Are consumers making different purchases because they use their tablets, phones, PCs and the Internet or are they making the same decisions? They’re just coming to the same conclusion using different pre-purchase information gathering and decision-making pathways?
Do More with Less: Navigating Customer Acquisition Challenges for Today's Ent...
Consumer shopping infographic
1. 1
That pesky little thing:
Consumer purchase behavior
and the impact of media
Observations from an interested consumer and marketer
ProRelevant
BRAND ROI SERIES
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2. 2
Tenets of consumer purchase behavior
and the impact of media
• Consumers receive messages from
many sources
• All messages drive value for the brand in
terms of the purchase funnel and brand
relevance
• As always the path to purchase is not a
straight line. It never has been.
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4. 4
Passive Active
Search
Ask for advice
• Digital/social
• F2F
Advertising
Social/digital
advertising
News
Information
Gathering
Price Shopping
They receive messages from many sources, some
actively and passively
Conversion
Webinars
Events
Emotional
Preference
Building
MASS & DIRECT IN-STORE
USE
DIGITAL
www.marketing-calculator.com
5. 5
Passive Active
Search
Ask for advice
• Digital/social
• F2F
Advertising
Social/digital
interactions
News
Digital/social measure direct pathways
These are a major improvement yet miss many
disconnected interaction points
Conversion
Webinars
Events
Information
Gathering
Price Shopping
Emotional
Preference
Building
MASS & DIRECT IN-STORE
USE
DIGITAL
www.marketing-calculator.com
6. 6
Passive Active
Search
Ask for advice
• Digital/social
• F2F
Advertising
Social/digital
advertising
News
Other traditional methods measure only top-level connections
These miss the nuances of varying levels of engagement at
interim levels in the purchase process
Conversion
Webinars
Events
Information
Gathering
Price Shopping
Emotional
Preference
Building
MASS & DIRECT IN-STORE
USE
DIGITAL
www.marketing-calculator.com
7. 7
These are media-centric approaches
They gloss over the true nuances of how consumers make
purchase decisions (both B2B & B2C)
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8. 8
Consumers engage with our and competitive marketing
assets through many paths
Web
Social
Retail
Search
Loyalty
Call center
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9. 9
Kids Young
Seniors Middle aged
Consumers have many different personas
Each executes their purchase behavior in different ways
Personas
Balancing
Discussion w/ others
at purchase table
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10. 10
Moving from a media centric to a consumer centric framework
Social engagement & interaction
Store traffic
Search rank
Click-thru
Views/impressions
Do all media lead to a positive response – yes, with very few exceptions
Do all media also lead to response on competitive assets – yes, shopping requires consumers
to gather information from our and competitive marketing assets, especially for highly
considered purchases
Do we have perfect information? – no. Especially consumer interactions with competitive
marketing assets
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Media from all sources deliver messages to consumers with a mostly positive outcome. Some are very persuasive, others aren’t. Each of these messages moves the consumer along the purchase funnel and brand preference map to cause them to act in the marketplace, choosing any one of the competitive offerings.
There are 4 primary steps along the way to purchase: Information gathering where facts, sometimes mixed with emotions are generally obtained. Preferences are developed that are based on some rational, but mostly emotional considerations. Price shopping allows the consumer to trade-off their preferences for a purchase that fulfills their need and compensates them for the money they will pay. They make the purchase.
Peeling back the onion on the delivery of messages, consumers receive messages either in a passive way through interruptive media, such as, TV, digital and other sources. Depending on where the consumer lies on the purchase path they also actively seek out information to inform them as to rational and emotional attributes of the brand. The messages come through three primary dimensions: Mass, Direct & Digital; In-Store; and during and after Use/Consumption.
Marketers using only social and digital metrics mostly measure the direct response a consumer makes and ignores all other possible impressions received from other message sources.
Traditional models based on the outside of the cloud ignore any of the interactions within the cloud and have difficulty developing synergistic values between media and at different stages of the purchase process
Whether it’s for a B2B or Consumer market, these types of models are media centric and ignore the nuances of the interaction of the consumer taking place at each level of the purchase process
The process individuals go through in any given category or industry depends on the personas of the consumer. Some invest heavily in information gathering. Others make relatively uninformed purchased relying on the opinions of others. And yet other personas use online information sources while others employ more offline and face-to-face information gathering. Each of these personas balance the level of time and money invested in research and shopping, versus the quality/suitability of the offering, versus the weighing of other opinions at the purchase committee.
As marketing strategists we need to balance the things we can measure – at reasonable cost – and move from a media centric approach to a consumer centric approach