Neuromarketing sounds like one of those buzzwords marketers like to throw around, but it’s actually a real science.
And although it’s a new area of marketing, it’s fairly important stuff. Plus, we need all the help we can get, right?
Neuromarketing looks at how the brain responds to certain stimuli, like images and sounds. The better understanding of how the brain works, the more effective we become at influencing it.
So by combining psychology and neuroscience, we might become better marketers.
And major brands have taken notice, too.
Campbell’s have embraced the science and reimagined their product packaging.
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Neuromarketing is (fairly) easy to use
So how can you put neuromarketing to use, in your business?
You don’t have to go out and conduct a bunch of experiments to benefit from the practice. We can just look at some of what science has discovered.
This is just scratching the surface, and it’s something I hope to return to in the future.
Colour
First up is colour.
It’s been known for a while that colour can trigger specific emotional reactions. But it’s also biological, to some degree.
For example, the colour red creates tension – it forces the eye to focus, while the colour blue forces the eye to relax.
Its thought that the colour yellow can trigger anxiety, while black gives the impression of strength and stability. So choose your website colour palette wisely.
Words
Names and descriptions are more important than we previously thought.
A study by David Just and Brian Wansink discovered that how you name something has a massive influence on customer behaviour.
In one experiment they changed the name of a portion of spaghetti from ‘regular’ to ‘double-size’. This caused diners to eat less, because they believed they were full.
Price
This study by Monica Wadhwa and Kuangjie Zhang introduced a new word to the marketing glossary; ’roundedness’.
They found that items priced with a rounded number, such as $10, sold better than items priced $9.99 – if it’s an emotional purchase.
However, items priced $9.99 will perform better if it’s a logical purchase.
This means, according to their results, if you’re selling luxury items, or products that are purchased for pleasure, rounding the price will ‘feel right’, for your customers.
One theory of why this happens is because the more digits involved, the harder the brain has to work. And that’s a better scenario for times when the logical brain is engaged.
So hopefully if I’ve done my job properly, I’ve taken an area of marketing that hardly anybody talks about, sifted out all the stuff you don’t need to know, and provided some actionable steps for you to sell more stuff.
And if you have found it useful, pay it forward and share this in your network – your friends and followers might be thankful that you did.