The Definitive Guide To Neuromarketing
- 1. What is neuromarketing?
- 2. Why is neuromarketing important?
- 3. How does neuromarketing work?
- 4. Which companies use neuromarketing?
- 5. How is neuromarketing different from traditional market research?
- 6. Here are some practical applications of neuromarketing to help improve your marketing decisions
neuromarketing
What is neuromarketing?
Neuromarketing is a marketing strategy that uses neuroscience to understand and influence consumer decision making. It uses the science of neurology to predict how people make purchasing decisions. Neuromarketing professionals are called neuromarketers, and they use these skills to study the brain in order to improve sales, marketing, advertising, and product design. The field of neuromarketing has existed since the 1990s, but it's getting more popular as businesses try to learn more about what consumers really want. Neuromarketing measures and interpreting data gathered through electroencephalography (EEG), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and magnetoencephalography (MEG) to study the brain's response to marketing stimuli.
This method of research has been around for nearly two decades, but it has only recently become more popular due to software advancements that make data gathering less expensive.
The goal of neuromarketing is to get inside consumers’ heads and figure out how they think. Businesses are interested in neuromarketing because they want to know what their customers think about their products.
Neuromarketers can use brain scans or other scientific techniques to test reactions while people watch television commercials or look at magazine ads. They can also use brain imaging technology during focus groups or when people shop in stores.
The results give businesses a better idea of which products will do well in the marketplace and why.
neuromarketing important
Why is neuromarketing important?
Why is neuromarketing important? Because people make emotional decisions first and rational decisions second. When we ask people why they made a decision, they often don't consciously know. The science backs it up. Studies have shown that we rely on emotion to make our purchasing decisions faster than the time it takes to blink an eye (about 200 milliseconds). This means that when a customer or a potential customer enters your store, they're not making a logical decision about what they want to buy. They're buying something because they feel like it. Because of this, it's hard to measure what makes an ad or a product effective without a scientifically validated and measurable way to see consumer decisions and responses happen.
So why can’t we just ask people why they made their decision?
The problem is that humans are terrible at identifying their emotions or measuring their intensity. In fact, when asked to determine why they made a decision, people often cannot pinpoint the reason behind it—it’s just how they felt.
This is because emotions are often deeply rooted in our subconscious minds and are difficult to identify, let alone quantify.
This means that there’s a gap between what someone says their reasoning for making a choice is and what the actual decision-making process was—and that leaves marketers in the dark about why people are making certain decisions, which means they’re missing out on opportunities to connect with consumers and sell products more effectively.
And if you can get down to the root of what makes them feel that way?
Then you can design marketing campaigns and business models that are so much more effective.
That’s where neuromarketing comes in.
Neuromarketing is a scientifically validated way of seeing consumer decisions and responses happen, so you can measure them to design more effective marketing.
By using neuromarketing techniques to track the brain’s response to products, advertisements, and websites before and after design changes, companies can provide tools for testing campaigns or products with real scientific data about effectiveness instead of relying on gut feeling.
Neuromarketing doesn’t just give us data that we can interpret at will—it gives us a scientifically validated and measurable way of seeing how consumer decisions happen in real time.
As a result, companies can design more effective marketing campaigns that are based on real consumer responses rather than guesswork.
How does neuromarketing work?
An EEG is a brain imaging technique that measures neural activity through electrodes placed on the scalp. You can track customer engagement and brain activity very quickly, over the course of seconds, through an EEG.
An fMRI is a brain imaging technique that uses magnetic fields to track blood flow through the brain. You can track a customer’s detailed neural responses, recall, and level of engagement with an fMRI.
The eye's fixation points measure attention through eye movement, while pupil dilation measures a customer’s arousal. This can be used to measure engagement and attention.
Tracking micro-changes in facial expressions can provide insight into a customer’s emotional response.
An increase in heart rate demonstrates increased arousal in your customer.
How FMRI is used in neuromarketing
One of the most advanced tools available to help businesses get information about consumer behaviour is functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). fMRI is a type of brain scanning that was initially developed in the early 1990s. It's used to measure brain activity by tracking blood flow through the brain. The more excited certain areas are in the brain, the more blood is flowing through them. This gives us a map of which part of the brain is responding, and how much, to a piece of marketing stimulus. This reveals emotional responses that can be used to set pricing, identify target markets, and even predict consumer behaviour.
How EEG is used in neuromarketing
Electroencephalography (EEG) is a tool used by neuromarketers to track brain waves. It is a noninvasive procedure that uses electrodes on the scalp to measure and evaluate electric fields produced by neurons on the scalp’s surface. At Neuro Marketing Labs we have invested in the best-in-class EEG headsets that are convenient, accurate, portable and easy to use to help us measure the emotional responses to marketing stimuli. This method can be used to measure engagement and recall, which in turn can be used to improve branding efforts. The main benefit of EEG is that it is less expensive and more convenient than functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and it can also provide information about which parts of the brain are involved in a particular mental process.
Which companies use neuromarketing?
different
How is neuromarketing different from traditional market research?
Traditional market research is a process in which people are asked to indicate their opinions, intentions, and behaviours with regards to a product or service. However, this method relies on self-reported data, which has the potential to be inaccurate because people may not understand why they make certain decisions. Furthermore, self-reported data doesn't take into account the emotional factors that drive decisions. In a study undertaken by Columbia University, researchers found that all decisions are made emotionally before they are made logically. They studied how people decide on items to buy, and concluded that there is only one thing that drives our purchases: emotion.
The study also found that individuals make decisions based on emotion and then justify those decisions with logic. This helps explain why people buy items they don’t need and why they overlook warning signs in a decision. The advantage of neuromarketing is that it uses scientific technology to see the decision-making process in action. This allows for quantification of emotions and more accurate predictions of how consumers will feel about a particular product or service. In addition, neuromarketing helps companies make better-informed decisions about how to focus their marketing campaigns, improve their products and services, and increase sales. While neuromarketing doesn’t necessarily replace market research, it certainly should become an integral part of the process.
Here are some practical applications of neuromarketing to help improve your marketing decisions
Branding & Logos
Neuromarketing tools can be used to test ideas and variations of your logos and branding. You can collect data on which logos and marketing content resonate the best with your customers and optimize your efforts based on that data.
Packaging
With neuromarketing techniques, you can test various elements of your packaging design without having to commit to anything permanent. You can see how various elements of your packaging perform on the shelf, potentially saving huge costs in rebranding due to ineffective designs.
Websites
Neuromarketing research can be used specifically to show where someone's attention flows as they navigate your website page, and help you understand their level of clarity vs confusion when asked to complete a specific action or outcome on the website. This information can be used to improve the navigation of your site or even the design of specific product pages or CTA features.
Commercials
For many companies, TV commercials and digital ads are a major investment. Whether you're using digital or traditional media, it can be difficult to determine which campaigns are effective in driving your desired actions: increased brand awareness, increased purchase intent, or an increase in sales. The science of neuromarketing can help you test your concepts for TV ads and digital content to determine what is most effective at driving your goals. It can also help you edit your commercials to deliver the greatest impact on recall and engagement with the audience.
Social & Display Ads
Neuromarketing is a relatively new field that can help you improve your social and display ads. By analyzing the brainwave activity of test subjects as they view your ads, you can pinpoint what parts of your ad are striking and grab attention, and which ones fall flat. You can measure emotional response to different imagery. You can see how colour, fonts, and contrast improve the ability to capture attention. This helps you make more effective social and display ads by making sure your copy is emotionally compelling, and your images are immediately arresting.
Product Design
By using neuromarketing techniques, you can see how people react to your product; you can test different iterations of it to see what delights people and what confuses them. You can measure if people are confused by your product or if they like it, and whether or not it's easy for them to use. These are all things that traditional market research doesn't tell you, because it only measures what people say. But when you actually measure how people think, feel, and behave when interacting with your product, you learn a lot more about what they really want.
Sales Pitches
Making a great sales pitch can be challenging. You have to capture your audience's attention, explain the value that you bring in a compelling and exciting manner, and reduce any confusion about what your product does. However, these tasks are easier said than done—especially when it comes to emotional engagement and reducing any confusion. Luckily, there's neuromarketing: a study of how people perceive products and make decisions about buying them. Using neuromarketing techniques can help you to identify the emotional high points in your sales pitch, as well as where people might be experiencing confusion or falling into boredom.
Product & Landing Pages
The conversion rate on your product page or landing page is an important metric for most businesses. In fact, the conversion rate on your product pages and landing pages can be a critical factor in determining whether your site succeeds or fails. In order to improve conversion rates, it's helpful to understand how consumers react to specific content and products on your site. Because consumers don't always act rationally, this information can help you understand what types of information about your products can increase conversions for a specific audience without necessarily increasing conversions for everyone. Once you know how a person processes information on your site, you can make adjustments that directly address their preferences. This means more sales and more profits for your company, which is why neuromarketing is an important tool for businesses.
Investor Pitches
Preparing to pitch your business to investors can be difficult. You have one chance to make a first impression, and you're vying for an investor's attention against other companies that are in the same situation. What do you show them? How do you pitch? And how much time should you spend talking about yourself versus the business? Why not utilize neuromarketing techniques? By testing your investor pitch, you can develop a compelling pitch that resonates with, excites, and persuades your audience—and get their attention and their money.
ethical?
Is neuromarketing ethical?
The rising popularity of neuromarketing has prompted questions about its ethics. Some people think that neuromarketing is similar to the shady experiments with subliminal advertising that were conducted in the 1950s and 1960s, but the science of neuromarketing is completely different. Neuromarketers are trying to see how people react to certain marketing content when they're presented with it. They do this by tracking their attention span and engagement level with a particular branded message or product. They aren't trying to secretly influence your brain - but rather to see what you are already paying attention to. Neuromarketers are using data to see what content appeals to someone, to help craft better marketing and content—and that's not only ethical, but super helpful!
valid or pseudoscience?
Is neuromarketing valid or pseudoscience?
Neuromarketing has been well-researched in well-established institutions. The earliest research was published nearly 30 years ago by Dr. Read Montague at Baylor University, and it was followed by a large number of similar studies at prestigious universities around the world. These studies have all been performed in a laboratory setting, and the results have been replicated and validated by other researchers. The technology has been adopted and used extensively by Harvard, Stanford, and universities and colleges across the globe. Large enterprise brands also use the technology to help inform decision making. It's not pseudoscience; it's a very valid way to help all of us better understand how our brains work and how we make decisions.
Examples of neuromarketing
- Platform winners: Facebook wins on creative attention
- Twitter wins on brand attention
- Both brands are tied for text attention
Can a neuromarketing agency predict buying decisions?
We often think about loyalty and buying decisions as a cognitive process, the belief that we have in a brand for all their awesomeness. But the truth is that decisions to maintain loyalty are emotional. In fact, over 95% of buying decisions are emotional, and only 5% are rational (source: Harvard Business Review).
Because of this, neuromarketing can help you understand how your audience feels about your brand and your marketing. The goal of neuromarketing isn’t to trick people into buying products they don’t need or want, but instead to help you understand what it is your audience wants and how you can give it to them in ways they’ll connect with emotionally.
Neuromarketing doesn’t replace traditional marketing techniques; it helps you understand how people respond emotionally to marketing techniques—and whether they resonate at a deeper level than just a rational argument.
A smart neuromarketing agency (like Neuro Marketing Labs) helps you use the latest technology to make better marketing decisions that resonate at an emotional level with your audience.
Speak with Neuro Marketing Labs
Neuromarketing Labs helps you discover what is most memorable and desirable by providing deep actionable insights into how your audience emotionally responds to your brand, messaging, and products.
We aim to simplify the lingo and to focus on practical advice marketers need in order to get their ideas to work. We find more cost effective ways to deliver neuroscientific insights to a broader marketing audience so that more companies, agencies and marketers can access the advantage.
Speak with us to test a specific campaign or an entire rebrand.
