Then and Now: The Changing Face of Buying Behaviour

Consumer buying behaviour is vastly different to how it was a mere decade ago. In order to keep up with ever-more savvy consumers, brands need to change their tactics – or else, risk losing out to competitors who’re ahead of the curve.

Today’s consumers are empowered, informed and in charge.

Thanks to a proliferation of smart technology, consumers now have instant access to a wealth of information about products and services – including yours. With a few clicks, your target market can view blogs, tweets and Facebook posts – either praising or criticising your brand.  In addition, they’re able to instantly share their thoughts and opinions with a global audience, and as a result, either help or hinder your marketing efforts. Unlike days of old, the relationship between a brand and its customers is now reversed, with empowered consumers calling the shots.

99% of our decisions are dictated by our emotions – which means that buying behaviour is too.

Deciding whether or not to purchase a product is predominantly emotionally-driven. In fact, some neuroscientists postulate that almost all of our decisions are informed by our emotions. While this may not come as a surprise, what is surprising, is that most marketing efforts don’t cater to these emotional driving factors. According to this article on Psychology Today, “fMRI neuro-imagery shows that when evaluating brands, consumers primarily use emotions (personal feelings and experiences) rather than information (brand attributes, features, and facts)”. In order to truly engage your audience, you need to provide them with a powerful, emotive experience.

Marketing that evokes positive emotions has to be strategically targeted.

It’s all well and good to know that your marketing efforts need to elicit an action that’s emotionally motivated, but few – if any – brands are able to appeal to their entire target market. Your target market consists of thousands of different people, each of whom respond to different types of marketing stimuli. The only way to truly engage a potential customer then, is to target specific portions of your target market, by providing them with relevant brand touch points that are strategically based on hard data.

Obtaining proper insight into the buying behaviour of your target market relies on your ability to gather information about them.

Successful marketing strategies owe their efficacy to their ability to provide people with something they want – regardless of whether the benefit is tactile or perceived. In order to provide your target market with offerings they want to receive, it’s crucial that you have the proper data collecting tools at your disposal. In short, making use of a sophisticated piece of software that gathers, stores and sorts this data is your ticket to consumer insight.