Ever wondered why people choose some products over others? Ask an expert in consumer behaviour! Understanding consumer behaviour can give small business and start-ups the tools to take the company to the next level. By looking at customers’ behaviour we can create marketing that really connects and get results.

The first step in the process is to compile and monitor the right insights. Consumer insights don’t just help you choose stock levels based on what’s selling most. The data you gather can inform all business decisions and strategies. It can guide your business to design products and services that are easy to use; things your market has always wanted and no one else is offering. Consumer insights can also help you create meaningful, lasting connections and improve their experience of the brand.

The Right Insights

Humans are emotional creatures first, logical and rational second. Every consumer behaviour has emotional motivations. The bigger the purchase, the more emotional the decision becomes. Once the emotional choice is made, people will often add a logical rationalisation to the purchase, e.g. someone might buy a home because they fell in love with it and could really see themselves living there but later tell people they bought it because it’s a great investment.

The right insights will help you to understand your customers on a deeply personal level so your marketing can appeal to their emotional motivations. There are many emotional motivations, but some include: to look cool, to have the latest thing first, to be thought beautiful, to be seen as successful, to attract a mate, and to feel safe and secure.

Gathering insights on existing and desired customers:

• Smarten up your database to monitor and understand your customers. Who are they? What’s their age, gender, profession, and so on? Which of your offerings are most popular with them?
• Create a buyer profile for customers you want to attract. Is it out of line with what your database is telling you?
• What motivates your customer? What are their perceptions and attitudes?
• Read online reviews and comments with an open mind. It may reveal to you an issue you didn’t even know existed and some great ideas for improving user experience.
• Keyword research can reveal what questions people are asking in relation to your industry and the vernacular your customers use.
• Online analytics can show you when (times, days, months) people are engaging with your brand, where they are, sex, age and a whole range of useful information to help you choose the right times and places to post marketing campaigns.
• Competitor analysis can show you what they’re doing well and poorly. This can help you choose ways to improve your own user experience and offer something unique.

Creating Meaningful Connections

People interact with brands on a human level. That’s why creating a strong brand personality is just as important as understanding your customer’s personality.

Thinking of your brand as a person, what’s its age, gender, culture, morals, what does it believe in and how does it talk? Knowing this helps you communicate with your market on a meaningful level to make lasting impressions.

Consider if the personality you’ve outlined for your customers is the kind that would want to associate with the personality you’ve outlined for your brand. If not, something has to change!

These insights will help you create content of value to the customer. Remember when it comes to marketing content, quality is better than quantity. Make it authentic and be true to your brand personality to gain and maintain market trust.

Content that is of value does one of three things:

• It helps the customer improve themselves or the world around them.
• It provides entertaining, shared and sharable experiences.
• It delivers important information, advice, incentives or services.

Improving User Experience

Consumer insights can help you to tweak your systems and product lines to improve the user experience. Look at how to make it easy to use your website, how to simplify the path to purchase and how to create consistency in their experience of your brand interactions, products, services and after sales interactions. Clear, consistent and ongoing two-way conversations with your customers are simplified when you know your brand personality (who you are) and the customer profile (who you’re talking to).

There are often chances to learn more about consumer behaviour, such as at The Capital Connects: Redefining Consumer Behaviour in Brisbane on 23^rd August.

Or if you’re too busy focussing on other aspects of running your business, why not just get the professionals to take care of it for you? Contact us about our consumer profiling and other marketing services.