If you want your sales and marketing will be really effective you have take a leaf out of the Detectives’ manual (yes there is one). You have to profile consumer behaviour and find out what makes your customers tick. Find out what they are really looking for when they make that final purchase decision.
I read a case study a little while ago that illustrates this idea of consumer motivation perfectly.
It was about McDonalds. You might have heard of them. They noticed their milkshakes are really popular during breakfast, almost more than any other time of the day. To cut a long story short, they did some research found that the reason their milkshakes are more popular in the morning is because their customers can stick them between their legs while they drive.
So what was important to their breakfast customers was being able to drink on the go. And clean pants.
While the motives of your target market might seem obvious, it’s worth digging a little deeper to see if that what’s really going on when they make the decision to buy.
The lesson: Don’t just consider what your target is looking for. You must also think about why they are looking for it.
Here are 12 classic motives of consumer behaviour that drive our desires, fears, and our shopping:
- Power/Masculinity/Virility
- Security
- Eroticism
- Cleanliness/Moral purity
- Social Acceptance
- Individuality
- Status
- Femininity
- Reward
- Mastery over your environment
- Disalienation
- Magic/mystery
The action: When you are creating your marketing, consider which of these motives is really driving your customers’ behaviour. Adapt your marketing imagery and copywriting to appeal to the real motivation behind the purchase.
Take Life Insurance. There is a clear need for security but the marketing could also tap into mastery over the environment, tapping into the sense of control that comes from taking care of your family’s security, if anything happens. See what I mean?Tap your marketing into the deeper undercurrent of emotions.
So over to you now … do you think your customers have any of these motivations driving their purchase?
The Copy Detective
PS Now you might not be able to afford the same level of research as McDonalds but you can do your own low cost market research and analysis.
Image credit: Kriss Szkurlatowski
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