Don’t you just wish that your marketing team has superpowers of reading the minds of customers? The ability to read the minds of customers can work in favor of the business immensely. Well, the truth is you can try to the best extent possible to read the minds of customers and create marketing content that appeals to their psyche.
The strategy is called the Neuromarketing approach and has worked successfully for a variety of businesses. How can you implement this innovative brand-building strategy on Instagram? Here are credible neuromarketing tricks that can help improve your Instagram content:
Using customer selfishness to your advantage
The whole point of neuromarketing is appealing to the brains of customers and to do so, you must make everything about them. Part of the human thinking process is greatly affected by feelings of selfishness, so to speak. People want to benefit themselves and therefore think greatly of themselves and fortunately for you, this can be used in advantage of the business.
You can play with the ego of the customer and make them feel like they are getting an exclusive experience or something that makes them special. Instagram is the best channel to do so because this platform is a predominantly visual social app.
Thus, you can share aesthetic pictures that portray the product to be elegant and very special. Alternatively, you can show customer’s how your product or service is eliminating their problems.
Businesses selling makeup products have leveraged this human instinct of benefitting oneself by making customers feel like they are the most beautiful in the whole world. Creating an experience like this for products or services marketed on Instagram is the key to unlocking a neuromarketing strategy.
Reciprocity Principle
The Reciprocity Principle works on two different factors, the first one being a tit for tat cycle and being spontaneous towards customers. Your targeted audience does not want to be the only ones always giving out something to you. Rather, they expect to be given something else in return for giving you business and supporting the brand by purchasing marketed products.
Also, if you spontaneously give customers a gift, they will feel indebted to giving back to the business. Don’t make the mistake of underestimating this strategy because small meaningful gifts can go a long way in securing future business.
Think about it, would you buy from a business that has done nothing at all for your benefit or a company that has offered gifts? Undoubtedly, the latter business would gain preference and that is how neuromarketing plays out in this matter.
Just like the old adage goes “You scratch my back, I scratch yours,” companies that use the reciprocity principle tend to increase their sales. Remember, the gifts you offer on Instagram do not have to be necessarily expensive, just thoughtful and meaningful.
Using influencers and brand advocates
Another perception common amongst the majority of people is following the crowd and go for what is trending. Making purchase decisions based on what most people are thinking seems to be the safe way to play it. A lot of online shoppers prefer following this method when making purchase decisions because it gives them a sense of security.
Therefore, it is important to drum up a lot of relevant noise around the brand and the product currently being marketed. You can do this by using influencer marketing and brand advocates. Implementing this strategy can also be done when a business is on a budget by using nano and micro-influencers.
Using 2 or 3 different influencers maximizes the rate of how much your products go viral. Another very cost-effective method of getting more people to talk about the product or brand as a whole is getting brand advocates. Regular customers can fill this role for a certain commission that is paid when a purchase incited by that advocate is complete.
You can also use customers that recently bought your product to post User-Generated Content (UGC). That type of content can affect the purchase decision of a lot of potential customers, so invest in a method of having consistent positive UGC.
Making customers feel important by using chatbots
How do you feel when your message gets responded to after a day or two? Undoubtedly, you may get furious and feel inferior to the recipient of the message. That is exactly how customers feel when you respond to their direct messages or comments after a long time.
That does not contribute to a successful neuromarketing strategy and can repel customers away from the business. Customers want to feel a sense of superiority when dealing with a business because they are spending their money after all. You can give them the upper hand by ensuring that their complaints, comments and suggestions are handled swiftly.
What better way is there other than using a chatbot to respond to their texts instantaneously? There are various chatbot providers that can be used as an extension to Instagram with preprogrammed FAQs. These AI-powered bots can present a menu of options to customers and they can classify their complaint or comment using the preprogrammed categories.
That results in a good filtering system that lets you handle the complaints and comments that are above the capabilities of the chatbot. Some advanced machine learning chatbots can keep a basic conversation running that is similar to those handled by humans.
Choosing relevant colors
Colors have a symbolic meaning in marketing and to appeal to the psyche of customers, you have to ensure that the right message is sent to the target audience. You cannot just choose colors randomly but a lot of thought and time must be invested in this process.
That applies to infographics or designs you are posting on Instagram and the best way to choose the perfect colors is using the Color Theory Wheel. The psychology behind certain colors should be the cornerstone of all considerations of choosing a relevant color scheme.
For example, red may be used for hot deals that customer’s should notice and be aware of. The color red is the best for this purpose because it is generally used to caution danger. Therefore, it grabs the attention of most people and it will direct it to the special or discount being offered.
The color black can be perceived as pessimistic and deriving bad luck but it all depends what color it is mixed with. For example, a black background with wording in gold or white font expresses elegancy and upmarket value.
Simplifying the lives of customers
The human psyche tries to avoid confusion at all costs that is why people hate and get angry over what they cannot understand. You can use this to the business’ advantage by simplifying the lives of customers the best way possible.
How can you simplify the lives of customers? For starters, make data available to them as customers won’t dig through your Instagram page to find the business’ website. Therefore, include the link to the website of the company right where it belongs, under the Bio section.
If you are using an Instagram Business account, there are also extra fields where businesses can provide extra information. For example, they can include the business’ contact details and a company address. That is all the information customers should really never have to ask for and that stresses the importance of being proactive.
Instagram has also made it easier to implement neuromarketing by simplifying customer’s lives by including the Shop option. Customers can easily locate the prices of products they love on your Instagram feed without leaving this social media channel. Although smaller businesses don’t have the checkout option for now, hopefully in future Instagram will release it.
Present socio-economic value
You can tick all the boxes of making customers feel important and leveraging their selfishness but not make the cut for certain customers.
The reason why they do not support your business is because you do not present any socioeconomic benefit. It goes without saying that the world is facing a lot of problems and even though you can’t solve them all, customers want to see initiative.
When customers see that you are keen on fixing at least one of the problems plaguing planet Earth they might consider making a purchase. Having a socioeconomic benefit plan will show customers that you are not in it just make a profit, but to also make a difference in the world.
Thus, it is essential for businesses to have at least one good cause they are supporting. You might need to do some market research to ensure that the business chooses the perfect cause that resonates with the brand. For example, a company manufacturing soft drinks might support the fight against sea pollution by selling their product in a reusable container.
Logistics companies have used this strategy successfully by supporting the fight against air pollution by implementing clean energy solutions. There is a lot of good initiatives you can support and pledge your allegiance on Instagram so that the customers connect with the brand.
Leveraging the competitive spirit of customers
It goes without a doubt that people have a competitive spirit always brewing inside of them. That is why people fight even over little things, it is because they want to feel superior and dominant to their competition. You can use this to your advantage by turning potential customers to competitors.
How can this be done? Whenever you are rolling out a new product range, post a contest on Instagram that will win the product for free or at a massive discount. You can also make the catch of the challenge to be customers buying a certain product and the first 10 people who purchase it stand to win grand prizes.
There are many ways you can implement this neuromarketing approach and there are multiple of brands that have successfully implemented this strategy. For example, a brand focused on skincare solutions called Fushi launched a contest when launching a new product range.
Fushi successfully implemented this neuromarketing strategy that promotes customer engagement and brand awareness. Domino’s pizza also launched a competition with high stakes and its intention was engaging customers and building brand awareness.
Customers had to post a picture proving that they are a superfan for a shot of winning $10,000. Every Domino’s pizza fan wanted the title of being the Superfan thus they engaged on this contest to the greatest extent ever imagined.
The bottom line
Neuromarketing affects almost every aspect of a marketing strategy, therefore you should be more conscious about every decision you make. For example, tasks that may seem meaningless such as choosing a color scheme can affect the customers’ perception of the brand.
You should focus on gratifying the customers and making them feel special or important. Above making the customer’s feel important, also consider adding some socioeconomic benefit to society so you can gain favor of customers that are sensitive on these matters.
About the author
Tobias Foster works as the senior writer for a custom essay service where his role is to provide assignment help to school and college students related to their coursework, thesis, dissertation and education essays. He works as a freelancer for other assignment writing services as well and that has helped him gain solid writing experience and a mastery in the subjects he handles.
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