Neuromarketing is quickly becoming a more mature research field. For years Neuromarketing has proven to be so much more than many skeptics initially anticipated. We do find however that the findings of Neuroscience, Psychology and Neuromarketing are often not applied to business. Because of the lack of application, we decided to write a small blog about the different ways you could use Neuromarketing on websites.
Applying Neuromarketing to websites #101
There are many different fields related to design, psychology and neuroscience that all have significant contributions. Today I’ve picked the top branches I feel can be applied to every business website out there.
COLOR PSYCHOLOGY
One of the most powerful and often overlooked subfields is color psychology. Many Ad design agencies have known for years about the ‘magic’ combinations.
QUICK COLOR PSYCHOLOGY FACTS:
- Customers make judgments about any product within a 90 second window. 62 – 90 % of their judgement is influenced by color. (Research)
- Orange + Blue is a particular combination that is especially -over- used in Hollywood movies and posters. It’s high contrasting, attention grabbing and harmonious.
- Colors can change the context in which we process stimuli
- Colors can heavily affect your mood
- Colors can heavily influence decision making
- The colors of the clothes you wear heavily influence how people see and perceive you
Colors do so much more than most people think. They put everything we see and hear in a specific context, they influence us emotionally, and some are way more effective at persuading people than others.
As you can see in the image above there is no ultimate color. It all depends on the values your brand wants to communicate. On top of that, in different cultures, different colors could have different associations.
EXTRA VISUAL DESIGN TIP:
USE CONTRASTING TO YOUR ADVANTAGE WITH THE VON RESTORFF EFFECT:
A brilliant psychiatrist and researcher by the name of Hedwig Von Restorff published a paper in 1933 explaining how visually prominent items are more likely to be remembered by people. This phenomenon is called “isolation effect” and is so effective because of how our brain processes visual stimuli. The eyes and brain are always alert for changes in patterns.
The implications of his paper are profound, and you don’t have to be a scientist to notice the usefulness of his theory. In our work, we often use contrasting as an example of the Von Restorff effect. By using a contrasting color on a button or other call-to-action, the eyes of a visitor will immediately focus and lock onto the contrasting item. When appropriately implemented this can give a massive boost in conversation rates.
It is also essential to remember the implications of color usage. A color can be great for its contrasting effect, but an awful choice for conversion because it communicates the wrong vibe.
PERSUASIVE WORDS
No, you don’t want a word salad. Good copywriters and (online) marketers have known for years about the profound effects of the written language. The semantics of text is crucial to how people perceive and process any given message.
At BrainDecrypters we love to do experiments with different phrasings and subtle differences in storytelling. Our experience: minor differences can have profound implications.
Especially for you, we’ve create a list of 3 powerful words you should use in your next blog or marketing campaign:
- You: creates a personal connection
- Instantly: signals speed and activates our reward centre. It fulfills our need for instant gratification
- New: people like to buy new stuff. When a product is new it’s associated with higher economic value and status because not everyone has it yet.
PROCESSING FLUENCY
Our brain likes it when everything goes smooth. We don’t want to think about how things work. We just want a seamless experience.
Our brain likes it when everything goes smooth. We don’t want to think about how things work. We just want a seamless experience.
When things cost us more mental energy, we tend to get annoyed or even frustrated by it. The web-Fluency killers:
- Menu items that are not logically named
- A website that forces us to figure out how navigating works
- Using complex sentences and phrases (with lots of jargon) that are hard to understand
- A site that takes forever to load
- A website that uses horrible color-combinations with bad contrast; which make it impossible to read content. (One of our Neuromarketing competitors does this a lot, so we hope they won’t read this blog post)
The web-Fluency boosters:
Basically just do the exact opposite of the Dont’s listed above. It’s not rocket science.
- Use menu items that are logically named
- Don’t make users figure out how to use the site
- Use simple, yet elegant language
- Go for a speedy experience and short waiting times
- Use colors as a tool, not as a (weird) creative outburst of visual terror to ‘stand out’
GAZE AND FACE
THE STORY OF GAZE (AND THE BABY? )
When you think about design and its function, there is an elegant trick to increase the prominence of your call-to-action and drive more attention towards a specific area of your website.
This trick is all thanks to the gazing effect. When we see a picture of a person’s face, we tend to follow their gaze unconsciously. This means that by using a well-positioned photo, we can steer website visitors into the direction of the gaze in the used picture.
A lot of blog articles and books on Neuromarketing include this example of how a company used a baby’s gaze to steer their customers to a specific call-to-action.
Link to the study
A FRIENDLY FACE
When we see faces of people, we cannot help but look them in the eye. Religious and cultural considerations aside, we tend to always gravitate towards the eyes of others. This even holds true if we are watching a photo or movie. Seeing a friendly face can instantly make us feel more connected to a website. Therefore our advice: Make your site experience more human-centered.
BONUS TIP: Many (recent) studies have shown our subconscious behavior to pupil sizes. It turns out that people feel more secure and trustworthy when their pupils are larger. Time to use those puppy eyes!
How can you apply this bonus tip? Make sure you do not use pictures of eyes with small pupils. This subconsciously signals distrust and activates our reptilian brain. DANGER.
Applied to your personal life: Enhance your pupils in photoshop or re-take your photo’s with larger pupils. There you go! An immediate gain in credibility and trust.
Applied to businesses: Make sure marketing images are friendly or congruent with the specific message you want to broadcast.
THE MOST EFFECTIVE COGNITIVE BIAS TO INCREASE CONVERSION
The Conformity Bias:
The easiest way to interpret the Conformity Bias is as ‘Social proof.’ It is your evidence, your credibility. It shows that you have clients and work with trustworthy business partners.
You should also include the following items to boost your trustworthiness and credibility on your website:
- Reviews
- Badges
- Certifications
- Trust seals (if applicable)
- Number of social likes (when a decent amount of followers are present)
- Awards
- Number of clients
- Years in business (use if more than >5 years)
- Mention media and press coverage
Despite what you might think, the examples mentioned above are well-tested, proven principles from psychology and Neuroscience. Your creativity and imagination are the only limitations when using these principles.
Are you looking for professional guidance with applying Neuromarketing and psychological principles to your business? You’re in luck! It so magically happens that we are a Holistic Neuromarketing Agency.
Our focus is on solutions that truly exceed expectations. We don’t like to think in boxes. Therefore we don’t use them.
We love to push businesses forward with science, psychology and creativity.
We also love to incorporate innovations and technologies like AI into our projects to create scientific, innovative and creative solutions that create a lasting impact.
We will soon write a follow-up blog post which will include the following goodness:
- How to use anchoring in websites
- How to use the scarcity principle in websites
- How to establish more authority and be less needy
We appreciate your support. All our digital love <3
Team BrainDecrypters