Neuromarketing is more than just a fancy term; it has become a potent marketing approach for marketers in recent times. This marketing practice involves some fancier terms like persuasion research, behavioral economics, and social psychology.

From home page layouts and design imagery to call-to-action (CTA) and content placement, everything falls under the umbrella of neuromarketing. To put it simply, whatever we find intriguing in terms of user experience is all a matter of neuromarketing.

In web design, the objective of neuromarketing is to elevate conversion rates. It is also used to drive sizeable visitors who take some kind of action by using particular cognitive biases in the design and content of the website.

Now, let us explore more insights related to neuromarketing and learn how it drives conversion rates.

Implementing neuromarketing principles in web design to drive conversion

1. Pictures are worth a thousand words

This adage points towards a phenomenon called the picture superiority effect. This means that pictures are more likely to be remembered than words.

All websites developed on Web 2.0 standards leverage this phenomenon to a great extent. In recent times, using captivating images when designing websites is a necessity as visitors have limited attention spans. With only about 8 seconds to grab their attention, modern websites have to make the most of the images.

Image positioning has a defining role in neuromarketing. Ideally, the reader’s eyes move from top to bottom and left to right, so you can include images that point in a direction (a person gazing towards a textbox, a person kicking something, etc.).

2. Colours influence action

In 1933, researcher and psychiatrist Hedwig Von Restorff presented a paper elaborating on how visually prominent elements are more likely to be remembered. It’s also known as the “isolation effect,” and it works because the eye and brain are continuously searching for interruptions within patterns.

The theory is relevant to color selection in web design and supports the well-known eye-tracking study.

Going by the theories, your CTA – “Add to Cart”, “Subscribe” or “Buy Now”  – should appear in stark contrast to the rest of your page. You can use subtle visual cues to attract consumers to your CTA. Strategically positioned shapes can subtly catch your visitor’s eye across the page and toward the action you want them to take.

2. Implementing cognitive ease

Renowned economist and Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011) elaborates that our brain contains two modes of thinking:

System 1 is responsible for automatic impression and understanding.

System 2 is responsible for the conscious mental effort we put into an intricate task.

Cognitive Ease is a concept in which people who are compelled to use their System 2 mode, experience cognitive strain and, as a result, become suspicious.

Now, you wouldn’t want the consumer to get confused or skeptical when they come across a product. Remember, 90% of consumer decisions depend heavily on emotion. The moment something is difficult to comprehend, System 2’s logic takes over.

This is one of the most crucial principles of neuroscience. You should strive to reduce the mental effort consumers put in selecting and buying a product.

“You can get someone unfamiliar with your website to try to find and buy a specific product. When the visitor hesitates or gets lost are likely to be areas where consumers are leaving your website,” opines Nathan Harrison, an assignment helper associated with Myassignmenthelp.

Now, there are pertinent ways to alter your pricing that makes the buying process simple for the consumers. Given below are some insights:

• Rational and emotional product types should be priced differently. This is primarily because of our brains process prices differently. It depends on whether a purchase is carried out by rationality (non-luxury, essential goods) or by emotions (products we buy to make ourselves happy).

When an individual carries out a purchase, round prices are ideal. They are processed in a way that corresponds to the emotional System 1.

On the contrary, rational purchases are guided by logic. This is when people use more mental effort to process non-rounded prices. These fit well with the System 2 thought processes.

4. Focusing on the element of functional fixedness

Humans are guided by habit, and this trait extends to the way they browse the internet. When visiting a website, their expectations of how it’s supposed to function rely on previous browsing experiences. If these expectations aren’t fulfilled, your visitors will end up confused. The underlying psychological phenomenon behind such behavior is known as functional fixedness.

It emphasizes the fact that people experience a mental block when they use objects in unexpected ways. This principle, when adopted in web design, covers the core functionality of a website, like store interfaces, social media plugins, navigation menus, etc. Based on the phenomenon, these functionalities should be designed to work in a familiar way.

5. Leveraging the element of scarcity

The value of an item relies on the difficulty of acquiring it. This can be explained through a psychological principle of scarcity heuristic. It involves a cognitive bias where a product with minimum availability is more desirable. Whether this product is actually scarce or not isn’t impertinent, as long as the implications exist.

Web designers can utilize this psychological principle through alert mechanisms to emphasize the limited nature of the products they provide. Adding countdown timers on the header of a page and brightly colored inventory counters can work wonders.

6. The social proof theory

When people are clueless about how to act, chances are that they’d try to replicate what others are doing. This theory is called social proof in which people follow the crowd when they are uncertain or apprehensive.

Web designers can put it into practice by featuring comments, reviews, social media stats, testimonials, etc. throughout a website. The process of leading a visitor through the conversion funnel becomes more convenient when designers include social cues in each step. In fact, satisfied consumers would be more than willing to contribute to this process themselves. This boosts the efficiency of social proofing in the future.

7. The anchoring effect

Anchoring is a phenomenon that explains that individuals are likely to base their decisions on how to act on a single piece of information. In the domain of web design, this principle can drive the consumer towards a preferred CTA without pointing to it directly.

For instance, using the landing page to demonstrate that a product is normally available at a particular price bracket governs the visitor’s expectations when they notice an offer of this kind while checking the website. The web design based on this theory ensures that the context for assessing an offer is determined in advance, resulting in a more stable process of conversion.

Parting thoughts on implementing neuromarketing skills in your next web design project.

Neuromarketing is intrinsically dependent on some pre-conceived psychological principles. Businesses must explore these theories to provide a major boost to their website conversion rates.

Summary: Neuromarketing focuses on web designs that influence human psychology and behavior. The approaches to this form of marketing are chiefly guided by several theories and principles of psychology. This post discusses smart tricks to amp up your sales like never before by leveraging human psychology to boost conversion.

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