Social media is the new frontier in digital marketing today and, social media marketing is fast replacing the traditional electronic channels like television as the preferred option. It has a massive audience, and the smartphone, which is the device of choice, brings it up close and personal in each user’s hands at all times.
One of the best social media platforms for digital marketing is now Instagram. Brands have switched over to Instagram because of its massive popularity. When the marketing strategy is synced with other social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Foursquare, and Tumblr, it provides even wider market reach.
Instagram statistics 2020 indicates that out of the one billion-plus registered accounts, nearly 900 million users follow at least one business account. To leverage this, social media marketers are learning to devise effective methods with better and instantaneous attraction impact for maximum reach on Instagram.
Prominent among these is neuromarketing, a technical term for human psychology that marketers are exploiting to improve Instagram content. Here are some of the most effective neuromarketing tricks for your Instagram content.
Humanize the brand
Relationships are what drive social media networking and followings are created from the charismatic appeal of the brand. Start by giving your brand a face that social media followers can relate to and want to maintain that relationship. Let your brand come off as one with the people, relating to their aspirations, a source of encouragement, a beacon of style, and one that cares.
Nike’s all-time great mantra, “Just do it” resonates well with people and is well known globally. A picture of a beautiful pair of shoes with that one line “Just do it” on Instagram easily evokes the Nike brand in the viewer’s mind without much thinking.
The slogan also becomes a motivational philosophy for athletes who are the main consumers of Nike products. The trick is to humanize the brand and place it right bang in the middle of the lives of consumers as one with them.
Stoke emotions
Emotional value in a brand is a great asset in securing enduring loyalty and can attract more leads than the other familiar element, customer satisfaction. Emotional triggers are more effective on social media and are a great factor in converting leads to customers.
Emotional value to marketing is great for the brand as it turns customers and prospects into sentimental owners of the company, further improving customer retention.
A good example of a successful emotional campaign is Samsung’s Good Vibes app ad for deaf-blind persons. Whereas this app was for a very minute percentage of Samsung customers, it, however, tucked on the emotional heartstrings of everyone for showing concern to others living with a disability.
Consumers want to buy from businesses that care or at least show concern for customers and not some indifferent corporate only interested in their money.
Effective packaging
Let’s face it. Packaging will sell a product to a customer even if it had no use for! Packaging is, therefore, key on Instagram and a smart marketer should design packaging that is great for attractive imagery. Photos are the key drivers of traffic on Instagram and their appeal is important for holding the viewer’s attention long enough to get your message.
People’s response to different packaging materials is important to how they will receive the product. Neuroimaging research can help a brand redesign its packaging for better customer acceptance, as was achieved by brands like Frito-Lay.
According to the best business plan and marketing assignment help writers, using gift-like brand packaging for Instagram analytics tool can cause great excitement on social media and ignite a sharing frenzy, according to a recent research. As it turns out, most buyers today are using social media to find photos of products to get a glimpse of what they intend to buy and this can be a great boost to neuromarketing.
Avoid decision paralysis
Throwing too many options at a customer creates confusion and inability to decide. What happens next is that the customer gets overwhelmed, and unable to make a choice abandons the cart before checkout. If this happens, you have lost an opportunity to gain a customer as well as the cost of the marketing effort as a factor of ROI.
A clattered display does not attract attention and this gets more relevant on social media with the limited display space available on handheld devices.
A research study found that multiple choices at once could actually turn away potential customers. In effective neuromarketing, aim to present one item at a time with a focus on trending taste, seasons, or niche category to have the desired impact and a chance to sell.
Anchoring effect
Neuromarketing is all about psychology and how customers make the decisions they do. Digital marketers exploit this information by placing deliberate triggers before the customer to guide them towards certain products. This is achieved by anchoring a product to an added benefit that will sway the customer instinctively.
Take the example of competing airlines selling tickets for the same price to the same destination and one of them wants to gain an advantage by the anchoring effect. If to this ticket, one airline added a free taxi ride as a bonus, the customer instinctively goes for it without noticing that perhaps the other airline has superior aircraft and comfort.
The anchoring effect can be replicated across many other products advertised on Instagram or social media to influence customer decisions in sales.
Collaborate with an Influencer
Influencer marketing is the big thing currently in social media and statistics from Influencer Marketing Hub indicate that businesses are reaping huge in ROI at $6.50 for every $1 spent on this platform. Instagram influencer marketing has the biggest slice of this trend and with over 90% of the 1 billion users following one brand or the other, digital marketers find unlimited potential for their brand if they choose their influencers well.
The neuromarketing effect here is based on the customer’s need to trust experts in the industry to know better and that whatever they go for must be superior. One notable success story in influencer marketing is the clothing retailer, Zara, that went over $2.3 billion in annual profits a few years back.
To boost their online presence and bring their clothes right to the palm of potential customers, Zara partnered with Instagram influencers and the response was phenomenal. One key thing to note from this partnership is that Zara’s online following shot up to 15 million and counting!
Offer reciprocity
The reciprocity principle is a key plank in neuro marketing that can grow your customer base and sales. It is the art of giving to receive and it forces recipients of such gifts to feel indebted and want to reciprocate. The marketing team comes up with giveaways that are organized through the Instagram giveaway generator which includes buy one and get one free, or introduce a friend for a freebie depending on what the company sells.
Reciprocity is a key neuromarketing trigger that creates in customers a sense of being valued and treated like family ensuring loyalty.
The Starbucks “#Tweetacoffee” campaign was one such masterstroke that earned the company a cool $180,000. It entailed asking customers to share the hashtag to one of their friends, who would, in turn, get a free cup of coffee from Starbucks.
Deploy metaphors for Instagram
Simplicity is the art of communication and most times, metaphors provide crisp, concise, and pointed wording that is customer-friendly on Instagram. Metaphors are simple, familiar, and have a universal appeal that social media followers can relate to easily. This can save you from using complicated phrases in your content that could put off potential customers.
Metaphors express human universals that can be useful in eCommerce digital marketing. You create your message around a universal metaphor that can relate with consumers globally, leading to an even stronger brand.
Sunshine represents life and good health to all humanity. Tropicana crafted a metaphor around this for its orange juice that was universal using the tagline: “Your Daily Ray of Sunshine.”
The oversubscription catch
Everyone wants to get in and knowing that they are probably the last ones in before the door closes creates a sense of urgency to act. Digital marketers can subtly prompt potential customers to commit by use of this trick. To pull it off convincingly, you will need to include numbers that indicate applicants versus available quantities and the time left to commit.
Added to this is the use of a limited stock gimmick, that equally creates an urgency to get that item before it sells out. The timing, as well as the type of product, is key for the success of these tricks, especially online. They are, however, important tools for Instagram marketing campaigns that every business can use when necessary to boost sales.
Optimize content for Instagram
To optimize your Instagram presence, start by creating a custom Instagram business profile. Instagram Business is a profile for businesses that comes with plenty of other features and tools to help you grow your business. Some of these features include Instagram Ads, action buttons, and Instagram shopping, specially tailored for business platforms.
Go for a simple, recognizable, and easy to remember user name for your profile if you hope to stand out among the 1 billion users. Along with this, choose an appropriate handle that identifies you clearly, for example, @Starbucks.
Take time to choose a branded Instagram profile picture that leaves no doubt about brand identity then back this up with a well-written informative and interesting bio before closing with a stellar call to action.
Allow the audience to take center stage
Instagram is about impressions, especially for the millennials and generation Z. To massage their ego and retain their following that amounts to potential customers, create an interactive relationship where you value their input and allow them to generate content to tell your brand story.
Allow them to submit photos of themselves in your establishments or with your products and publish these for brand awareness.
When your consumer can relate to your content in an authentic way…your brand message goes a lot farther. Build your Instagram platform around the audience and give the room for the ultimate customer experience.
Conclusion
Neuromarketing is one concept that allows smart digital marketers to take a peek inside the customer’s brains to understand why they buy or fail to buy as they do. It is a study of consumer behavior by the use of multiple tools and stimuli to gain data for marketing. With such data, a company can align their products to suit consumer needs and boost sales.