By studying consumers' neurological reactions to marketing, neuromarketers are giving marketers the tools to create a better user experience.
Based on the theory that over 90% of brain activity takes place in your subconscious, neuromarketing explores how even the most minute perceptions impact a person's decision.
This concept is the same argument for a high quality user experience. If you aren't purposefully building the experience you want for your users, you can't control the way your organization is perceived. While the validity of neuromarketing is still being tested, there are still important lessons to be learned from studies being published.
Here are 3 neuromarketing findings can help not only market a product more effectively, but also create a better user experience:
Tip: Use images - particularly if you want people to believe you.
Why: I'm a firm believer in the "show don't tell" philosophy, and I think most marketers agree that images are a powerful type of content, but researchers have now added another layer to the argument for images. A study now shows that viewers perceive text as more credible when accompanied by a photo, even if the photo doesn't support the facts outlined in the text.
Tip: First impressions matter - choose your content and user experience wisely.
Why: According to the Missouri University of Science and Technology, It takes visitors to a website less than two-tenths of a second to form a first impression. Make sure the content and the UX of your site work well together to create a positive first impression.
Tip: Keep your fonts & your content simple.
Why: A study out of the University of Michigan showed that if people have a difficult time reading instructions, they believe that the task will be more difficult to perform. What's interesting is that this finding wasn't limited to how difficult the instructions were, but it actually looked at how difficult it was for people to read the font itself. As any user experience designer will tell you, font makes a difference and the simpler the better.
What these findings demonstrate is the fact that user experience and marketing really do go hand in hand. As time goes on I expect we will see even more studies showing exactly how important seemingly minute aspects of user experience like font can have a big impact on marketing.
