Neuromarketing: Understanding the Buy Buttons in Your Customer’s Brain

Do people buy products and services because they are making rational decisions? Not so says Patrick Renvoisé, a pioneer of the science of Neuromarketing. In this webinar Renvoisé explains how the human brain really works and how companies can influence the key decision-making process of their customers to boost sales.

How do people make buying decisions? According to Patrick Renvoisé in Neuromarketing—Understanding the buy buttons in your customers’ brain, customers don’t always see things the way marketing professionals see them, regardless of their professional diligence. Even though these experts might know with certainty that they have the best solution for their clients, they often miss the mark because they’re not reaching that most primal part of the human brain.

For example, in blind taste tests, Pepsi has outperformed Coca Cola consistently, yet Coke consistently dominates the cola market. As a result, Pepsi commissioned a study that involved the use of MRI’s to unravel the mystery of why their preferred product fell behind when it came to branding; literally looking at the brain when people were making decisions.

Based on the recent development of neuroscience, Patrick Renvoisé—using his engineering background and sales expertise—has developed a completely new sales and marketing model. The result is Neuromarketing—the science of human influence. 

While most assume that humans are rational beings who are sometimes influenced by emotions, the opposite is actually true: we predominantly make emotional decisions and then rationalize them. There is no such thing as a purely rational decision, specifically when it comes to product preferences.

In actuality, we use the most ancient part of our brain—referred to variously as the limbic or reptilian center—for our decision-making. With proper understanding of this primal part of the brain, that “Old Brain” thinking in the customer can be predicted. Marketers can reverse engineer clients’ decision-making process.

There are only six stimuli that the Old Brain responds to:

1. Self-centered—the Old Brain is only worried about itself.
2. Contrast—if there is no contrast, then there is no decision to be made.
3. Tangible—will the product or service be useful according to their beliefs of what is useful?
4. Beginning and End—people will forget everything in-between. This curve has tremendous implications for how you market.
5. Visual—best and fastest way to get to your old brain.
6. Emotion—we are feeling machines that think once in a while.

Anything else outside of these six stimuli becomes too complex to process and understand. To make maximize the buy buttons in your customers’ brain, marketers need to perfect these four steps:

1. Diagnose the pain—reaching the subconscious part of the Old Brain
2. Differentiate your Claims—what separates you from your competitor
3. Demonstrate the Gain—difference between value and cost
4. Deliver to the Old Brain 

By understanding the buy buttons in your customers’ brain, marketing professionals can apply a completely new sales and marketing model to help customers make the right buying decision while maximizing your sales success.