What is Consumer Behavior in Marketing?

You know the age-old saying — the customer is king! Marketing is all about delivering attractive messages about your products and services to customers so they are compelled to buy them, and what other way to achieve this goal than by understanding what attracts them in the first place? AKA, by understanding consumer behavior.

So, What is Consumer Behavior?

Consumer behaviofr studies what makes consumers tick. It identifies their needs and wants, what attracts them to a product, the factors influencing their purchasing decisions, and the components of their personality and lifestyles that make them gravitate towards one brand or message over the other. It’s basically a comprehensive knowledge of the customer’s psyche.

Understanding the unique behavior of your target audience can help you implement practices to deliver the most effective value-based messages possible.

The data you gather provides invaluable insights which you can leverage in your marketing campaigns. A company is only as strong as the messages it creates, communicates and delivers to its audience. An optimization of the marketing mix facilitates more opportunities to convert passersby into leads and leads into customers.

RELATED: 50 Consumer Behavior Survey Questions (Free Template + Examples)

Types of Consumer Behavior

Consumer behavior is divided into four main types:

Complex Purchasing Behavior

Consumers exhibit this behavior when making large purchases that occur at infrequent intervals, such as milestone purchases like a house or car or luxury goods.

The client conducts thorough research before settling on an option. They compare prices and the quality of the goods and generally are sure about the purchase they’ve made.

Dissonance-Reducing Purchasing Behavior

You’ve probably experienced this behavior if you’ve made an expensive purchase and still have doubts that you’ve bought the right product.

The customer is marked by a “what’s the difference?” mentality. They’re ignorant about the pros and cons of different products available on the market. They’re plagued by doubt and wonder if they should have purchased a competitor’s product instead.

Thus, they experience a dissonance between their choice and the reality. The customer might seek reviews or additional information to justify their choice.

Habitual Purchasing Behavior

Much like the name suggests, the customer has made it a habit to buy a particular brand’s product. The consumer has not conducted intensive research or been swayed by marketing efforts. They buy the product with minimal thought.

Variety-Seeking Behavior

The customer tries different products in order to satisfy their craving for variety or a different experience. This behavior is often seen in comestible products, such as a consumer buying fruit juice from different brands to see which tastes best.

Elements that Influence Consumer Behavior

An important aspect of consumer behavior to take into consideration is the factors of the outside world which exert influence on consumer decisions to purchase, use and dispose of products. A deep understanding of these factors can help you to adjust marketing efforts, pricing strategies and customer service effectively.

Significant elements influencing consumer behavior include:

Economic Factors

The economic situation has a heavy influence on consumer decisions. During times of recession, they’re more reluctant to spend, particularly on non-essential products. Fields like beauty or travel might see a downturn during this time. Conversely, during economic booms customers spend more.

Purchasing power of the customer will influence what purchases they make. Ultimately, no matter how great the marketing is, consumers will not purchase a product they can’t afford.

Marketing

Marketing of course plays a big role in influencing consumer behavior. After all, swaying potential customers to a product or service is the ultimate goal of marketing.

Effective messaging that speaks to the consumers’ needs and preferences can go a long way in acquainting consumers with the brand and building trust and assurance.

Situational

Situational factors include the time of the purchase, location of the store, or the season. A store located in a good area might attract more buyers because of perceived safety and stability than if located in a bad locale. Certain holidays also mark increased purchasing from customers, such as Christmas or a birthday.

Psychological

Psychological factors include how the consumer perceives information, their perception of their needs, their attitudes, belief systems and motivation.

Certain consumers engage in “shopping therapy”, where they buy items that bring them personal happiness in order to improve their mood or alleviate stress. This is an example of a psychological factor influencing buyer behavior.

Cultural

The socio-cultural environment we grew up in can influence consumer behavior, such as the perception and use of products. This is particularly visible in food, music and clothing.

For example, coconut oil is widely used in South India, both in cooking and for skin and hair. Thus, South Indians are more likely to purchase and use coconut oil for multiple purposes than Europeans or North Indians.

Social

Social factors include the social class one belongs to, education level and family.

Studies have been done showing that one’s family can influence one to make certain purchases. Similarly, social class can drive a person to buy more often from a particular brand. For example, luxury goods are more likely to be purchased by those who are financially comfortable.

Personal

Personal factors include gender, age, income, occupation, lifestyle and personality. This might arguably be the most important factor as obviously what we buy is influenced by the demands of our daily life.

Women are more likely to buy personal care products, while the elderly will be interested in products aimed at longevity. A sportswear company will have greater success targeting athletes and so on.

Group

Peer pressure from the group we belong to, whether a group of friends, a profession or a social group, can compel individuals to make certain purchases or buy from certain brands.

You’ve likely purchased a product because it went viral on social media, and your friends were raving about it. This is an example of your own personal consumer behavior being influenced by the wider group you belong to.

Advantages of Consumer Behavior

Organizations can reap many benefits from gathering consumer behavior.

Some of the advantages include:

Improved Knowledge of Customer Preferences

The study of consumer behavior reveals the desires, preferences and dislikes of the customer base. You gain a deeper understanding of what attracts and repells them. This information is essential in formulating future marketing campaigns and helps you to identify the weaknesses in your company and what you can do to improve.

Offer Relevant Products and Services

Knowledge of consumer behavior helps not only in the marketing and advertising department but also in the development and debut of products and services. This research reveals why your customers use your products, for what purpose and why they may stop using it. Thus helping in idea generation for new products and improvement of existing ones.

FURTHER READING: Product Survey Questions To Create A Killer Survey

Customer Segmentation

Customer segmentation involves dividing customers into groups based on shared characteristics. Analysis of consumer behavior reveals the shared purchasing habits of certain groups. This reveals the relevant cluster groups and you’ll be able to customize marketing and pricing strategies effectively according to each group.

Boost Customer Retention and Satisfaction

All this adjusting of marketing messages, products, and pricing will have the domino effect of increasing your customers’ satisfaction with your brand. People like companies that listen to their clients. This will help you keep the customers you have and through effective, consistent and long-term implementation and utilization of consumer behavior research, your brand’s goodwill and position in the industry.

ALSO READ: 15 Simple Ways to Improve Customer Satisfaction in 2024

How to Gather Data on Consumer Behavior

Surveys

Surveys, whether in-person, through mail or online, are a great way to collect consumer opinions on a variety of aspects. Whether it’s customer satisfaction, opinion about a particular product or the perception of an ad, the data collected can be used to improve future efforts.

If you’re looking for an easy way to create and manage surveys, you might want to check out SurveySparrow. It’s a straightforward tool that lets you design surveys quickly and get responses across different platforms. Plus, it provides helpful analytics to make sense of the data. This can make the process of understanding your audience much smoother and more effective.

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Experiments

Experiments A/B testing and multivariate testing help to isolate which variables and combination of creatives consumers like best. It makes clear which variables make an ad more appealing to a consumer.

Focus Groups

Focus groups are small groups of people who are brought together to shed light on opinions regarding a certain topic. Focus groups provide information of customer opinions, experiences and use of the product or service at hand.

FURTHER READING: The Ultimate Guide to Focus Groups

Interviews

Interviews provide one-to-one information on an individual consumer’s opinions, beliefs, views and experience. It’s a great way to gain detailed information on a particular consumer’s behavior.

Data Analysis

Data from other sources is also a great way to gather info on consumer behavior. There are many sources available to businesses, such as sales records, social media, website tracking and even chatbots. This data can be studied to identify and recognize patterns in behavior and characteristics or interests of the consumer.

SurveySparrow can be your go-to tool for gathering all this valuable data, along with state-of-the-art customer satisfaction collection surveys and so much more.

Don't let competitors outpace you in understanding customer behavior!

Start your free SurveySparrow trial now and unlock insights that 10,000+ businesses are already using to boost their marketing ROI.

Signup

14-Day-Free Trial • Cancel Anytime • No Credit Card Required • Need a Demo?

Wrapping Up

Understanding consumer behavior is essential for effective marketing. With tools like SurveySparrow, you can gather insights about what drives your customers’ decisions—be it their preferences, habits, or motivations. This knowledge allows you to tailor your messages and products to better meet their needs. By focusing on these insights, you get to build stronger, lasting relationships with your customers.