At Keplar we’re always on the lookout for new ideas to make online brands stickier and to build digital products which convert better, so we were pleased to finally read Martin Lindstrom’s 2008 bestseller on the new discipline of “neuromarketing”, Buyology. For the uninitiated: Lindstrom’s book is a Gladwell-esque distillation of his own experience using two brain-scanning technologies (uncatchily titled fMRI and SST) to help major corporations delve deeper into the consumer’s subconscious mind. Lindstrom makes a convincing argument that most buying decisions are largely shaped by the subconcious mind, and thus direct brain study is a much more useful tool for product development and marketing than the traditional tools of focus groups and questionnaires.
While there is a lot of sense in what Lindstrom says, there are two main difficulties in applying his central neuromarketing concept to digital businesses. The first is one of simple cost: using brain-scanning tools is beyond the budget of all but the largest online players. The second issue is a subtler one: brain-scanning may be much more informative than other sample-based research techniques (not least in revealing motive), but even small digital businesses typically have access to rich behavioural data across all their users, and moreover can experiment “in the wild” at relatively low cost, to see what really works and what doesn’t. No mind-reading required.
Even if Buyology’s central methodology is of limited use to online businesses, nevertheless along the way Lindstrom provides some interesting nuggets and insights about product marketing. If you haven’t got time to read the whole book, no matter – below we’ve listed our favourite insights from the book, and attempted to apply them to the online world…
