As an e-commerce business, what do you build your marketing strategies on? If it is not consumer behaviour, then you are at the right place because we will explore the importance of consumer buying behaviour in marketing.
Consumers are not people who buy products from you. They are the ones who consume it, irrespective of whether they purchased it or not. To be more specific, they are people whose interests your products need to meet.
So, understanding what they look for in products and how they make purchasing decisions can help shape effective marketing messages. Let us understand more about the application of consumer behaviour in marketing.
What Is Consumer Behaviour In Marketing?
Consumer behaviour refers to the decisions and actions that people make when they buy, choose, use and discard a product or service. In other words, it looks at the psychological, cultural and sociological factors that contribute to how customers buy, use or dispose of a product.
Here are some factors that form customer behaviour.
- • Psychological factors : The psychological factors to consider in consumer behaviour include beliefs, attitudes, and individual motivations. For instance, one of your loyal consumers might have an emotional connection with your e-commerce business that can significantly influence purchase choice.
- • Social factors : Family, friends, and social media significantly impact consumers' usage or purchasing behaviour. Social influences often create brand loyalty and prevent users from trying new products.
- • Personal factors : Some personal factors of your consumers, including their age, gender and lifestyle, also affect how they engage with the products from your e-commerce business.
- • Situational factors : Situational factors that influence the way consumers use or purchase a product include the shopping environment or timing.
Here is a visual depiction of the consumer decision process.
Importance of Consumer Behaviour In Marketing
When you have an understanding of consumer behaviour, you know how your consumers make purchasing decisions or what and when they buy. This makes it easy to reach out to these consumers with the right products and the right messaging.
Here are the importance of consumer behaviour in marketing management.
- • Customer segmentation : Understanding consumer behaviour helps your e-commerce business perform a behavioural market segmentation. This lets you optimise the messages and the strategies so that they align with the interests of each segment.
- • Develop branding strategies : Knowing consumer behaviour helps your e-commerce business create a branding strategy. This builds positive views of your brand and customer loyalty.
- • Product development : Understanding consumer behaviour is key for product development. When you design products that match consumer preferences, you boost sales and satisfaction.
- • Develop pricing strategies : Understanding consumer behaviour helps identify price points that appeal to customers. This allows you to create pricing strategies for different customer segments.
Now we know the factors influencing consumer behaviour in marketing. So, let us explore the types of consumer behaviour.
Types of Consumer Behaviour
The four types of consumer behaviour are.
- Complex buying behaviour
- Dissonance-reducing buying behaviour
- Variety-seeking buying behaviour
- Habitual buying behaviour
Let's explore more about the types of consumer behaviour and how you can customise your marketing efforts to meet the interests of each type.
1. Complex Buying Behaviour
The complex purchasing behaviour of consumers is when they buy expensive, rarely purchased items. This could be the occasion when they buy a car or a house. The purchasing behaviour is complex as the consumers are deeply involved and conduct extensive research investment.
How To Approach Consumers With Complex Buying Behaviour
- • Including details : For products on your e-commerce website, include comprehensive descriptions and comparison charts to help them with their product research.
- • Offer personalised assistance : It is important to personalise the assistance you offer your consumers and address their concerns during the decision-making process.
- • Emphasise unique features : it is essential to highlight the unique benefits, features and value proposition of your product so that the consumers become ready to make a significant investment in the product.
- • Social proof : You can include client testimonials, reviews and case studies to improve the consumer's product perception.
Pro Tip
You need to give them personalised support to consumers as they help make purchasing conversadecisions. For this, you need more than just AI chatbots. You need AI Agent-powered conversational chatbots from TechMonk who can assist your customers through personalised conversations and guide them through the complete purchase process without much human intervention.
Deploy TechMonk’s AI Agents To Assist Your Customers Through Personalised Conversations.
2. Dissonance-Reducing Purchase Behaviour
This purchasing behaviour usually occurs when your consumers don't have a favourite brand to purchase from and need help choosing a brand that particularly attracts them. This creates dissonance or lack of harmony, which makes the consumers fear that they might regret their decision.
Here is an example. Think of one of your consumers who plans to buy a television, and they compare television models from different brands. Since most televisions have similar specifications and pricing, it might be quite challenging to differentiate between them. So when they see advertisements for competing models post-purchase, they might have second thoughts about that decision.
How To Approach Consumers With Dissonance-Reducing Purchase Behaviour
- • Address the consumer's pain points : Find out the typical pain points consumers usually face with your product. So you can efficiently convey how your product addresses these pain points in your marketing messages.
- • Quality and reliability : You can highlight the quality and reliability of your products in the marketing messages to encourage consumers to make a purchasing decision.
- • Satisfaction guarantees : You can include satisfaction guarantees and attractive return policies in your e-commerce platform to make the consumers think that the risk associated with the purchase is less.
Pro Tip
You can use TechMonk's Gen AI bot to adjust marketing messages in real time based on live consumer interactions. For example, if a consumer browses a product page but hesitates to purchase, you can give them personalised messages, offers and discounts to bring them back.
3. Habitual Purchasing Behaviour
Habitual buying behaviour refers to the purchasing behaviour in which consumers buy something without thinking a lot. There is little or no consideration of the products or brands they choose from.
Let us consider the example of toothpaste. Most individuals purchase toothpaste of the same brand as they are comfortable with it and have a perceived effectiveness. There is little decision-making around this purchase, and consumers do not feel they must explore alternatives.
How To Approach Consumers With Habitual Purchasing Behaviour
- • Meet the industry trends : If you see consumers exhibit habitual purchase behaviour, keep yourself updated about the industry trends and stay relevant. Only then can you remain appealing to your consumers and attract them to your product.
- • Loyalty programs : You can implement loyalty programs and incentivise your consumers to encourage repeat purchases.
- • Maintain brand visibility : You need to maintain your brand visibility by ensuring that your messaging and branding are consistent to stay on top of the minds of your consumers.
Pro Tip
To ensure customer retention, you need to keep your loyalty programs unique, and they should be consistent with your brand image. You can use TechMonk’s loyalty program builder to create tiered loyalty programs that reward your consumers.
Build Your Loyalty Programs TechMonk’s Simple Tools To Reward Your Customers.
4. Variety-Seeking Purchasing Behaviour
Consumers don't always try a different product because they are dissatisfied with the one they previously used. They might be seeking variety from other products.
Let us understand this with an example of ice cream. Consumers who buy ice cream do not always choose one brand. They look for different brands and flavours in each purchase to meet their interest in varieties.
How To Approach Consumers With Variety-Seeking Purchasing Behaviour
- • Offer a variety of products : Include different flavours and options to meet consumer preferences.
- • Limited-time promotions : Use limited-time offers to create excitement around your brand.
- • Personalised recommendations : Suggest different products based on customer preferences. This encourages them to try new items from your e-commerce store.
Pro Tip
Some e-commerce businesses lack a 360-degree customer view, making their suggestions and recommendations less personalised. TechMonk’s customer data platform combines customer data for complete customer visibility, strengthening personalisation.
TechMonk: Understand Consumer Behaviour And Approach Them With The Right Strategies
TechMonk is the ideal tool for e-commerce businesses to understand consumer behaviour and improve customer engagement. It unifies all the customer data from different tools to build customer intelligence. Let us explore the best features of TechMonk that you need to know about.
- • E-commerce CDP : TechMonk integrates with your e-commerce store and other tools to unify customer data and build 360-degree customer visibility.
- • Behavioural Segmentation : With TechMonk’s advanced segmentation tools, you can segment your customers to understand their behaviour and approach them with the right strategies.
- • E-commerce Personalisation : You can ensure that your recommendations and suggestions to customers are personalised with TechMonk as it constantly builds customer intelligence.
Now, let us move on to explore how you can perform a behavioural RFM analysis using TechMonk.
- From TechMonk’s interface, open the RFM tab in its sidebar and choose the Create RFM button.
- In the respective fields, enter the necessary details.
- Choose the event you want from the Select Recency & Frequency Event field.
- Further, choose the Start Date and End Date for the segmentation duration.
- Enter the necessary details in the remaining fields and select the Next button.
- This will show the user segments based on the RFM event as follows.
- About to sleep
- Price-sensitive
- Loyal customers
- Promising customers
- Recent customers
- Customers who need attention
- Once done, click the Save section button.
Wish to know how else TechMonk can help your e-commerce business? Then, get on a call with us.
Use Behavioral Data To Personalise Customer Experiences Across All Touchpoints With TechMonk
Conclusion
Now you know why the foundation of a successful marketing strategy should be consumer behaviour. Knowing their behaviour lets you approach them with offers and recommendations that meet their interests.
At the same time, you need to know your consumers' purchasing behaviour. E-commerce businesses need complete visibility of their customers to understand their behaviour better. If not, your marketing messages and strategies will not be as effective as you think they would be.
If you wish to get a 360-degree view of your consumers and develop strategies to meet consumer needs, join TechMonk.
FAQs
What do you mean by consumer behaviour in marketing?
What is consumer buying behaviour in marketing?
What is consumer behaviour in marketing management?
