier by utilizing neuromarketing in your research. Your audience will be able to tell you what they like or don’t like much more clearly if they express their thoughts through feelings instead of words. Again, track their eye movement, keep an eye on their pleasure center reactions and consult your marketing team with the results.
Winning the consumer’s attention is a huge challenge in a world in which each person is exposed, daily, to up to 10,000 ads for different products and services, as shown by the 2021 Global Marketing Trends survey, by Deloitte. No wonder, neuromarketing is a resource that has been increasingly used by companies to understand how consumers think bombarded by information and direct them to more efficient messages.
According to the director of digital content at UOL EdTech and master in consumer behavior, Fátima Bana, neuromarketing can be defined as “the fusion of neuroscience and marketing to understand the way in which consumers actually make their purchase decision”. This field of study analyzes the human brain to understand the behavior of those who buy and, based on that, create more effective marketing strategies.
“It’s not a tool, nor is it a new advertising model that will completely change how marketing works. It is, in fact, providing a scientific basis for making communication decisions”, says Fátima Bana, for whom neuromarketing is the investigation of consumers’ brains.
Neuromarketing strategies to apply in your business
Neuromarketing is nothing new. In fact, it has existed since before the internet and digital businesses and was already part of the offline communication strategies of many companies. Of course, with advancing understanding of the brain, science also evolved.
Pictures are worth a thousand words
A striking image is capable of attracting attention in just a few seconds, in addition to not requiring as much interpretation or understanding. That is, they are able to attract the eye and make that customer pay attention to what is being sold or offered. Thus, in many cases, it is better to invest in a direct and impactful image than in text.
People humanize the company
People connect with other people. When the customer “sees himself” in a company’s communication, the chances of making the decision and consuming your product also increase. Therefore, advertisements bring people simulating the relationship that the consumer may have with the product or service being sold.
Colors connect to emotion
“Any marketer needs to understand the fundamentals of color psychology. There are tones that affect people and provoke different feelings depending on our experiences. Red, for example, triggers a sense of urgency, green represents health and growth, whereas blue is designed to build a sense of trust”, explains Fátima Bana. The professional’s tip is to use colors that connect with the emotions you want your customer to feel when interacting with the product or service being offered.
Mental triggers
These are phrases or words used in a certain context that activate feelings or actions at the unconscious level of people’s brains. According to the expert, there are several types of mental triggers such as curiosity, security, scarcity, urgency, novelty, authority, anticipation and others.
Pleasant smell
Fátima Bana asks: “would you buy clothes or food in a place that smells bad?”. Therefore, the aromas also affect sensations and feelings, and it is always recommended, in the case of physical stores, to have a pleasant ambient perfume.
Stock disorder
“For the rest of the year the clothing stores are immaculate. On the other hand, during stock burnings, disorder reigns. The disorganization of these products gives a feeling of economic value and, therefore, of ‘better bargains’”, explains Fátima Bana.
Use of 0.99
One of the most used techniques in the market, the broken number brings the feeling that the value of a certain product is lower, even if the difference for the complete price is only 1 cent.
Testimonial videos
It is one of the techniques most used by e-commerce, says the professional. According to her, videos activate the social brain, being one of the strongest triggers both in the sale of products and services. It’s the “social proof” that shows that other people are getting the most out of it.
In conclusion
Neuromarketing is a technology that has only begun to expand and develop. There are new models of EEG and fMRI every day, making the technology cheaper and more accessible in the process. Consider using neuromarketing for more ambitious or risky products that you are unsure of. Sometimes using new and still unexplored technology might be exactly what you need in order to achieve a breakthrough in your marketing strategy.
