Wednesday, December 5

What is the taste of your company?: The taste and Neuromarketing

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At other times we talked about the importance of scent marketing. Explaining how and why we can integrate it in brands and outlets. Ultimately, the importance of the sense of smell.

We also discussed the role of music and therefore ear. Of course, the view, the sense used in marketing. And how necessary it is to touch the products. In other words, the sense of touch. This means we have dedicated posts to, sight, touch, even when I call the sixth sense, but what about the fifth?.

Taste is also a very powerful sense and its use can help sell, but what we market is not edible.

We've all experienced some evocative power of taste. Who does not go to a particular restaurant by how well there made a recipe. One that we can eat in many places, but there knows there special. Who has not eaten after the passage of the years some cookies that taste reminds us that mom gave us as children. Or has missed the taste of the old, because everything before I knew better now (or so we think many times).

That evocative power, the power to transport us in time, making us relive sensations and feelings known, as also happens to smell, is the most interesting for companies and brands.

These low-quality candy that nobody wants, put on the table where it serves customers, not the most appropriate to achieve our purpose. But maybe, until now, did not think it could be a sales tool.

A commercial invites so seemingly innocent, to your prospect to a candy in his pocket. Coincidence?, Maybe. But it also might be doing brand. If the candy is unusual, it is a different flavor, quite possibly the commercial customer and remind the company that represents him. It may also be that the candy is especially good, but with a familiar flavor. O with hints of familiar flavors. Then, in addition, the client will remember when we taste something, but do not speak weeks with us.

The flavor that we choose must be in harmony with the rest of the experience that the customer want to live with us. Our corporate image, the smell of our brand, the music, the packaging of our products and flavors present in any part of the sales process, should be focused to be present in the customer's mind.

It does appear the first Google if the customer's mind are the last. The first help attract new sales, but the latter helps to build loyalty. Reaching the customer with the five senses helps the "Mental SEO".
And how I can find out what the client feels in your experience with me?. Applying neuromarketing to what I like to call "Corporate Experience" (a step beyond the simple shopping experience), as we have had in previous posts, we mind that positioning, even more effective.

Now that the Christmas season is approaching and everyone puts sweets dates to remember we are in Christmas, why not put other customers remember who we are, or what we do. Why not design one with neuromarketing Corporate Experience to help us be in the top 5, but in the customer's mind?.

Wednesday, November 21

brands: have to be empathic?

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Says the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy that empathy is the "mental and emotional identification of a subject with the mood of another."

Thanks to mirror neurons, people are empathetic. That is nothing that we say to "step into the shoes of another". Feel what the other is feeling, albeit to a lower degree. Understand the other person emotionally, because to understand the rational in his words and just need our ear.

Empathy gives us what is missing ear. Thus, colloquially, I call mirror neurons "sixth sense". Because with them we feel within us the emotional part that speaks. Thanks to them we can understand the human being in its fullness. Words can have many meanings. Deduce which of them is the context. An essential part of that context is the feeling you want to convey who utters them.

Recently, in another post, we conclude that the marks needs to be emotional. But a brand can it be empathic?. Based on the definition that the dictionary could not understand. It clearly says "... of a subject with the mood of another." So it's something between people.

Some people ... What is a company?. Not a company a group of people?. Until relatively recently, there was a tendency to dehumanize companies. So that was something of a corporation as an entity whose purpose was to make money. The bodies were already for scary movies. Today a company is identified with an entity, also terrifies the consumer. Companies are groups of people working to cover in the form of product or service, the needs of others that we call market.

The company that best connects with your market is the one that succeeds. That is the group of people who best understands the other group is the one who gets the upper hand. Because it makes products and services for what they want and need. And if that connection is mutual, the market has a high degree of loyalty to the company that provides ... Conversely, the company must also be faithful to its market.

We are talking, then, that a group of people have to connect with another. They must understand perfectly and is reciprocal. And people to be well understood, have said they need to do, also, with the "sixth sense". Therefore a company, necessarily, if you want to do more than survive selling off, empathize with your market needs. Displayed as a connected group of people with people. Companies need to be empathic.

And brands?. A brand is not just a means of communication. The way companies do reach their customers and prospects what they are. And when I speak of what they are, I mean covering needs with its products, but also what they feel as individuals. If communication between people is essential to empathy and brands are a means of communication between people and companies, and brands have to be, by necessity, empathic.

Those brands that are just a nice way, but their substance, not empathize with your market, are only traces. A brand is an attention getter, which connects the customer how are the people behind it. Being told to feel those forming the corporation (or product) that identifies them. Take the first step in establishing a link between them at first. Then is the symbol that keeps the relationship. A brand is an experience of values, sensations and feelings. And as such, if not empathize, can not achieve their purpose.

In the XXI century mark if not empathize with your market is not brand. Likewise, if a company does not empathize with their customers is not company, is a being empty.

Wednesday, November 7

What effect does the fear in buying?

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Who has not ever been afraid?. It is a natural feeling in us. In part has helped us survive as a species. Being afraid of what we believe can be dangerous, has made our natural curiosity about the unknown we put on too much risk.

Fear is a feeling as human as love or tenderness. But with a very different effect on our body. Who has not blindfolded when suddenly suspected gonna be bad in the horror film, really doing it out of sight of ...

And we love to love, we like to feel that love us, we feel good when we are comfortable, but fear ... Fear is the opposite. Paralyzes us, makes us alert, tells us that something can go wrong, but not always right. So, whenever you feel no fear what comes next is going to hurt us. Sometimes it is caused by uncertainty and ignorance.

Precisely the latter is the most frequently appears in the sale. In most cases there is a terrifying fear that still leaves us physically. But it is a feeling that we stop making the purchase process due to uncertainty.
Often it is fear of not knowing if the product really meets our needs and will hopefully have the utility. So to "return" the product is an effective sales tool. Makes this fear disappears.

But this is not always possible. Sometimes the characteristics or the cost of the product itself, make infeasible to eliminate this fear with the return. Normally you can not return a car, even who have not passed a fortnight or preserve the "proof of purchase". However, precisely these cases, the fear if we succeed or not to buy, is the protagonist in the final decision.

The sale can be decanted, perfectly provider side to eliminate or alleviate that fear in your prospect.
When it comes to these products "no return", it is essential to find out what the client's fears. To report how our product or service can help meet the needs of our target and thus mitigate that fear.

On many occasions we have discussed how neuromarketing can help create feelings and sensations detected. Fear is a feeling more. Apply neuromarketing in the sales process, can help you find what paralyzes the purchase in the minds of our target. So, knowing what really afraid. With this information we can create a shopping experience to help you deduce that you are not buying something unknown and therefore sensitive to provoke fear. But something known, that generates peace and satisfaction knowing that will meet your needs.

Wednesday, October 24

Neuromarketing in hotels

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In many previous posts I mentioned that neuromarketing has application in absolutely all sectors. I also talked once about neuromarketing applied to tourism. Today I would like to dig a little deeper into this sector and discuss neuromarketing applied to the hotel sector.

Sensations, perceptions are critical in any sales process. Take care at the facility where the customer happens too. But especially in the hotels is particularly important. What differentiates one from another hotel of similar characteristics and location? ... What the customer feels when it is hosted on.

The customer to return or recommend a hotel, will depend largely on what this feels when in its facilities, enjoying their services, but is simply a night.

How neuromarketing can help the hotel industry?. You can do this through several avenues.

The first, attracting customers seeking a particular feeling indirectly communicating it. If we look at our hotel the customer absolute relaxation, it is communicating with our brand with our website, how we deal with the customer, with no need to say that he is the protagonist. Using EEG and even eye-tracking, can help ensure that we are conquering our customers with a feeling. Not the same tell our customers will get to our hotel the absolute relaxation, which transmit relax just by seeing the image of our brand.

Second, the same techniques but applied to hotel facilities will make your customers, when they are living there, really, those values, those feelings ultimately that experience.

Indeed, not only the shopping experience applied to hotels, but with a twist. They can establish a conquest through the five senses, so we'll get a much more complete.

Conquer through sight, with our image and the decor of the rooms. With the ear, using music properly. With the smell, not get tired, but evoking what we seek. And of course, the taste. In hotels also eaten. If we design a menu according to the values we want to evoke, get a complete experience. And neuromarketing can also help here. Apply neuromarketing techniques to find out what our clients feel at certain flavors that our customers get a unique experience. While only the longer experience if they return to our site. This is the main goal of building a purchase experience. And in most cases do not have to start from scratch, can be achieved by modifying existing facilities without large investments.

As a prelude to the above, neuromarketing can help us identify what values reign our experience. I mean, what more valued sensations are evoked our target if our hotel.

The neuromarketing to build shopping experience is useful in any industry, but one much more like a hotel than what sells, really, are sensations.

Tuesday, October 9

Why not sell the ebook in Spain?

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We live in the digital age. A period in which we want to remove the paper. Air tickets are a number in an email. In the books we want to replace a screen. In toil away after millions on software to our company, we have something installed on something called server.

There is no doubt that it is much more convenient to have your boarding pass in an email, or to bring a book, always in your pocket without weighing or holding site. Practical yes, but do they make these innovations facilitate the sales of those products?.
 They sell many more airline tickets than before, but not by the format of the tickets are sold because prices are much more popular. Moreover, it is shown that suppression contributes to the physical ticket low-cost concept. Reinforcing much more the idea that we are buying something at a low price. But, what happens when we bought the ticket is not cheap. What happens when a book is about. Spanish legislation complicates the ebook is much cheaper than digital. What happens when you have a company paid a lot of money on software that we use but we do not know where he is.

A comprehensive study that neurologists, psychologists, anthropologists and marketers (which I have the honor of meeting), we shelled and analyzed the data he provided an EEG combined with an eye-tracker and a GSR, obtaining as a conclusion something we already knew intuitively, which claimed some studies in USA, but just wanted to know if it happened in Spain: The tangibility sells.

If you do not understand something, I hardly buy, but still helps to sell more power handling. We already knew this long ago and there is ample evidence, so we decided to focus on a new product that has not taken off and doing something that was intangible tangible: The eBook.

Some argued that the new format in Spain never took because the legislation does not allow it. Admittedly it quite difficult legal takeoff of this format. But the tangibility makes over 70% of the users of this new format in our country, try reading one traditional paper format whenever they have time. Practicality is the only reason that makes them consume eBook. Adherents of this format are not faithful. Why is that?.

The answer we found in our study. The book is one of the most potent stimuli for the imagination. When we read a book we automatically transported to another world, one that is only true in the story that tells the author. When we dove into account our brain is immersed in the new reality. When we read the book we return to that reality, but we found something curious. In a paper book, subjects were faster submerged in history that when they did the same book but in digital format.

Why?, Simple. When we have a book (traditional paper) in our hands, their touch, their smell, their colors, our brain helps you remember what you felt when you were reading. Do not forget that our brain is stimulated by the five senses. When the book is electronic we only visual stimulation, but also e-readers show all books with virtually the same, so our brain "costs more" remember how I felt when I read that story.

That's why I predict you still long live paper book. That's why I recommend to anyone who sells something intangible that tangibilice, it reaches the customer by the five senses. And coming from someone who was long obsessed suppress almost all hardware in the software, which is very convenient with little cost to the seller, but not conquered the buying, which is what ultimately gives us eating. From sages say that is correct and if it is neuroscience showing that I was wrong for years, all the more reason.

Wednesday, September 26

The Power of cheating

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All that we are dedicated to marketing, we never tire of saying that the brand communication with the client must be sincere. Our company must not promise what you can not deliver. Nor must promise to do something you can not feel. The reason we've been over sometime. When this experience is disappointed deception. Someone cheated never be a loyal customer. And not only that, but also drag with your negative recommendation to others.

However, we are tired of seeing some ads, called "teleshopping", give exaggerated information on the effects of their products and remain on the air for a long time. And they do it because they are still making sales. What keeps them in the limelight. Many users are still buying, even though they know they will not get the same result as seen in the spot. It is just the opposite of the sincerity of the marks. Why it works?.

The Journal of Marketing Research has the answer. The effect "attractiveness" of the property, called the attention of several researchers decided to study why they sold, even when he knew they were exaggerating.
For the study employed a group of twenty volunteers and fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging). This system measured, in real time, the amount of blood that irrigates each brain area. If a particular area receives more blood in an instant, because you need more "food", as it is running. Thus, through this system, we can know, in real time, which areas of the brain are working at every moment.

Taught various ads (including the home shopping) and prepared to draw conclusions after fMRI readings.
They concluded that our brain reacts to that kind of publicity as when we detect a danger around us. That is, the more "misleading" is advertising, analyze it in more detail. Our brain knows you are trying to "cheat" and increase their level of analysis. So these ads attract attention. So continually issued and sold.
We could say that deception is a powerful attention getter, but a great enemy of loyalty. Customers attracted to these ads buy, but do not repeat your purchase. Could we use this strategy without compromising the sincerity of marks?. The answer is yes, using the ambiguity.

Before an ambiguous ad, which does not provide all the information our brain reacts exactly the same. As the information is incomplete, our brain functions to analyze and find out if we are trying to deceive or if, on the contrary, it is a good thing.

Do not give all the information, let the potential client to find out what it is is a powerful attention getter and is not detrimental to the loyalty. Instead, it creates expectations. And we know that when we create an expectation and overcome, the loyalty is one step, if not directly that is achieved.

Wednesday, September 12

Why brands need to be emotional?

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Lately,  people would often ask the same question: Really brands and companies have to be emotional?. Could it be simply that the emotional is fashionable?. I will try to answer the two questions in this post.

It is true that lately it seems that everything has to excite the customer. If it does not sell thrills, even claim. It is one of the strongest trends of marketing. But it is much more than a fad. It has a scientific basis.

Until recently, we thought that the man was a rational being. We believed that the reason, that sets us apart from other species, was the one who controlled all voluntary acts of our lives. However, something seemed to fit that thesis. We all happened before we've found two products, one above another in performance, but something has to tip the balance toward that rationally, was lower. Something that we can not explain, however has made that "we have been wearing." Remember the first iPhone smash?. iPhone was GPRS. Its direct competition was 3G. However it was sales leader. Or how many times to get home have said: Why I bought this?. Something that, rationally, not needed, but that mysteriously clings to our hand. Later we thousand reasons to justify that purchase to ourselves. But the reality is that we needed.

These examples and many others (not only in the world of marketing), suggested that the famous theory of being absolutely certain it was not as rational as we thought. Indeed, the ability to reason makes us different. It's an evolutionary advantage to our species that is found in the "newest" of our brain. So, which appeared later in the timeline of evolution. That leads us to one conclusion: we have been using the other parts of the brain for much longer. The reason, the rational influences in our lives, yes. But the non-rational, impulsive, instinctive, emotional, too. And much more strongly the latter. Why harder?, Because we, as a species, much longer using a brain without rational part with it. Do not know how to use our brain so that "the boss" is the reason. We have not learned yet.

Man is not rational, it's just a being that is capable of reasoning, but man moves irrational stimuli. We could say that the "emotional brain" is much stronger than "rational brain". This does not mean that the latter does not influence anything in our lives. If so, it would be meaningless existence. But you will agree with me that it is much stronger emotional. What happens when the team loses a big fan?. If the rational dominate, surely it would save a great hard time, but not, we can emotion. What heartbreak?, Rationally there are many people we fall in love, there's no reason malratos. However, the emotional can. Had bad because that person has left us of that, emotionally, we were in love and we do not attend to reason.

Marketing aims to bring companies to their markets. He tells companies what their customers need and then give it as a product, at the same time disclosing these to your potential market. That is, marketing is responsible for the customer-company relationship will be fruitful for both. If customers and businesses are people and people are more emotional than rational, does not it make more sense that the marks are just so emotional?.

That's why that emotion is not fashionable, it is the language of man. The Neuromarketing handles precisely applying marketing knowledge that brings neuroscience. The neurosciences are those that have shown that man is emotional. Neuromarketing is responsible that brands start talking over emotions and less of reasons.