One of the many questions I get asked when focusing on the psychology in business is how to get inside the mind of customers with marketing. This is called neuromarketing. It’s a new term to describe something marketing has done for centuries.
What is neuromarketing?
Neuromarketing is the application of neuroscience, psychology and their tools to the response of customers to marketing and to elicit the desired response of customers to marketing.
In other words, it’s getting inside a customer’s head and finding out how marketing effects it and using that information in future marketing.
How does it work?
Outside of researchers, most businesses and marketers are generally unaware that the practices they’re using are founded in psychology
and neuromarketing.
Everything from the colours they choose for their brand, the tone of voice they use on social media, the pricing and package deals they offer, the layout of sales pages, the use of reviews or testimonials. All of these and many more are founded in neuromarketing.
Using neuromarketing means that a business is putting what motivates their clients at the centre of their marketing.
Savvy businesses understand that happy clients spend more money and they extend using what motivates their clients to their whole business, including:
– how they/staff interact with clients (because marketing doesn’t stop when someone asks to buy something),
– after care (because it’s cheaper to retain a client than find a new one), and
– whenever they are networking (because we are always representing our business).
Is neuromarketing ethical?
It honestly depends. It depends on where your ethics lie. For example, I don’t believe that using traditional fear marketing techniques is ethical, however it is a valid neuromarketing technique.
Propaganda is a valid neuromarketing technique, think Cambridge Analytica and their tactics on Brexit or against the Hilary Clinton campaign, but its ethics is questionable.
Many business owners are new to the concept of neuromarketing, look at the previous examples I’ve given and believe that neuromarketing isn’t ethical. However, they use a number of neuromarketing techniques without realising they are. Does that make their marketing unethical? If you use their own standard, they are behaving unethically.
Is neuromarketing profitable?
Is marketing profitable? Who is your marketing targeting and do you need them to act on your marketing to make a profit? Do you want to increase your profit? Then neuromarketing is profitable because it focuses on getting more action from your audience.
Common ways small business can use neuromarketing
There are many common ways that businesses use neuromarketing. Some examples are:
– the use of 9 in pricing
– omitting $ in pricing
– choosing particular brand colours to reinforce values
– using reviews/testimonials on sales pages
– using heaven and hell transformation/journey in sales pages
– using 3 pricing options on sales pages and putting the preferred option in the centre
– having a private Facebook/Slack or other online group for their clients, or
– having a mailing list.
These are just some of the common marketing practices used by business, all of them employ neuromarketing. Book a free 30 minute call to discover how you can use more neuromarketing in your business.
