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Neuromarketing: understand property buyer behavior
 
The study of the neuroscience of consumption can bring data that are rooted in the client's unconscious.
Strategies to capture the consumer and convince him to buy the property are going beyond market research. It is also necessary to understand the biology of consumer behavior and what reactions can encourage (or not) the customer to buy the property. To understand this process, market companies begin to use “neuromarkerting” techniques, a marketing field that makes use of application of neuroscientific methods to analyze and understand behavior in relation to brands and products. How to apply it in the real estate market?
On this subject, we spoke with Pedro Camargo, consultant and author of the blog biology of consumer behavior , neuromarketing and author of books such as: Neuromarketing: decoding the consumer's mind, published in Portugal; Neuromarketing: the new consumer behavior survey (will be published by Editora Atlas, in 2013).
 
What are the impacts of neuromarketing techniques on the market?
The impact is directly on consumer behavior research. Traditional surveys in this area bring us responses by questionnaires, interviews or focus groups that are not enough to understand the behavior in qualitative research, because they do not represent what the consumer really thinks. Eighty-five to 95% of the information we have stored is in the unconscious and people answer questions consciously, so there is no way to get the real feeling of the customer or consumer by asking questions or watching them buy and consume. The study of the neuroscience of consumption can bring data that are embedded in the subject's unconscious, as it scans the areas that are activated while he has a brain activity. So the impact is huge. But you see, neuromarketing alone doesn't give definitive answers either, for there is still the study of behavioral endocrinology that must be taken into account. The first only detects the areas that are active at the time of action, but it does not detect the levels of hormones, which are our behavioral drivers that make us act.
What communication strategies can companies in the real estate market use to encourage the client to purchase property, based on these principles?
There are several recommendations. One of them is never to place the subject on a billboard, leaflet or advertisement looking at people, but rather at the photo or illustration of the project or at the property's key, because our brain has the pattern of seeking the intention of others. We don't buy objects, we buy what others buy. Mirror neurons will activate to perceive the intention of the subject of the photo and if he looks at the consumer, the consumer will look at him and that's it. Now if the model is looking at the photo, the consumer will see his intention and look too. It's brain processing pattern. Another huge mistake is not putting people in advertisements. As I said, we buy other people's intentions, actions and not objects. Another point is that the sales stand or the model apartment must smell like something new, like cars do. Smell helps memory. Another thing that helps and promotes memory is dopamine (a neurotransmitter) and the level of dopamine can be increased with caffeine. So serving coffee is essential.
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How to attract the consumer's attention when buying?
Attention is essential and for this you must use all the superior senses (smell-smell, vision-color and right foot of the stand-, tactile sensations, music). It is the senses that will promote attention. But to use them, it is necessary to have knowledge in neuroscience that researches the senses, environmental provocations and effects on the consumer.
Now, even more important than attention is the buyer's emotional engagement, because if he pays attention but does not engage, the purchase does not take place. When the time comes, the guy doesn't buy. The consultant thinks he did everything right and may even have done his best, but there are unconscious influences that he will never know if he doesn't have the techniques of neuromarketing and behavioral endocrinology. We are alerted by environmental provocations, such as a campaign or a sales consultant, but we do not create engagement if there are no internal chemical conditions that compel us to act. We act a lot automatically and we are creatures of habit, because our brain saves energy, if we don't know how to break these habits, nothing will happen.
What is the influence of social media on the consumer's purchasing decision process?
There is no specific research on the subject, but I have hypotheses. We are social animals, we live in a pack and the group influences us in a unique way, it's no wonder that thousands and thousands of people watch videos that don't even think it's funny, but they do, because the gang did. If we're social creatures, we can't stay out of the pack. Our brain has specific areas that are activated at these times and this makes us act. Social media is a worldwide phenomenon that modifies behavior and can indeed influence a purchase decision. That's the fashion, that's the real estate market.
Knowledge of neuromarketing technique is essential before devising strategies to attract the customer. What actions are commonly seen in the market that can have the opposite effect?
Neuromarketing, and I'll go further, behavioral endocrinology (the influence of hormones on behavior) are fundamental to understanding behavior. Before we are social beings, we are biological beings. From now on, everything that does not take into account biological analysis, what I call “consumer behavior biology” is not analyzing the consumer in a complete and true way and, therefore, doomed to risk. And campaigns as well as sales are too expensive for us to take risks.