Brainfluence: 100 Ways to Persuade and Convince Consumers with Neuromarketing

Neuromarketing studies the way the brain responds to cognitive and sensory marketing stimuli. Analysts use this to measure a consumer's preference, what a customer reacts to, and why consumers make certain decisions. This scientific approach to marketing has helped brands and companies determine how to best market their products.

Roger Dooley, creator and publisher of the popular blog, “Neuromarketing” – gives advice to marketers, advertisers, entrepreneurs, sales professionals and small business owners in his new book, BRAINFLUENCE: 100 Ways to Persuade and Convince Consumers with Neuromarketing (Wiley; November 2011; 978-1-1181-1336-3; Hardcover). Readers will learn how to apply neuroscience and behavior research to everyday marketing problems.

Dooley explains, “One of the key insights neuroeconomics and neuromarketing research have provided us is that buying something can cause the pain center in our brain to light up.” Cost isn’t the only variable that causes “pain.” It’s the perceived fairness or unfairness of the deal that creates the reaction. By understanding neuromarketing, professionals will learn how to position their products/services based on the reactions of their consumers. Using such a technique will immediately position anyone with a competitive advantage.  

BRAINFLUENCE explains that the connection between our senses and our brain is direct. Those that build sensory features into their products, services, and marketing will appeal directly to the emotions and stored memories of their customers. Marketing to all five senses can change weak brands and products into powerhouses.

Ninety-five percent of our thoughts, emotions, and learning occur without our conscious awareness, according to Harvard marketing professor and author Gerald Zaltman. Dooley recommends readers to stop selling to only 5 percent of the customer’s brain. Although there are conscious and rational parts in most decisions, marketers need to focus on appealing to the buyer’s emotions and unconscious needs.

Customers generally can’t understand or accurately explain why they make choices in the marketplace. Efforts to tease out that information by asking them questions are mostly doomed to failure. Furthermore, marketing efforts based mostly on customer statements and self-reports of their experiences, preferences, and intentions are equally doomed.

All neuroscientists agree - there is a lot going on under the surface in our brains. BRAINFLUENCE helps professionals understand how to market to their customers with the latest insights and research.