Marketing Through Neuroscience — An Accountants Perspective
I am by no means a professional marketer. I am, in actual fact, an accountant by trade and look after the operations of a business. However, I am also a firm believer that every person who works for a business is marketing that business. One of my favourite quotes recently comes from a visit that JFK made to NASA in 1961. While on a tour of the facility, he introduced himself to one of the janitors mopping the floor and asked what he did at NASA. His reply: “I’m helping put a man on the moon!”
In 2021 I have decided to embark on my MBA journey, and I am currently busy with our Innovative Marketing module. Over the last week, we have been focusing our attention on neuromarketing and visual content marketing. As a marketing student, both concepts are relatively new to me, so I thought as an individual that works within an SME, I would share some advice on what I have taken from this week.
“Neuromarketing” loosely refers to the measurement of physiological and neural signals to gain insight into customers’ motivations, preferences, and decisions.
By applying neuroscience studies to marketing, businesses can understand how different people react to various stimuli regarding a product or brand. Neuromarketing seeks to stimulate a person’s senses, sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. The goal of obtaining this information is to create an offering for customers that do not merely offer something but instead aims to help you experience something. This experience creates an emotional connection with customers and creates a bond with supporters of the brand.
Creating a brand identity that is unique in a customers mind is what businesses strive for. Developing a distinctive set of brand associations using human senses creates a clear image in the consumer’s long-term memory. This association can then be activated when stimulated accordingly. Therefore, the experience is no longer only associated with the product but instead with meaning and emotion. Consumers tend to make purchases based on how they feel about a product or service, not what benefits or features it may provide.
Human perception is primarily visual; therefore, visual content is essential for several reasons. It is easier to understand, transcends cultural and linguistic boundaries, is easier to remember, more likely to be shared, and can directly affect our emotions. Visual content also happens to reach the brain the fastest. Making use of distinct shapes and colours influences consumers feelings and provides them with the ability to recognise and recall brand identity.
Visual marketing content can be created in a number of ways, through illustrations, comics or videos. By employing a content marketing strategy that uses various forms of visual aids, such as still images, gifs, infographics, quotes, etc., across multiple platforms, will consistently increase the overall engagement with consumers. Ensuring that content is kept fresh will also ensure that consumers continue to connect with the business.
While visual content across various platforms is a good strategy, it must be warned that not all visual content types will work in the same way. Compelling visual content is only successful when used in the right place. For example, content that works on Twitter may not work on Instagram. Taking the time and care to understand how content is accepted on different platforms will maximise overall coverage.
Ultimately, marketing strategies need to be tried and tested within each business own operating environment. There is no one size fits all approach, and what works for one company may not work for yours. One factor, however, always needs to be taken into account: You cannot manage what you cannot measure. Therefore, whatever strategy you choose to employ, ensure you decide early on what you would like to measure, how to measure it, and how it will affect your future decisions and campaigns.
