How Important is the Subconscious Mind in Marketing?

Harvard professor Gerald Zaltman says that 95 percent of our purchase decision making takes place in the subconscious mind.  While that may appear to be a very large amount of activity over which we are not in conscious control, it would likely be unwise to argue with his scientific data.

The marketing icon, Martin Lindstrom says that Most consumer purchase decisions are formed in the unconscious – making irrelevant many of today’s marketing pitches.

The stunning part of this is that we are deciding to do things and make purchases without being consciously aware that we are doing or have done so!

The article points out that:

It’s all about the senses

Lindstrom’s study found, through tests, that the most powerful senses are smell and hearing, two senses that are largely underused in marketing. ‘Eighty-seven per cent of marketing messages are conveyed through our sense of sight,’ Lindstrom says. ‘We forget that we are humans, a species that is affected by our emotions. We aren’t rational, and we pick up information through non-visual means.’ Lindstrom cites the limp handshake as one example of how our non-visual senses easily pick up information and transmit it to the brain.

His field is Neuromarketing and he further states that:

Neuromarketing is a flourishing discipline that captures the fact that everything the consumer does is actually happening in the unconscious. ‘Biology is how our body works,’ Lindstrom says. ‘Buyology, my new discipline informed by neuromarketing, is the commercial aspect to this. It’s how the body works in a commercial context.

Instead, we should take it to heart and use it effectively in the marketing of our hospitality properties.  While it may appear that using this scientific information is intimidating, daunting, or an expensive process, it certainly is none of these.

If we fail to direct our marketing to the potential guest’s subconscious, we are missing the easiest part.

For example, imagine how much better you would feel about staying at a hotel or motel if the building and grounds are well-attended to versus allowed to fall into disrepair and badly needing paint.  While you may not be consciously aware of this–though we’d bet it would–it certainly ratchets down your opinion at the subconscious level making your entire stay less enjoyable and attractive.  We’ll discuss more about this later.

MARKETING BASIC:  Never leave to chance anything over which you can exert some control.

Here is to your facility being the dominant hotel business in your marketplace!
May you have a wonderfully profitable business!
Your Hotel Marketing Dominator Team
Robbie Meek and Paul Elliott