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“Marketing as a whole is entirely based in psychology. The process is all about manipulating buyer behavior, and using existing trends in it to business advantage,” – WooCommerce.com
Commercial activity primarily hinges on transactions between buyers and sellers. The networks of modern commerce have amplified this relationship. Brands and businesses engage with massive numbers of buyers and customers operating in the offline and online domains. Modern businesses are constantly devising creative methods and extending traditional mechanisms to engage customers in a bid to sell their wares.
Therefore, leveraging customer habits has emerged as a potential technique to increase sales and boost business outcomes. To improve customer service, brands can use interactive decision trees to achieve consistent performance across large sales teams. In this guide, we’ll examine some of the techniques by which modern commercial operators can harness customer habits to gain a competitive edge in business.
Accessibility using mobile devices
Mobile platforms and digital technologies have emerged as game changers in modern business paradigms. These platforms figure prominently in modern customer habits and enable businesses to register immense commercial gains. Therefore, businesses are acknowledging and acting upon the fact that most customers are using smartphones and connected consumer tablet devices to peruse and purchase all manner of products and services. This aspect of consumer behavior is significant. Therefore, brands and businesses can fashion marketing campaigns that reach customers through these platforms.
For instance, a commercial operator can create marketing campaigns that hinge on search engine optimization techniques, like text messaging, location-based advertising, and NFC technologies to sell products and services. The said operator can use these technologies to influence customer habits through product descriptions, product reviews, and price comparisons.
These interactions between a brand and its mobile customers generate significant amounts of data that can be deployed to boost competitive advantage. In light of the above, we note that data-driven mobile consumer platforms form the bedrock of business initiatives that seek to capitalize on customer habits.
Product reviews
The commercial applications of the World Wide Web operate on both desktop and mobile consumer interfaces. Product reviews have come to the fore in recent times. These indicate commercially significant consumer activity dedicated to authoring individual views on the pros and cons of various products and services. Online audiences pay attention to these reviews. Therefore, we may consider product reviews as an expression of modern customer habits. In light of this fact, brands and businesses can encourage customers to pen product and service reviews as an extension of their marketing campaigns. Prospective customers can peruse these reviews and reach a purchase decision based on these recommendations. In addition, brands can post product reviews on their flagship websites in a bid to gain a competitive advantage in modern markets.
Impulse shopping
Impulse shopping is a familiar concept for most marketers. This phenomenon represents one of the vintage customer habits that continues to hold its own in every consumer market regardless of geography. Market research indicates that impulse shoppers are influenced by visuals of products on ‘sale’. Therefore, businesses should consider boosting the number of items on ‘sale’ and prominently displaying these products.
Both online and offline businesses can leverage this technique to drive transactions and impart a boost to commercial activity. Additional techniques may include capturing customer attention by affixing a fixed price to a basket of multiple products. These techniques increase customer curiosity and help businesses to attract customer dollars with high velocity.
Emotional Triggers
Emotional triggers continue to dominate certain customer habits in modern times. These techniques hinge on harnessing customers’ emotions in a bid to trigger a transaction. For instance, a gift shop can offer buyers and visitors a flat $10 discount on merchandise marked as birthday gifts. A discount code attached to the product can trigger the discount at the checkout counter. This technique can be deployed multiple times during the calendar year using seasonality to drive customer behavior.
It may create an avalanche of sales as happy customers recommend the business establishment to their friends and colleagues via social media platforms. This instance reflects one of the interesting intersections of brick-and-mortar business practices and the customer habits of hyper-connected consumers.
Social media marketing
Social media forms a significant component of marketing campaigns in the modern day. Brands and businesses should monitor customer habits and trends as expressed on social media to frame marketing campaigns. For instance, a confections business can post attractive images of cakes and sundry confections on its social media handles. Fans and followers can post, share, like, and re-post these images as an expression of admiration. The business should remain sensitive to these activities and focus attention on customer reactions.
When a particular flavor or design of confections registers significant customer ‘likes’ on social media, the business may interpret this as a signal of customer approval that instructs the brand to re-create additional products on said flavor or design. In doing so, the business caters to customer trends and creates additional opportunities for business transactions. This instance clearly illuminates the benefits of tapping customer habits in the pursuit of expanding business profits.
Consumption pattern
Consumption patterns are a reliable predictor of customer habits. Businesses should, therefore, study these patterns with a view to gaining a competitive advantage. For instance, a manufacturer of alcoholic beverages may realize that large numbers of customers and patrons that visit steak houses tend to consume alcoholic beverages along with the food offerings.
The business can respond by suggesting a collaboration, wherein the steak houses market the alcoholic beverages to their patrons and customers as part of the food and drinks menu. This action can have the effect of attracting more customers in addition to the ‘regulars’ that patronize such establishments. This instance illuminates the benefits of investing in market research and depicting current customer habits.
Consumer spending
Consumer spending can indicate trends in modern customer habits. Market research indicates that consumer spending is closely linked to trends in the broader economy. Therefore, brands and businesses should monitor aforesaid patterns in a bid to boost their market performance. For instance, spending patterns may indicate that fewer customers are spending on food and entertainment outside of their homes. Multiple deductions can be drawn from this fact. But, quick service restaurants (QSR) can capitalize by offering free home deliveries to regular customers. This course of action is a direct consequence of acting upon market trends and contemporary customer habits. In addition, such actions can help the QSR industry to overcome a slowdown in customer spending. It, thereby, safeguards their profits and boosts margins.
To Summarize
In the preceding paragraphs, we have surveyed some of the techniques businesses can use to leverage customer habits. We note that modern commercial enterprises must examine and refine these techniques in their quest for business profit. The outcomes of such examination can help businesses offer a steady brand proposition to customers.
As a result, it deepens customer engagement and wins the customer’s goodwill. That said, brands and businesses can work to influence consumer behavior in a bid to expand the scope of conducting business. Customer education can also enable brands to influence customer decisions. In addition, it makes sense to shape and guide, marketing strategies by dominant customer habits. The outcomes may include products and services that resonate with modern customers. It enables businesses to achieve sustained success in competitive markets.
