The Basics of Neuromarketing — Review

A new week, a new blog post. If you’ve been following along with my journey through the online courses with CXL Institute, then you know I’ve been learning a LOT about Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), and sharing some of my notes. Want to catch up with the previous 5 posts? I’ll link them here!

For those of you ready to see what the scoop is right now, let’s not waste anymore time…

Oh, and don’t be nervous about the fact that we’ll be discussing Neuromarketing. It’s only the intro to it ;)

Before you get ahead of yourself and start guessing why CXL includes this for CRO, they are going to introduce the discipline and contextualize for modern day internet marketing. Roger Dooley teaches this course, and he is a pioneer neuromarketer with decades of experience.

He started off talking about neuromarketers and digital marketers having a lot in common. How can they learn from each other? Well, in digital marketing, you’re measuring whether that actual purchase is taking place. The results are more meaningful than measuring the brain activity when predicting whether they will or not. This is where we can bring in neuromarketing with the neuroscience end, and the behavior end.

We’re going to look at figuring out what brain areas are specifically used when predicting behavior, and what behavior scientists spend less time focusing on. How do they behave in the real world? What are the generals to the specifics?

When we apply knowledge gained via behavior science and neuroscience, we can do better in marketing. This looks like: decision science, influence science, as well as persuasion.

The instructor mentions BJ Fogg, who created the Behavior Model. He pulled out some main topics, saying you need 3 things to reproduce behavior. One of them is something we’ve previously discussed in other blogs, so I thought I’d add it again…

Motivation to want to do something or to be made to do something. They have to have the ability to do so. What’s sparking them?

When scientists use biometrics to measure things like a heart rate, breathing rate, etc. when users view certain digital content, they’re getting to see internal factors. They can track their eyes and which parts of their brains light up. This baffles me! How amazing would it be to learn what exactly triggers something in a user’s brain when they view your webpage? Talk about modern day technology.

There were some “Key Insights” that I think you’ll also benefit from:

• Never believe A/B test case studies! Since they only show part of the story, it’s not the whole truth. Without absolute numbers, you can’t fully trust it.
• If you can’t see it, you can’t change the behavior of your users. Test the things that have the power to fundamentally change their behavior.
• Statistical significance is not validity. Do not stop testing something once you’ve reached 95% significance, because you need to have enough sample size with a long duration.
• Understand and utilize your customers’ biases and make your website the ultimate salesperson.
• Goals + Ability + Culture = Growth System

When we went on to discuss conflicting views on what marketing teams desire for website layouts, the instructor brought up a framework he coins as “The Persuasion Slide.” There are 4 components to this concept, each element with a conscious and non-conscious component. It’s overarching theme is to encourage you in discussions or amidst your own thoughts regarding consumer motivation. How can you get them to act? What triggers or nudges will enforce conscious or nonconscious opportunities?

1. STEP 1: Gravity is what makes the slide function. Without it, we’d never get to the bottom, otherwise. This also represents the customer’s initial motivation. It represents their needs, wants, goals, and what they come to the table with — not anything marketers have made them desire. Motivation (gravity) is why consumers seek you out in the first place, why they want to know more about your company. By asking or pushing your product/service on them, you’re actually going against gravity. This is really interesting to me, because if you look at it in this light, I realized just how much of my ideas for advertising is really about making someone see the value in my business. Rather than “hey, do this,” we can present it as “here you go,” which will align much more smoothly if someone is already seeking you out.
2. STEP 2: Once we’ve got a grasp on enhancing “natural intrigue” of your product, we can focus on the nudge. This is how you can get the attention of your customers and begin persuading them. Referencing the slide model, this is the part where a playmate or friend would give the hesitating child a little push down the slide. In marketing, this might look like a phone call or email or something that might pop up (an ad or alarm). Making your nudges visible and known is essential to the persuasion department. You want to encourage your viewers to complete the necessary steps of conversion.
3. STEP 3: How the slide is angled will determine how the child gets to the bottom of it. There are different types, just like there are various forms of advertising. Conscious motivators are things like the product benefits, features, discounts, price… examples: How much money consumers can save, the power of the product, ease of refunds. Not much emotional involvement is used here. Non-conscious motivators are a play on emotional appeals, appeals hinged on psychology, and based on cognitive biases. Those little bumps and quirks in how we think. The instructor suggests including both the non and the conscious motivators in your strategies to appeal to both ends of the spectrum.
4. STEP 4: Friction. When children pause or get stuck in the middle of a slide, it’s because the slide doesn’t have enough slip to it. The same goes for sales that aren’t smooth enough for shoppers. When carts are abandoned online, we have to evaluate at what part they got “stuck” on. What level of convenience is there? Are there too many forms to fill out? Too many required steps that trip up the process?

One of the big take-away’s I got from this week’s lessons was: “Don’t focus on trying to increase the customer’s motivation to do things. Instead, just focus on making it easier to do.”

This really brought home the concept of making sure that my website and what I offer is displayed as accurately as possible. Every step of my conversion process should be smooth and easy. No hiccups on the way down that slide!