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Neuromarketing is a marketing discipline that uses neuroscientific research and consumer behaviour to improve the effectiveness of marketing and ultimately increase sales.
In other words, the field of neuromarketing aims to bring neuroscience and marketing together. It’s where marketing meets evidence-based science.
How many of you can honestly say that you know and understand your target audience?
You might know where are they based, their gender, age, and other basic demographical data, but do you really know what motivates them to buy?
The truth is, most customers don’t know why they buy.
Scientific research about the human brain shows that 95% of decisions are driven by subconscious urges, the biggest of which is emotion, which we then justify with logic. If you want to read more about it, click here.
How Does Neuromarketing Work?
Neuromarketing research uses technologies that observe brain activity and biometrics (like heart rate, eye movement, EEG imagining, and fMRI scan of the brain, galvanic skin response, facial coding, etc.) to determine how people respond physiologically to marketing messages.
Neuromarketing research has revealed the following results about all human beings:
- Humans are driven mainly by emotions, not logic (but we justify our emotional signals with logical reasons)
- 95% of decisions are made subconsciously
- Avoiding pain is a stronger motivator than seeking pleasure
- Social norms such as reciprocity, authority and social proof influence our behaviour
- Certain colours elicit a particular emotional reaction
- Visuals are processed more quickly than words
- Images of beautiful women, children, and puppies are universally appealing
- Prices with round numbers (like £100) are processed more easily, yet numbers like £99.99are perceived as a better deal
- The first and last parts of a message are especially important in setting the context for how a message is perceived
Difference between Traditional Marketing and Neuromarketing
Traditional marketing research tries to understand a consumer’s decision-making process from a conscious viewpoint, whereas neuromarketing aims to understand customer behaviour.
The problem with conventional marketing research is that relies heavily on the consumer self-reporting what they think, feel and believe.
Our perception of the world around us is usually driven by our mood and can change frequently. Sometimes we may even hold one view consciously while subconsciously believing something else, otherwise known as cognitive dissonance.
It’s not that we are hypocrites, but we are just contradictory creatures with competing desires.
This is why marketers can’t blindly rely on consumer surveys or focus groups.
It’s because of this human bias that neuromarketing exists.
Neuromarketing is a relatively new marketing discipline that complements traditional research with information that cannot be obtained through other old-fashioned techniques.
At Digivate, we are obsessed with neuromarketing and consumer behaviour because it helps our clients get better results while spending less money.
The Importance of Neuromarketing in Digital Marketing and E-Commerce
Neuromarketing gives you the most direct path to understanding and therefore changing a user’s behaviour, which is the central goal of marketing.
By focusing on the behavioural sciences, you can bypass conscious biases and identify automatic reactions that tend to be universal across all human beings.
In simpler words, neuroscientific research helps marketers to understand their target audience better than the target audience can understand themselves. This leads to better marketing tactics and increased sales.
Neuromarketing is more important than ever because it’s increasingly difficult for marketers to get their audience’s attention in the first place.
We now receive on average 5,000 marketing messages a day. It’s not humanly possible to process all of them. So only those marketers that stick out and speak to our deeply ingrained needs, will grab our attention.
Breaking through the clutter is becoming increasingly difficult, and marketers are now searching for a new advantage.
How We Use Neuromarketing for Competitive Advantage?
At Digivate we have access to the latest neuroscientific research about human behaviour online.
We use this consumer psychology data as a competitive advantage in content marketing, SEO, paid media, website design and layout and conversion rate optimisation.
Alongside standard consumer research, our approach helps to build smarter digital marketing strategies across paid, owned and earned media while spending less money.
Article by
Nicholas Turner
