The priorities of company marketers have changed. In previous years, areas such as email marketing or display advertising were the pillars of investment in customer acquisition. Now, with the importance of search engine traffic, content marketing has strongly added to the equation.
But the balance of efforts/benefits in acquisition continues to show questionable data. The Conversion Rate Report published by Enconsultancy at the end of 2012 warns that Of 92 dollars invested in acquisitions, only 1 dollar is actually spent on achieving conversions (whether registrations, purchases, or other ultimate goals).
This obsession with the notoriety or dispersion of the brand without any direct objective has created a current of opinion that is not satisfied with A/B tests and other qualitative/quantitative tests, but rather tries to go further in the psychology of the user and points to the mere structure of the human brain to better know potential customers (and those who are not so). Specifically, three parts are distinguished in the brain, in which different functionalities and emotions are stored that affect how the user relates to brands:
1. Primary part. Responsible for vital functions and first impressions. For example, some of the websites that convert the best give you Images are very important, many of them with images taken and treated by professional photographers. these are three examples. Many of them share practices such as show product images before anything else to users or Call to action with emergency messages (not exaggerated).
2. Emotional part. Responsible for motivation, buying drive, sense of risk and the need for reward. To conquer this area of the brain, brands must find the emotional connection with the consumer. Hence, many copies on websites and email marketing go from the typical “Thank you for your order” to more relaxed messages. One of the best-known success stories is that of CDBaby. But specific actions aside, the important thing is to create a Storytelling after the product, however simple it may be, or at least frame it in a context in which it is used.
3. Rational part. The rational side is not the only one that decides, but perhaps it is the last. To conquer the consumer's mind, we must convince, show that we are reliable through techniques such as warranty seals, be transparent with the use of data of users (inform them, for example, if we use their cookie to place advertising on our site), resort to opinion leaders or authority figures who explain the benefits of our product or service, and of course, argue much of these communications with data (visible and matching the emotional and primary part).
Obviously, brain physics is not relevant. But it is the set of its functionalities, which form a basis from which a company's communication and marketing strategy must be based in order to better reach more users. Capture, retention, engagement, conversion, audience, segmentation, benchmark... all these concepts are not complete if we don't know the people. Hence the importance of, for example, the improvement of customer recognition tools that go from identifying cookies to identify individuals. When we close that circle, true effectiveness will come. Something even more important for a startup that needs to go straight to the target without wasting any resources.
