Making the Most of Neuroscience in Marketing

Serious marketers have used data analysis to develop their strategies for a long time now. They analyze the market, consumer behavior, perform experiments and observe test groups. Lately, marketers have found various ways to apply information learned from neuroscience in marketing.

Neuroscience in marketing can be beneficial, but there are many myths surrounding its effects. Mostly, it gives marketers insight into what consumers focus on when watching or reading an advertisement. It tells us how we remember things and what makes us memorize or forget a certain piece of information.

Neuroscience is still not that influential in the marketing world, but more and more companies are starting to consider it as an aid to their campaigns. So what are some of the most useful insights that marketers can get from neuroscience?

Visuals Are Vital

Visuals are the integral part of our information processing. A lot of our brain capacity goes towards vision, which is why marketers should focus on creating appealing visual content. The pieces of content must be properly optimized, in order to fit perfectly into the advertising space.

Furthermore, the content should not only be of high quality, but it should be mobile responsive as well. These kinds of details appeal to us and are bound to induce a positive reaction.

And I am not just saying this. Evidently, visual social media such as Pinterest, Instagram and Youtube are creating more consumer engagement than platforms which are not that heavily focused on graphics.

Low-Level Visual and Sensory Features
Marketers have always know that minor content tweaking can lead to a positive change in user engagement. Now, there are tools to prove this.

Neuromarketing can measure the reactions to smallest of changes to a piece of visual content. For example, research shows that if you place an image to the left side of the page, you will achieve higher content performance. This is due to processing fluency, one of the most significant concepts in neuromarketing.

Marketers should focus on creating content that has visuals of outstanding quality. Beautiful images should accompany blog posts. Infographics should be helpful and engaging. Having an HD video that is visually appealing will drive traffic more than anything else.

General Concepts vs. Detailed Descriptions

When it comes to informational content, it is important to note that the majority of consumers appeal mostly to general, rather than detailed pieces of information. It would be wise to consult the newly derived content marketing funnel representations, which are based on the traditional marketing funnel.

Namely, by using the funnel you are engaging potential customers in a logical succession of publications. Generally, introductory piece of content will encompass the largest number of users.

Later on, the demand for more information from potential buyers makes marketers create a more detailed piece of content, for those that are not only interested in the general concepts of a certain topic.

As the funnel reaches its bottom end, what you are left with is a portion of highly engaged customers. After they show interest in the detailed descriptions of a product, you start producing content that will retain the newly acquired clients.

Simplicity vs. Novelty
This is always a struggle for marketers. The question is: Should we produce simple yet boring content, or deal with intriguing tales of disruption which might confuse the consumer? I posed this question to a few SEO experts at FourDots who gave quite a logical answer: marketers should strive for creating balanced pieces of content that will, at the same time, be informative and easy to process.

As aforementioned, users process minimalistic designs much more effectively than more complicated design variants. Neuroscientists call this the “prototypical” design. So, it would be wise to balance informative, more advanced pieces of content, with a visually appealing page design, or smooth blog post formatting. This way, it is more likely for consumers to engage and still feel like they are actually reading something of value, i.e. learning.

Neuroscience and Content Marketing

It is well known that marketers use focus groups and surveys to understand customer preferences, but these tactics can hardly be applied to content marketing, as suggested by Dr. Carl Marci. He outlines that neuroscience proves the existence of many non- conscious processes and that traditional marketing consumer research fails to address and analyze those impulses.

“Bleeding Edge”
This term is used to describe leveraging non- conscious responses for the purpose of creating content that engages. Metrics such as heart rate and eye- movement help researchers find out how the consumers actually feel.

Proceed with Caution

Whatever type of data a marketer retrieves from these kinds of experiments, should be used in a creative way. Science does not tell you what to do with the results. Usually, scientists will just let you know whether a certain reaction was positive or negative. The responsibility falls on the marketer to apply the lessons from neuroscience in marketing. Professionals should turn to these novel methods of research and stay ahead of the technology curve, which is an essential part of making it in the industry.

Oscar Waterworth– Content Creator