How Marketing Meets Neuroscience and What It Has to Do With Your ICO

Wait, you said marketing and neuroscience?

Exactly, and the result of such a collision is called neuromarketing (admittedly the name is rather less imaginative than the concept). The field started to develop in the 1990s and took off quite quickly, as it didn’t take big corporations long to see its substantial benefits. What the research primarily focuses on is the brain’s response to various marketing stimuli. Therefore, the main goals of neuromarketing are to figure out how customers make their purchasing decisions and how to make various tools used for promoting goods and services more effective.

And how does it work?

In a nutshell, the human brain can be divided into three parts: the neocortex, the most recently developed part responsible for conscious thoughts, language, and spatial reasoning; the limbic system which houses feelings and emotions; and the reptilian or primal brain, the oldest of the three, which regulates the body’s vital functions and is purely instinctive. Why do you need to know all this? Well, because it is the reptilian brain that mostly deals with the decision-making process, so delivering content that speaks to this very part is the key to success.

Sales Brain, one of the pioneers in the field, compiled a list of 6 stimuli that the reptilian brain responds to:

1. Self-centered — since this part of the brain has always been responsible for survival, it’s extremely egocentric

2. Contrast — the reptilian brain reacts strongly to clear contrast such as before / after

3. Tangible — this part of the brain responds well when it sees palpable benefits

4. Beginning and end — the primal brain focuses on the beginning and end of any process or experience, rather than the middle

5. Visual — the better the visual representation of something is, the stronger it appeals to the reptilian brain

6. Emotions — feelings greatly stimulate the reptilian complex

Based on this framework, some other research, and our own experience working with ICOs, we’ll give you some hints on how to successfully implement neuromarketing in your token’s promotional campaign.

1. It’s not about you and your ICO

As we’ve mentioned before, this part of the brain is very self-centered. What it means in practice is that you should try to see your project through the eyes of potential investors. For instance, if you’ve developed an innovative blockchain solution, don’t simply describe why the technology is unique. Explain how it’s relevant to people, how it will solve their problems and make their life better or easier. In a nutshell, offer a mental before/after contrast, or better yet, an explicit written one.

Also, don’t underestimate the power of words and diction. Even such a simple thing as using the pronouns “you” and “your” more often can help put emphasis on customers or investors languagewise.

2. Because we are visual

There are lots of different statistics which definitively prove that people respond to information with visual aids much better than to plain text. What should you take from this? Well, first of all, that the project’s website must be well designed and easy to navigate. Second of all, that the white paper has to contain tables and charts that will visually support the text. Also, that most social media platform posts need to be accompanied by images or infographics. Finally, since the reptilian brain cares about the beginning and end, the roadmap of your ICO should not only be visually appealing but also very clear and unambiguous.

P.S. We specifically expanded on the proper visual presentation of a Bitcointalk thread here.

3. In praise of tangible benefits

Numbers make things look plausible and to some extent more impressive. But digits alone don’t suffice. Remember how the reptilian brain is triggered by emotions? That is why when presenting your project, you should provide testimonials. In the case of ICOs, they assume the shape of advisors, respected people who vouch for you. A short time ago we devoted an entire article to this topic, so be sure to check it out.

4. The emotional appeal

One the of the main goals of marketing is to create positive associations with your product, which in our case is the token. There are a plethora of tools that can assist in achieving this objective. One way is to create emotionally appealing content that will resonate with people. Have you noticed that on such platforms as this one there are more and more personal anecdotes? Well, it’s easy to spell out: such stories create a bond between the reader and the writer. It also explains why community management, especially in the crypto world, is so crucially important: it adds a personal touch, which is vital when you’re basically trying to crowdfund the project.

P.S. Read our article about Telegram community management to learn how you can build a thriving community.

Final Thoughts

Neuromarketing is a developing field, but it can already offer a lot of hints that can help your ICO campaign be more effective and successful. Similarly to copywriters, who optimize their texts for search engines, marketing managers can use these principles to optimize content for the human brain and thus draw customers’ attention — which is a scarce commodity.