Neuromarketing is a relatively new phenomenon in the world of digital marketing. Sure, savvy advertisers and researchers alike have started studying our cognitive patterns in response to marketing stimuli back in the late 90s, yet the science of analyzing our online behavior has just recently hit the digital world. Tim Gray has been working in both the psychology and marketing industries for a good decade. After having graduated with a cognitive hypnotherapy degree and as a NLP Master Practitioner from The Quest Institute and receiving further training from many of the biggest names on the planet (including Trevor Silvester from The Quest Institute, and Ian Rowland), Gray became an éminence grise for UK’s leading companies struggling to create better-converting websites and optimizing their sales funnels by using psychology.
Later in 2012 Tim Gray founded his agency, Neuro Web Marketing, with Reece Howe – another successful entrepreneur and marketer, who previously advised Innocent, Deloitte and even built his own company in the care industry from the ground up – through to sale. Tim originally started from nothing and grew his previous firm to £4m a year in revenue, using his unique methodology (which he later sold for a hefty sum as well). With years in practice, over 200 books read on the subject (including manuscripts in body language, human behavior, evolutionary psychology, behavioral economics, social dynamics as well as other social sciences) Tim definitely knows more than most about creating irresistibly attractive websites, which get inside your users’ brain. Today, he shares some of the most essential tips any startup can add to their strategy.
So, what NLP/Neuromarketing principles do you typically apply to your campaigns?
Gray: “Instead of working like other conversion agencies (or AB testing agencies as we like to call them), we audit websites or landing pages from a psychological perspective, which identifies the exact elements needed to be changed to boost conversions quickly. We then change those elements and AB test a few, only to prove that the change is positive – instead of preparing 40 tests and seeing which give ‘wins’. This saves our clients months and earns increases far greater, far quicker than other ‘conversion’ agencies.
Data tells most agencies what people have done on a website, whereas Psychology tells us what they will do. We use both approaches which gives us a unique edge and tangible results.”
Can you advise a few simple tweaks/tips a startup could implement to boost their conversions?
Gray: “Two of the biggest issues most websites struggle with are:
1) Impress with immediate value proposition – a value proposition on the homepage, which shows exactly who they are, or what they do and why people should trust them. You have 4 seconds to communicate what you do (or sell) before the visitor bounces. Our company has developed a unique formula to fix this – so far it has proven to lift conversion hugely (up to 350% increase in leads in one case). The bottom line [is to] refine and optimize your unique sales point and value proposition. The digital space is crowded. If you fail to impress immediately, you may never get a second chance. We have a module of work to formulate and test a value proposition for companies, that always yields a great lift in conversion.
2) The basket page always needs properly optimizing. Shoppers always have anxieties, but e-retailers never seem to address these anxieties properly. Sure they address some with ‘money back guarantees’, ‘trust badges’ and ‘delivery assurances’, but there are literally hundreds of anxieties that need to be addressed. We absolutely love pointing them out, as they always give “ah-ha” moments to clients as most of them are, in fact, unconscious and hidden in plain sight. Based on our previous practical experience, our psychology based basket optimization module always gets increases in sales by at least 30% and in some cases over 100% increase in revenue, overnight.
What about SEO and SEM? Do you apply any neuromarketing principles is this case too?
Gray: “On the contrary, we are very technical with our SEO campaigns and it isn’t neuro based. Our SEO department is run by a mathematical genius, who use to study astrophysics before going into digital marketing.
It might sound too straightforward, but I’ve spent a good decade working in the industry and can legitimately claim that our SEO audit is the most-thorough offered at least in London. The results speak for themselves. See our case studies for more info, but one recent client gained an increase of 249 percet in SEO visitors after our SEO audit recommendations were applied to their site.
We focus on ‘what works’ principles and never change things for the sake of changing them.”