For any marketing official, it is imperative first to understand the behavior of the target customer. The biggest asset for a successful marketer is to have some good psychological skills. The ability to influence customers, gauge their requirements, and understand their perceptions, is important to become successful in marketing. The idea is to establish a product campaign or brand identity that encircles the customers’ needs and perceptions. Some Shopify Apps like Tada can help you influence your customers’ behavior using the power of gamification.
Many factors affect consumer behavior. It is a cumulative result of the efforts put in by the companies along with the following points:
Factors influencing consumer behavior
1. Emotional quotient
It is common knowledge that customers get attracted to the emotional conduct of a product. A campaign centered around the benefits of a product will not fare. And, also a campaign that evokes the emotional quotient of the customer. The most successful campaigns in the history of mankind have been a clarion call to the emotions. Whether it was Nike’s Just do it campaign or Allswell’s Mothers campaign, it was the emotional aspect that instantly connected with the customers.
The idea of behavioral marketing is to allow customers to establish an emotional connection to the product. The marketers can evoke the sentiments of the customers and make them realize the potential of the product.
2. Brand experience
Consumer behavior is motivated by the experience of a company. The longer brand experience is a testament to the trust that it has managed to establish amongst its customers. However, it is common knowledge that not every brand enjoys equal acceptance in all markets. Every brand has a niche product, which ultimately is the most trusted product of the same.
For instance, Coca Cola has been resonant with the cola soda now that it has been around for so long. On the other hand, Virgin, in spite of enjoying worldwide success and having extensive experience, couldn’t translate the same.
3. Direct Interaction with the customers
4. Arouse curiosity
5. Social impact
Usually, customers attract to their peers and the social repercussions of the purchase that they intend to make. There are some purchases, which are made solely as a result of the status quo attached to them. Buying the latest iPhone or Hermes bag is a testament to the influence of the peers.
The brand power in the market of a specific product can hold a highly influential and affluent status. This automatically contributes to its sales, making it a huge competitor for other brands. Behavioral marketers can easily gauge the tendency of customers to get influenced by their peers through social media.
In addition to this, education and class also play an important role. Not every customer has the knack to understand the nuances and the technical aspects of every type of product. Consumers may buy products as per the mass belief without appreciating the true quality from a relatively lesser-known brand.
6. External factors
There is another set of factors that brands should consider when it comes to behavioral marketing. Consumers tend to bias their decisions based on the environmental and physical factors around themselves. Such as their ages, genders, cultural aspects, professions along with their interests.
For instance, leather products may not be the preferred choice for animal activists, while sanitary napkins will inevitably be a product that only caters to women of a particular age group. However, some brand campaigns have managed to transcend these boundaries and also to increase their sales. This is by targeting the opposite gender instead of the one that the product intended for.
Old Spice changed its marketing landscape when it launched its campaign targeting women to sell the products for men. Thus, always go through customer reviews when trying to find out the reason behind the low popularity of any product.
7. Aesthetic appeal
At times even the aesthetics have contributed significantly toward the sales of a product. Adding to this, the exclusivity of the product, the success of the campaign, becomes a sure shot. For example -special seasonal beverages introduced by Starbucks. Every fall, many customers buy the beverages to post their pictures with holiday special cups on their social media accounts. While during summers, Starbucks introduces beverages like tie-dye Frappuccino for a limited time, which attracts the customers in huge numbers.
Behavioral marketing is a game where rules change every single day, and it is imperative to stick to ethics.
