Do we buy instinctively? Application of neuromarketing to understand consumer behavior.
The human brain houses many thoughts and emotions. Even the birds on the branch know this fact, but what does it mean in depth?
Neuromarketing is one way to analyze these feelings and understand customer behavior. Many people are still unaware of what neuromarketing is despite big companies using it in one way or another.
Let’s start with a basic definition of neuromarketing before delving deeper into how it affects purchasing behavior…
Neuromarketing is a marketing discipline that uses neuroscientific research methods to investigate consumer behavior to improve marketing effectiveness and ultimately increase sales. Neuromarketing aims to combine neuroscience and marketing in research. This is precisely where marketing meets evidence-based science, and in this way we enter the world of understanding consumer behavior, purchasing decisions, or how emotions influence customer decision-making. It is precisely this part of the link with the topic of impulsive consumer buying, most often impulsive buying can be traced through neuroscience. Most consumer decisions are made quickly and instinctively, without much thought. Understanding why individuals decide what to do and what not to do can help organizations avoid costly mistakes. Using triggers to influence your consumers’ purchasing decisions can increase your sales and profitability.
Now that we are familiar with the general definition of neuromarketing, we will introduce into the story several methods used in neuromarketing research to go deeper into the emotions of customers and in this way to understand how the stimulus that causes impulsive buying in consumers is reached:
1. Facial Code. measure the emotions that a person displays using facial tracking software.
2. Eye tracking. keep track of the eyeball movement of a person to see where their attention is drawn to.
3. Voice analysis. analyze a person’s voice tone and the meaning behind it rather than their spoken words.
4. Skin Conductance. measure heart rate, blood pressure, and the electricity flowing between fingers to detect any abnormal changes.
5. EEG. measure the electrical currents clustered in the brain when the brain is stimulated.
How do we make most of our decisions? — We all make decisions every day.
We would have little time for anything else if we took the time to seriously consider most of them. As a result, we make most decisions without even recognizing them.
Even 95% of our daily decisions are made unconsciously, out of habit.
When we say out of habit, you surely remember the moments when you buy items that you have already bought before and from a store where you have previously shopped. Our online shopping habits are similar. Our shopping experiences consist of a dozen procedures that are mostly thought through quickly. Most choices are made quickly, instinctively, and subconsciously by the fast-thinking system. It is based on instinct, habitual patterns of behavior, and emotional reactions. We are usually not aware that we are making such judgments. They are activated by subliminal stimuli that cause anxiety, pleasure, desire, and rapid recall of precious memories.
Do you ever smell a scent, hear a sound, or feel something & you are transported to another time, another place?
To make decisions, we use slow thinking when comparing items on a website, weighing the pros and cons of a decision, or calculating costs and benefits. Interaction of fast and slow thinking in decision making — constant, fast, and slow thinking are aligned. Unconscious emotional connections with a product or service are the first step in making a purchase decision. What we acquire is more important to how we feel than what it does for us. The customer’s interest is reflected in quick and unconscious impulses, and we slowly begin to think rationally only when it comes to some more expensive items or services. Then we compare things, and their characteristics, and only after a certain time do we make purchasing decisions.
Do emotions overpower the analysis? — The choice of consumers is based on their analysis or comparison of the characteristics of other similar products and brands. Customers unconsciously make decisions based on their emotions.
For example, $200 JBL headphones are on a web buyer’s shopping list. He seems to have found the perfect product after carefully comparing features, prices, shipping costs, and brand names with others. The purchase decision was made. It also shows him another model in a more exclusive color that sells for a higher price, but with free expedited shipping and a free portable charger. However, the premium color and freebies distract it from its original intent. When the unconscious brain is in charge, it makes emotional decisions.
We can conclude that when we use fast and slow thinking in advertising, then there is an increase in sales conversion. When a customer makes decisions in his brain, an alternation of slow and fast thinking takes place.
If you found this topic interesting, we suggest you also watch the excellent ted talk available at the link.
