Consumer Behaviour Theory In Marketing

What is consumer behaviour like? The latest survey of big business tells us that more than 80% of people are currently considering their brand’s use of, or encouragement of, digital technology and expect their primary provider of internet-connected services to be that brand. 

We also know that the three main drivers of purchase remain price, product quality, and availability. It is therefore important to be aware of how your product or service’s digital offering is designed to enable consumers to engage with you, make an informed choice, and go on to take further action. 

What is marketing to the modern consumer like? From the social marketing driven by facebook to the direct marketing driven by personal email, consumer behaviour today is driven more by peer influence and public opinion, than traditional mass marketing and direct communication. The reason for this is largely due to the increasing prevalence of the ‘influencer’. 

In the past, when a brand launched a new product, the brand manager would tell everyone else what a great product it was, and everyone else would say ‘yeah, that’s a good idea’. In today’s market, the reality is that it’s now the influencers who have the strongest influence and these influencers communicate their opinion in various social channels. This means brands are effectively held up to public scrutiny on an almost daily basis. 

While the media may be critical, social media can spread these views across the globe in a matter of minutes. Of course, there’s also the growth of other channels such as emails, SMS, and mobile apps. 

Where does this leave consumers? While at first, this can be intimidating, there is no need to panic. Consumers are still very much in control and can easily take the appropriate action to back up the opinions they choose to have. In today’s marketplace, with a plethora of choices and information being provided in many different formats, consumers do have options when it comes to making decisions. This means you can expect to see strong uptake of your brand’s digital services, especially if you get this right.

The online world has also had a profound effect on the way we transact. In a recent study, we found that nearly a third of customers have bought products using peer-to-peer sites such as eBay and Amazon. The social, digital-led consumer is creating a platform for innovative ways of purchasing, which combine convenience, simplicity, ease of use, and even greater choice. 

Where does this leave your marketing? Consumer behaviour can be described as the behaviour of individuals to seek goods and services. It is a constantly changing behaviour influenced by numerous influences including social, cultural, and economic variables. It is the interaction of the individual, his or her environment, and the products or services available.

The main elements of consumer behaviour are desire, decision, action, and transaction (there are other elements too, such as information seeking). When we do something we might be making a decision based on desire.

When we need something we generally find out as much information as we can. If the product is new and exotic, we try to determine how much it costs, how much we are getting for it, how we can get it, etc. We spend a lot of time learning about it. When we find out that the product is reasonably priced and satisfactory, we might immediately buy it.

When we purchase something we usually do it because we want it. Sometimes we need it and sometimes we want it. We do it because we want to acquire the product (if it is new or expensive) or we want to satisfy a special demand (if it is in season, cheap, cute, online, etc.).

What is the consumer journey? Consumers want information about what's on offer and they want it now. But they don't want to spend a lot of time doing it. As we discussed earlier, not engaging in that is another step backward. The best solution to getting people to invest their time and attention is to tell a story. And that's a story based on feelings.

If the details of the actual products aren't compelling, just tell the story. Create an emotional attachment to the products. Make it about "me" and my needs and wants.

A lot of content marketing is about convincing people to go and buy something. That's all fine, but what about persuading people to go and buy something because they just love it so much they can't put it down? Or what about persuading people to go and buy something so they don't have to think about it and they can focus on something else?

Why should they not buy it?  What's the worst that can happen? It's nothing. It's not perfect. But they don't have to think about it.

When telling the story, be sure to keep a few things in mind: Be as inclusive as possible. Make sure the details don't only apply to people who are part of a particular niche. Be sure that you're not making generalizations about any demographic. Genre works better for a lot of niche products.

And don't forget about the things people hate the most about any product: limits, time, and money. Tell the story of the product is about all the things that make people happy. Be sure to include the limits (or trade-offs) and all the side effects, if any. Tell the story with big, bold buttons that make it easy to click

Difference between a customer and consumer behaviour and the formal rules which govern that distinction—both can influence the nature of experience. This research extends and builds upon work that has found that advertisers can influence consumer behaviour by packaging products in different ways and by advertising to different people. 

The same brand of car is likely to attract different drivers depending on whether they are young adults or aging baby boomers. Similarly, a particular wine is likely to appeal to different consumers, both because of its marketing messages and because of cultural differences between countries. The recent findings also support the idea that an effective interface between consumers and brands can transform how customers experience that experience.

Because of this focus on finding out how brands and consumers experience their products, the researchers behind the IOTIRI research group believe that it is important to collaborate with researchers in fields that investigate the nature of technology usage in general—music, in the case of our work.

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