So what is Neuromarketing? It’s marketing that focuses on the brain. Since the brain makes all of our decisions, we should target our marketing there. Most current direct mail marketing is focused on upper brain function that involves reasoning, sometimes with emotion. This is the wrong approach. It involves too much thinking and is a turn off to many recipients. So let’s take a look at the brain and where we want to target our direct mail.
Our brain:
- Upper Brain: Your upper brain is the high functioning smart brain. It is rational and processes information slowly. This is your conscious thought area and is somewhat controllable. This part of your brain is off when you are sleeping.
- Middle Brain: This is where your emotions are. When emotions are triggered here, they get processed in the upper brain.
- Lower Brain: This is the fast processing area of your brain, but it is limited to all your unconscious systems, heart, breathing, nerves and so on. This is the oldest part of the brain. This area focuses only on what is happening immediately. It is your auto pilot and is always on. We cannot control this part of our brain. This is all about system response such as fight or flight.
Now that you know what part of the brain controls what functions, you are ready to see where we should be targeting our direct mail. That target sweet spot is the lower brain. Since it deals with immediate processing and does so without our input, marketers have a better chance at eliciting a quick response when we can tap into that area of the brain. You have about five to six seconds for your message to be understood before the recipient moves on to something else. Because of that, you need to keep it simple.
How to target the lower brain:
- Self — The lower brain is all about protection and is selfish. Tap into that with concise statements including the word "you."
- Limited Choice — Provide a two-choice scenario, one where disaster strikes and the other where your product or service either prevents it or fixes the problem.
- Connect — You need to connect your product or service with a real world example. This must be believable, not a far-fetched story.
- Start/Finish — You need to start fast and effective, and end the same way. Limit the middle message so you don’t move to the upper brain.
- Visual — You need to convey your messaging visually with images and graphics using a very limited amount of words. The eyes are the gateway directly to the lower brain; use that to your advantage!
- Emotion — It is important to use emotion that starts out in a negative way and is solved by you in a way that creates positive feelings.
You need to factor all six of the above elements into your direct mail campaigns in order to reach the lower brain and increase your response. Direct mail is very visual, so keep your message simple and incorporate that into your images and graphics.
One more thing to keep in mind is to not overwhelm the brain with too many images or graphics. Give the eyes one focused focal point that gets your urgent message across fast.
Lastly, stay away from using numbers, they bring in the use of the upper brain. As with all marketing, direct mail works best when messaging is repeated, so find your focus and go after it.