How to engage buyers brains to buy

What if you could make subtle changes to your website and how you list your items to engage more visitors to buy? What if this was proved by science too? (not mumbo jumbo!) Allow me to explain...”

How buyers look at a web page

There are 3 key evolutions of the human brain:-

First - Reptile
Second - Monkey
Third - Human

It's a very simple concept when you think about it because that’s how we evolved.

Pretty much everything we look at we do so using those brains in order. So if we looked at an antique chair on an antique dealer’s website, we would engage those 3 brains in that order. Here’s a basic example of how this happens. We’ll then cover how you can use this to your advantage to turn more visitors into buyers.

Reptilian brain

(aka the lizard brain)

This is the most basic brain, is purely visual, deals with fight and flight, eating, and reproduction! This is the brain which sees things and takes in the visuals (it can’t read).

So our reptilian or lizard brain is just going to see the pictures of the antique chair on the page, and that’s about it seeing as there’s nothing on the page which will kill us.

Monkey brain

(aka the limbic brain)

This is our emotional brain. This is what triggers us to look at a picture of an antique chair and think “oh, I love this!

Human brain

(aka the neocortex)

Last but not least is the human brain; which is the one capable of logic. Here, having already decided we love the antique chair, it will rationalise and think “can I afford this?”, or “will this fit in my sitting room?”.

How can you use this to turn more visitors into buyers?

Image credit: Scout Decorative

A) Make sure visuals are what people see first because that’s what the reptilian and monkey brain will be looking at.

B) Ensure visitors can fall in love with the item for sale

• The better your photography, the better set up the shot is, and the more in context it is to the buyer’s scenario, the more chance they have of loving it
• This is why we believe it’s better to have a lifestyle type shot for your items, rather than items with whited out backgrounds
• A poorly lit, grainy, blurry picture of an item isn’t going to make a potential buyer think “wow, I love this”. Whereas a picture of an antique chair in a beautiful room, surrounded by other beautiful objects in the background is going to make the visitor think “wow, this looks beautiful!”. At the end of the day a chair is a functional object; what makes the difference between a £50 chair from Ikea and a £2,000 chair from an antique dealer isn’t just the history; it’s how the item makes us feel

C) Ensure you satisfy the human brain’s need for information, and don’t let it override the monkey brain

• The human brain will want basic details like the price, dimensions, delivery details, and other specifics
• Make sure these details are readily available so that the buyer can make the decision to purchase
• The harder these details are to find, or should they have to ask you to find out, the longer you leave for the emotion from the monkey brain to die out, and for the buyer to lose interest. To maximise sales, it’s important to have everything at the buyer’s fingertips

Don’t just take our word for it

It’s not just psychologists who use this understanding of the 3 brains. It’s well used by salespeople in a whole variety of industries around the world. This understanding, and using it to our advantage has helped plenty of companies expand and succeed.

So don’t just take our word for it. Here are some articles we’ve picked from the web for you to see:-

How appealing to the reptilian brain can strengthen any sales strategy
https://ambition.com/blog/entry/2017-02-03-how-appealing-reptilian-brain-can-strengthen-any-sales-strategy/

Sales brain - the 3 brains
https://www.salesbrain.com/neuromap-overview/3-brains/