Consumer behaviour in marketing

I have read several stories of successful entrepreneurs pointing towards the importance of successful analysis of consumer behaviour but still, a lot of business startups fail to understand how important consumer behaviour is in marketing.

So I decided to do some research and my goodness consumer behaviour is so overwhelming factor it can blow up your product sale and you can tap on the untouched opportunities the competition may never know about, 

 A consumer behaviour study lets a marketer know what consumers buy, why they will buy it when they buy, and how often do consumers buy a product, this is something that we call a critical study,

In this article we will try to simplify this critical study along with this we will also know about how pandemic has changed the approach of different consumers

So let’s get going-

Table of content-

• Why is consumer behavior important?
• Factors affecting consumer behavior?
• How to study consumer behavior?
• pandemic impact on consumer behavior

Why is consumer behavior important?

If I am allowed to put my personal point of view on this question, the answer is if you are launching a new product or want to make your services more profitable. consumer behaviour is the most prominent thing to rely on.

Well, what I have to support this statement? So let’s get going together through each point in this         article & understand how effective it really is…..we will start with these 4 points:

1.Customer differentiation- Even if you are selling the same product to all of your customers, people are likely purchasing your product for different reasons. The sole purpose of consumer differentiation is to Recognize the reason for product purchases by different individuals. It helps to make a target group of consumers with the same reason or similar behaviour of purchase. 

Once you have created these groups of people on the basis of their reason to purchase you can set up effective marketing campaigns, advertisements according to their taste.

2. Predicting Market Trends- Marketing trend shift will be first recognized by consumer behaviour study, the consumer is bound to nobody except monopoly market, and you as a marketer must know about consumer’s changing taste

Now you must be thinking about the benefit of this analysis. So, By conducting consumer behaviour studies, a company saves a lot of resources plus it allocates it, EXAMPLE-

• In fitness industry various supplement brands have introduce vitamin-c, immunity booster supplements during this pandemic and the sales figure without a surprise have increased
• This changing market trend was observed by many brands including McDonalds.  Based on the consumer behavior, McDonald’s brought healthy food options.

3. Innovate New Products- What a company does before launching a product in the market, well they do research on how competition is performing and the factor study on what will influence consumers to buy their product, that research is only possible through consumer behaviour study, “don’t trust me” just look at this,

EXAMPLE- With the help of consumer behaviour analysis, the trend is shifting towards eco-friendly products thereof Nike introduced

Innovation for Shoes and for the Planet-

Today, more than 71% of materials used for Nike footwear and apparel products are made from recycled material – an impressive feat when considering that since 2008, Nike has increased their revenue by more than 64%.

4. Improve customer service experience- we have learned about customer differentiation before and the reason for mentioning that point here will let you understand this one quite easily. Well, every consumer requires a different level of customer service.

 So understanding their reason for purchase can also let us know how to provide the most appropriate service for individual needs.

FACTORS AFFECTING CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

So, I am sure that you are pretty clear about how important consumer behaviour is and now we will talk about factors that affect or change consumer behaviour. 

      We will learn them in two portions:

• Basic factors influencing consumer behavior.
• How marketers impact consumer behavior!!

Basic factors influencing consumer behaviour

1. Cultural factors affecting consumer behavior– consumer behavior is greatly influenced by cultural factors, Culture can be different by region, religion and even countries. Your product marketing should be done in such a way that it satisfies the cultural norms of your target audience. Because a normal person is greatly influenced by cultural activities and beliefs,

2. Group influence on consumer behaviour- everyone is influenced by different types of reference groups they believe they are a part of or aspire to be, be it your workplace family, friends. you are most likely to be affected by their likes and dislikes Take your past actions as an example- if you want a new phone/laptop you will most probably look after the suggestions from your friends or family.

3. Personal preference- No matter how effective a marketing campaign is you cannot make a vegetarian eat chicken barbeque or force a non drinker to drink alcohol (unless you are their close friend), personal preference -likes, dislikes, morals, life-choices, priorities, values – are ingrained.

4. Purchasing power- The product might be excellent, it may fulfill all your expectations but you will never buy it if you don’t have money in your wallet and that’s a fact so yes, a consumer decision or it’s behavior revolve around their purchasing power.

Note: The factors mentioned above cannot be influenced by a marketer. These are included in studies to build a marketing campaign that respects these circumstances of the majority consumer in the targeted group.

How marketers impact consumer behaviour

1. Marketing campaigns- A successful marketing campaign is created in such a way that it not only influences retained customers to buy the product it can also convince other consumers to change brands, upgrade to a more expensive product.

A good marketing campaign consists of these factors on the basics:

• A goal: Do you want to sell a new product or let your current customers know that part of your service has changed?

• An audience: Are you advertising to current customers? Or are you trying to attract new ones? This will help you create a marketing campaign design more specific and attractive to the targeted group.

• An offer: Are you offering a webinar? A free product trial? Or want to inform them about the upcoming big sale on your products.

So if a marketing campaign is designed with these points done right, believe it for sure it can greatly influence a consumer to buy your product.

Note: A marketing campaign should be done for every product or service but mostly on products that tap on “impulse purchase” where a consumer doesn’t have to think that much for spending their For example; The purchase of clothes, shoes, food & groceries (not something like Purchasing insurance.)

2. social media Marketing campaigns- Most of us are on social media… every single day. Because it’s such a big part of our lives, it plays a role in influencing our purchasing decisions. As well, 

 A marketer should use this as an opportunity to increase their product awareness, sale figures as almost every person first search for a product online before buying it for real. 

      What a marketer can do is :

• Use Influencers impact – they have thousands and lakhs of fan base, a positive review from them about your product will not only improve sales but it also improves the chances of influencing potential customers of your product.

• Personal Branding on social media – there’s a big crowd out there, so as your consumer too so you need to be there. Create your own space of social media like insta, youtube so you can give updates about your services to people. Posting positive reviews of your customers will also help you create brand awareness.

• Social media ads– Brands should ensure that the target audience sees your products, bigger the reach better the influence. so you can also use paid ads to receive instant reach to your product from various people around the globe.

How to study consumer behaviour?

Now that we have gone through factors affecting consumer behaviour, and how marketers can also affect consumer behaviour now we will learn about how to study a consumer behaviour

Because then only my friend you will be able to create an effective marketing campaign, analysing market trend and what not so let’s dig deep,

• consumer survey reports: The most easy and effective way is to run surveys. Surveys can be conducted on the phone via social media polls (insta, youtube or on website) and in-person as well.

• Focus groups: Basically, it is a popular method of gathering information by sociologists so marketers can also make a good use of it. usually 6-12 people are gathered and discuss their point of view relating to the topic                           

Here it will be about understanding the reasons why customers will buy certain brands. While allowing participants to try a new product and write down their views about it. First-hand feedback helps the marketer to place the product right Or to modify existing ones.

• Observation and research: Observing regular product usage at home or work, to gain insights into how products are opened, prepared, consumed, stored, disposed of, etc. to gain insights into the usefulness of packaging, labeling, and general usage.

Packaging and labelling your product also plays a crucial role in how products perform in the market. Nowadays eco-friendly packaging is highly appreciated in the market, whereas the use of a product always defines where we can add more convenience to it. 

NOTE: There are other elements as well to study consumer behaviour like offering freebies, analysing online activity and the list will go on but what ultimately matters is that valuable feedback, finding what is most suitable for your business and creating products that fulfil the needs of the consumer.

Pandemic impact on consumer behaviour

The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed the world as we know it. both from a health and economic perspective of consumers.

In addition, it also has affected the work environment of employees. Some feel more productive working from home while some seek an office environment much more professional.  

Well, it has so much of an impact and mentioning all of them will bore the majority of readers so I am concluding this in major points let’s go through them together, 

1. Rise in conscious consumerism- Consumers are more mindful of what they’re buying. They are striving to limit food waste, shop more cost consciously and buy more sustainable options.

2. Healthy and hygienic lifestyle- the virus has made people more alert towards the way of living, the majority is adopting health while non-essential categories slump, the budget has significantly risen for a hygienic lifestyle of majority consumers. (adding that health factors will receive positive feedback).

3. digital presence is inevitable- the businesses who were working on their digital presence in first priority have enjoyed sales figures and to be more precious virus has created a positive impact on the digital purchase of products and this impact will eventually last long. (So how’s your digital approach going !!).

FINAL THOUGHTS

Along with importance we learned about how a marketer can affect consumer behavior, how their own circumstances change their buying decisions and how effectively you can collect data and study them to satisfy your consumers and in addition the covid-19 impact on purchase patterns.

So CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR the word for sure have importance in your business now, consumers are the reason you have a business, and their behaviour study helps in improving what is there to offer, the more convenience and satisfactory your product is to customers the more your business will grow.

SO that’s just it from my side❤️❤️, I hope you liked the article and if you do, feel free to checkout other blogs relating to business here