Neuromarketing Research Consulting Service

• Are you sold on brain-monitoring tests?
• Do you have difficulties interpreting your data?
• Can you spot worthless market research?

Over the past decade, businesses of all sizes have started applying Neuromarketing to understand consumer behaviors. Multiple companies specializing in Neuromarketing have sprung up. Some offer to conduct testing-based market research. Others sell hardware and software that let you conduct your own studies. All promise you new insights into your customers’ buying decisions.

Before you invest tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in this new type of market research, it is important to ask a few questions.

• Can your study answer the questions you have?
• Do you know how to interpret your data?
• How do you choose the right tools or technologies?
• How does your research translate into more sales?

Some Neuromarketing firms make it sound like interpreting experimental data is as easy as reading body temperature. In reality, nothing is that simple when it comes to understanding the human brain and consumer behavior.

Why You Need a Second Opinion from a Neuroscientist

Maybe you want to know which logo design for your company connects better with your customers. Perhaps you are interested in making your website design produce a higher conversion rate. Can you change your packaging to increase sales? What emotions does your TV commercial trigger in viewers? How do you price your products or services to motivate buying decisions?

Neuromarketing research can give you insights into consumers’ behaviors and make reliable predictions. Here are the essential steps in creating, executing, and evaluating such a study.

• Research Design – An effective, accurate study must answer one or a few specific questions. Researchers need to eliminate as many irrelevant factors as possible. This is easier said than done. If you are not trained in Neuroscience research, you can end up with a lot of data that is impossible to interpret.
• Technologies – What brain-monitoring tests do you employ to understand consumers’ decisions and emotions? Four technologies are commonly used, including: fMRI, EEG, Eye Tracking, and Facial Coding Analysis. Is your choice based on cost or a deep understanding of the science? A Neuromarketing firm will try to sell you the whole battery of tests. What should you buy?
• Research Subject Selection – Who will be the people used as the sample in your research? Your subject sample should reflect your customer base. If you test a commercial for running shoes, you won’t choose swimmers as your test subjects. The more subjects participating, the better your results will be. Recruiting subjects is challenging.
• Study Environment – The closer the conditions of the study are to how your customers interact with your products or services, the better. In many cases, the technology used to conduct a study interferes with this. For example, in fMRI studies, subjects are tested while lying motionless in a large machine in a laboratory setting.
• Control Conditions – To be useful and accurate, every study must incorporate controls to eliminate alternative interpretations. Otherwise, the results can be completely misunderstood. A poorly controlled study can’t lead to scientifically valid conclusions.
• Data Collection and Analysis – The technologies used in Neuroscience studies create huge amounts of data. The more subjects, the more data. Statistical analysis is used to extract meanings and predictions. Experienced Neuroscientists with statistical expertise are needed to interpret the data.

Make the Most out of Your Neuromarketing Investment

Every year, thousands of well-designed, well-controlled, and meaningful research studies are published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Most likely, your business doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel to repeat what has been done.

Terry Wu, Ph.D., consults with companies of all sizes and in all business sectors. As a Neuroscientist and marketing expert, his experience enables him to understand complex published research studies and apply their results to answer his clients’ questions.

At a small fraction of the cost of completing even one study, Dr. Wu provides actionable recommendations based on multiple published studies that are relevant to your questions. Before investing a large amount of money in Neuromarketing, consult with Dr. Wu for a better understanding of the science and practical purposes. You will save time and money and avoid confusion.