If your target audience is professionals, cool blue colours are the way to go. If your print ad features a person and an image of your product, make sure the person is looking at the product. Otherwise, your audience looks at the face, not the product.
These are just two very simple brain behaviours that neuroscience picks up and that have been captured in thousands of marketing campaigns that are based on neuromarketing.
There are plenty more too – from using matte rather than glossy packaging to make food packaging more mouth-watering, through to pricing strategies. We all know about pricing something at $19.99 rather than $20 is a marketing tactic. It works because complex numbers make the logical brain work harder. As a result, it can convince people that the complexly priced product is the more logical decision.
Think about how vividly you remember getting lost at the supermarket as a child. Or how well you can recall the events of your wedding day. Significant emotional responses supercharge our memories of experiences. And because these responses happen subconsciously, they don’t show up in customer feedback reviews, ratings, or surveys, which is where many businesses assess their customer experience.
Instead, these emotional responses impact future behaviour and decision making – which is the key to growing a business.
Leveraging neuromarketing for your customer service strategy allows a holistic understanding of their needs/wants and paves the way for deep emotional connection that keeps people engaged through positive experiences.
Neuromarketing isn’t new – Dutch marketing professor Ale Smits coined the term and practice in 2002. Since then, however, science has advanced, and major companies around the world now use neuromarketing insights to improve customer experiences, creating trust and loyalty.
But it’s not just the domain of big business. SMEs don’t need a science department or an AI and machine-learning lab to utilise these scientific pearls of wisdom.
There is a ton of great information, insights and easy-to-digest research that can spark a great design, idea or campaign. Here are a few we recommend:
1. “Five Neuromarketing Tips For Your Visual Content”
This easy to digest article highlights simple insights to create visual content that affects consumer behaviours. For example, did you know that because fear of flying is so common among people, many airlines incorporate blue in order to soothe their flyers and inspire trust and safety!
2. “Nine Powerful Ways You Can Use Neuromarketing To Grow Your Business”
This article neatly explains neuroscience methodologies and lists some practical and simple ways to use neuromarketing insights to your advantage. One tip explains that using images with people, especially babies, tends to attract longer and more focused attention.
3. “Head Games: The Many Benefits of Neuromarketing”
This is a really interesting article that gives real-life examples of how brands and companies have used neuroscience. It points out that every day, people are exposed to between 3,000 and 5,000 marketing messages!
