Neuromarketing. Sounds complex. However, it is a rather simple practice! It’s the key to retaining your customers and keeping your ROI high if used correctly. We will simplify the 4 best practice techniques to ensure your brand uses neuromarketing efficiently.
This article will break down what exactly neuromarketing is, along with how you can use it to build brand credibility. You will also uncover the techniques behind ‘FOMO’ and its effect on customer behaviour.
Using neuromarketing techniques is vital if you want to influence your customer behaviour and remain a serious competitor in your market. Below are a few handy techniques that can boost sales and keep your customers engaged with your brand for longer!
-
What is Neuromarketing, and why does it matter to customers?
Neuromarketing is nothing new. In fact, it’s an instinct that humans have always had and used. If you passed up food because you might get more in the future, that decision could cost you your life. So, how does this translate into sales?
Customers aren’t stupid. They know that there will be sales at certain times of the year: Boxing Day, Black Friday, End of Season etc and, often, they’ll wait until these times to make purchases, causing a drop in sales that many businesses experience. In 2016, John Lewis saw a 2.6% drop in sales in the week leading up to Black Friday – a dip worth £114.2 million – as customers put off purchases waiting for the sales.
You can avoid this dip by enticing customers to purchase within this period. Send them vouchers and personalised discounts to get their spending before the sales. The customer will take the immediate discount over a potential future one; even though that may be more. This also ties into the customer’s fear that what they want may sell out (see tip 2 for more)
This doesn’t just apply to sales. Dropbox saw that, by offering extra storage for each referral, it increased its referral rate from 100,000 users to 4,000,000 in just 15 months and, now, 35% of daily sign-ups come from its referral programme. Have a look at Dropbox’s presentation for more on how Dropbox did this.
-
Making use of Neuromarketing’s FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)
Consider your energy bill: “Save £100, switch to our new plan” is enticing, but “Don’t throw away £100, switch to our new plan” is more likely to get your attention and make you switch. Loss doesn’t just have to be monetary, though. It can be a loss of opportunity, especially in retail. If something is low in stock, loss of business, loss of health, follow – the list goes on.
A customer is more likely to do something if they view the alternative as a loss rather than a gain: They’re loss averse and you can use this to your advantage. Try these strategies to take advantage of behaviour:
- Sales–Highlight that an item is on sale or in the clearance section and the customer will snap it up before it’s gone. Add a stock counter and watch the last few sales come flying in.
- Vouchers–Having an expiry date on the voucher will push the customer to make a purchase before they miss out on the discount. This will only work if the customer wants that item, so use your customer data to target customers with personalised offers.
- Limited Time Offers–Online e-book sales are a great example, “Buy now, get extra content free”. If the customer is interested, then this will tip them over the edge; they won’t want to miss out on the extra information.
-
Creating a Neuromarketing Bandwagon that your customers will love
You’ve almost certainly heard of the phrase “Jumping on the bandwagon”. It applies to just about everything, from sales to politics, and is the reasoning behind exponential growth. This is easiest to see on viral posts and tweets on social media. Posts can double in interactions within minutes as people join in expressing their opinion, encouraged by those around who have done the same thing. Once a post passes the viral inflection point, it will continue to grow without intervention.
Understand this and you’ve got a simple and fantastically effective way to drive customer loyalty and increase demand. Underline your positive feedback and encourage your customers to do the same. Boost check ins and social sharing to improve your presence and, for a smaller company, emphasise the problem you’re solving – if the customers think you’re on to something they’ll get onboard.
-
Ways of Building Your Brand–Gain Trust
Why is it that Apple releases a new phone and it sells out before anyone’s even used it? You already know the answer! It’s because customers trust the brand. Apple has built its brand with a history of high quality, beautifully designed and highly functional products – and customers trust this enough to spend thousands on a product without trying it first.
It takes years to grow a brand to this level, but that doesn’t mean you should just give up. Familiarity wins brand loyalty, so make sure you keep it consistent. It may tempt to rebrand, but customers are fickle and dislike change. Frequent rebranding presents a risk of alienating the customer, as well as losing the customers’ loyalty, as they may no longer associate the same trust with the new brand.
You can boost your brand identity and trust in your brand by keeping it consistent. Make sure that your colour scheme is exact; always use the same font style and get your logo displayed prominently, embed it into your e-mail signature and have it on all your content. If you build your brand alongside your product, then customers will associate the brand which builds trust – and trust drives loyalty.
If you need to rebrand, then do so, but consider the fact that Apple has had only one major rebrand since 1977, and that was in 1999 to change the colour of its apple from rainbow to plain white. Nike has had the Swoosh logo since 1971 and has been using the “Just do it” slogan since 1988.
Neuromarketing isn’t anything difficult. It’s just taking advantage of standard human behaviour to influence customer purchasing. This article contains just a few techniques that you can use to make your marketing more effective, but keep your eyes on this space as we’ll be writing more posts on this subject, including looking at how you can optimise your advertising campaigns with scientific research.
