What Is Neuromarketing? Definition, Examples & Techniques

What Is Neuromarketing?

Today, product marketing has become more complicated than it ever was. 

We may use the traditional means of surveys, focus groups, and interviews to understand customer preferences. However, while making a purchase, what X factor makes the consumer pick a product will always be a mystery. 

That’s why neuromarketing seems to gain more and more popularity. It literally gets into the consumers’ minds. 

Let’s understand what neuromarketing is and how you can use it. 

Neuromarketing, often known as consumer neuroscience, is the study of the brain to predict and perhaps affect customer behavior and decision-making.

In a market-research scenario, neuromarketing uses cognitive-behavioral science to measure a consumer’s responsiveness to marketing stimuli.

Neuromarketing is a concept that integrates marketing, psychology, and neuroscience. 

One may use non-invasive methods of detecting brain activity to perform research on implicit motives to understand consumer decisions better. 

Researchers look at how customers react and feel when you present them with your products or similar stimuli.

After that, you can compare the observations to the participants’ assumed emotions and social interactions. 

Neuromarketing came into existence to study human behavioral patterns corresponding to products and ads. 

You can use neuromarketing to reinterpret existing data and generate models of customer behavior. 

It provides a framework for understanding the psychological aspects of consumer behavior. 

Neuromarketing can assess their impact before employing branding and marketing methods to target consumers. 

Marketers can then sell the product so that it communicates with and meets the consumer’s needs with various preferences.

History of Neuromarketing

Let’s understand a little about the history of neuromarketing.

We recognize Hug Munsterberg, the founder of organizational psychology, as one of the first to express an interest in the field of neuromarketing back in1913. 

However, it wasn’t until the 1990s that biomedical imaging technology advanced so that we could obtain a substantial understanding of the human brain’s neural activity.

While Dutch marketing professor Ale Smidts coined the term “neuromarketing” in 2002, only around 17 years ago, actual research and experimentation in the field began in the 1990s. 

Professor Gerald Zaltman, a marketing professor in the United States, sought a patent four years before “neuromarketing” even came into existence. 

The Zaltman metaphor elicitation technique (ZMET), a marketing research approach that examines people’s conscious and unconscious thoughts, was the basis of this patent. 

He used carefully chosen visuals that elicited positive emotional reactions and, as a result, stimulated a possible purchase.

And that’s what evolved into the popular term we call ‘neuromarketing’ today. 

Why Is Neuromarketing Important?

People may or may not be good at expressing what they want. Neuroscience helps us understand the hidden factors of consumer behavior. 

It provides a tool to determine how the consumer perceives your product and how and when it influences the customer’s ultimate decision through its advertising and branding.

Neuromarketing is the most direct approach to understanding and thereby modifying a user’s behavior, which is the core purpose of marketing.

Concentrating on behavioral sciences can avoid conscious biases and identify spontaneous reactions common to all people.

In other words, neuroscientific research benefits marketers in better understanding their target audience than the target audience itself. As a result, you implement more robust product marketing strategies and increase sales.

Because it’s becoming increasingly difficult for marketers to grab their audience’s attention first, neuromarketing is more crucial than ever.

Breaking through the mishmash is becoming more challenging, and marketers are looking for new ways to stand out. 

Knowing your users’ thinking can help you better implement their ideas into your roadmap. Product roadmap tools often fail because product managers don’t know enough about their user persona. 

In content marketing, SEO, paid media, website design, layout, user experience, and conversion rate optimization, you can leverage consumer psychology data to gain a competitive advantage.

Along with traditional consumer research, neuromarketing aids in the development of more cost-effective digital marketing strategies across paid, owned, and earned media.

What Techniques Are Used in Neuromarketing?

Brands require specialized tools and neuromarketing experts to deploy neuromarketing successfully. 

They will enable you to employ the neuromarketing techniques listed below: 

Eye-tracking

The method focuses on the customer gaze and where they direct it. You can use it to determine what colors, fonts, advertising, and designs work best to capture their attention. 

Furthermore, you can use eye-tracking to cue the items that cause these persons to become confused. 

You can check out the consumers’ recognition speed if you’re interested in brand recognition. This technique will inform you whether you have a high recognition or need to improve it for people to remember your company more quickly. 

When you use eye-tracking, you can improve the design of your website, packaging, and advertisements at a low cost.

Facial Coding 

To identify emotional reactions, this technique focuses on respondents’ facial expressions. 

It allows you to identify people’s emotions, such as pleasure, fear, worry, surprise, or contentment. 

You will obtain insights that will improve your ad content and connect with the audience for a relatively low cost.

Pupillometry 

This strategy derives conclusions depending on the state of the individual’s pupils. It assesses the level of customer engagement by checking if the pupils dilate. 

You can use the results to improve ads, website design, and product packaging. The strategy is both inexpensive and simple to implement.

Electroencephalogram

It uses electrical impulses from neurons in the brain to demonstrate client engagement and memory. 

This rather expensive technique allows you to assess changes in a short period and increase ad and branding quality.

Biometrics

Based on skin respiration, conductivity, and heart rate, this method determines the level of interest and the type of feedback (positive or negative). 

Biometrics enables you to tailor your ad material to the preferences of your target audience. 

It can considerably improve the adverts and material you choose for them when combined with eye-tracking.

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)

This is the most expensive technique. It delivers emotional responses, memory, and customer engagement in great detail. 

You will need a lab to carry out the process. 

An fMRI measures brain blood flow during periods of strong neural activity. As a result, you’ll have data that will assist you in developing your branding and fixing prices.

Now that you know what techniques you can employ and which will help you achieve your objectives, it’s time to learn how to use neuromarketing in your product strategy efficiently.

How To Use Neuromarketing?

Neuromarketing is a broad concept that aids marketers in expanding their businesses more quickly. 

However, you must understand how to use its techniques in your strategy to be successful. 

We’ve put together a list of actions for you:

Study Eye-tracking Patterns

The product marketing team can determine the features that help distinguish and hook your audience by monitoring the gaze of customers. 

To determine whether clients enjoy your company’s colors, font, and graphics, put together a group of research subjects. Examine customers to see if they engaged in your store advertisements.

After digging it out, you’ll figure out where to go with your ads, branding, and packaging.

Brand a Positive Personality

Being kind, open-minded, and cheerful can get closer to the audience. It will build a foundation of trust and commitment. 

Including a cheerful face in your advertisements or social media posts will help create a pleasant image of your company. 

People will be more likely to do business with you.

Simplify the Entry Rules

When you ask potential customers to enter their credit card information to start a free trial, you’re likely to chase them away. 

People who sign up for a free trial without giving their credit card information are more likely to become customers. 

Keep this in mind and strive to lower the entry barriers. 

You may improve the customer journey by simplifying the sign-up process and creating intuitive online forms.

Chisel has a simple sign-up process. You can access the #1 agile product management software free forever with just one click. 

Psychological Tricks

Marketers use various techniques to lure customers and influence their purchasing decisions. 

All businesses use particular pricing points to persuade customers that they are saving a lot of money. For example, instead of $100, you’ll frequently see rates like $99.99. 

Other ” tricks ” may also be advantageous for the brand’s sales. Your sales are more likely to grow if you position light-colored goods on the top and dark-colored goods on the bottom shelves.

Now that the process is transparent, let’s move on to some real-life examples. 

They’ll provide a hint about how to develop a unique neuromarketing plan.

What Are the Examples of Neuromarketing?

Here are some examples of neuromarketing that popular brands or entities use.

Game of Thrones

This study aimed to see if consumers find video materials more interesting than audio. 

Researchers used identical video and audio scenes from Game of Thrones to examine subjects’ physiological responses. 

Participants found the video 15% more engaging, while the audiobook resulted in a faster pulse rate, body temperature, and skin conductivity.

PayPal

Ebay’s online payment business, PayPal, discovered that neuromarketing was quite effective in enticing customers to utilize its service. 

The element of focusing on USPs for ease and speed, which scored high on the brain response, rather than hitting components like security and safety, was one of the most valuable discoveries.

Knowing this, they customized their adverts to attract visitors to the site, demonstrating that you can use neuromarketing to boost sales.

If you’re not ready for the expensive tools used in neuromarketing, you can opt for simple product management tools. 
Product management softwares like Chisel provides product feedback and team radar features that help you track feedback.