Strategy - Consumer Goals Cheat Sheet

 

A More Modern Look at Consumer Motivations

Humans aren't as rational as you think

At the start of this futuristic sounding decade, the 2020s, we're already being inundated with countless articles contemplating the trends that will transform how we market to consumers. These commentaries typically focus on the ever-changing media landscape, including new forms of technology destined to reach consumers even more immediately than we do now.

And while modern technology will continue to alter the means by which we reach consumers, my concern is that we often don't focus on a more modern understanding of consumer motivations. Unfortunately, the vast majority of C-suite business leaders continue to cling to the notion that consumers are mostly rational beings—believing that buying decisions are based more on reason than emotion. More logic and less gut. More need and less want. 

But this is truly antiquated thinking. Significant research covering the landscape of how our brains work reveals that we humans are primarily motivated by impulses and stimuli that we're not even largely aware of. Facts and rationale are not necessarily what drive our purchase decisions—or frankly, decisions in general.

You might think, "Well, that's not a big deal. CEOs and CFOs aren't all that involved in creating brand messaging." However, the danger with a misguided understanding of consumer motivations is that it leads to the belief that investing in communications and advertising is not all that critical to growing a business. Many CEOs even view brand building as a fluffy extravagance, attended to only when sales are strong. (A CEO of a now-defunct sporting goods retailer once noted in a meeting that, "We're facing major headwinds now. We can't afford brand building.") And even when these leaders finally do feel compelled to advertise, they think the most effective way to convince consumers to buy is to simply fill them with as many facts, details and rationale as possible.

You might be shaking your head thinking, yeah, those people don't get it.

It's easy to point fingers. But it's also possible to get caught up—if not fooled by—our own personal sense of rationality. Accepting that we're not always completely in control of our impulses and motivations is a hard pill to swallow. But clinging to this misunderstanding—or lack of acceptance of this reality—can lead to the kind of marketing behavior I've just described.

In an effort to challenge this misguided sense of rationality—and reboot marketers' understanding of consumer motivations—my agency, Young & Laramore, created and hosted a new event at the end of last year. "Unreasonable: A Modern Look at Consumer Motivations" served as a clarion call to marketers that consumers (aka, people) aren't necessarily ruled by facts and rationality. An abundance of research suggests we largely behave "unreasonably," and that we're often completely unaware of what happens in our subconscious—or, as some have asserted, our preconscious. This one-day event featured nine experts in neuroscience, behavioral economics and marketing who shared their research on everything from decision fatigue to humor.

Marketers from a wide variety of companies attended the event, including consumer package goods purveyors like P&G, Kellogg's and ConAgra, as well as durables like Delta Faucet, Trane and Carrier. We even had the communications team from Cummins, the world's largest engine company.

While there were countless takeaways from the event, here are three simple ones that can alter your approach to marketing: 

1. Pay much more attention to what consumers actually do, not what they say. Unfortunately, people can't—and in most cases, won't—articulate why they do what they do.

2. Facts don't necessarily convince people. Instead, how a message is presented can be more impactful than a reasoned argument.

3. While consumers might tell us (see point No. 1) they want more and more choices, an abundance of choice can actually create decision fatigue, and often, inaction.

The post-event feedback was telling, as attendees noted that they wished their bosses could attend this kind of event. The vast majority wanted their CMOs to come, and a third thought their CEOs would benefit as well. Based on this response, we've begun planning our second annual "Unreasonable" event for this November and hope to expand our audience to those at the C-level to begin to make a dent in this misperception of consumer rationality.

Sure, old habits are hard to break. But as we look ahead into this new decade, let's reasonably commit to not only staying abreast of the most modern technologies to reach our consumers, but also to continue to evolve our understanding of why consumers do what they do, which might not be so reasonable.

Make the Most of Every Moment: How to Build Consumer Content for Canadians

GLENN THOMAS  SEPTEMBER 23, 2016

Glenn Thomas is marketing director at AOL Canada

The Canadian advertising ecosystem is undergoing a seismic shift. Attention spans are on the decline. Interactions are the new currency of online marketing. To attract eyeballs and engage audiences for the long-haul, marketers need to know why consumers are interacting with content so they can focus on delivering personalized, tailored experiences to every individual.

Using a sample of over 32,000 online consumers, we explored over 55,000 consumer interactions with online content. The research was fielded in May 2016, as part of an international study that included the U.S., UK, Canada, Brazil, Japan, Italy, Spain, and Germany. In Canada alone, we looked at over 6,800 interactions from 4,000 online consumers.

The study looked at the motivations, emotions, outcomes and topics to understand the key behaviours that drive consumers to interact with content online. In the end, we uncovered eight universal motivations or Content Moments:

1. Inspire: look for fresh ideas or try something new
2. Be in the Know: stay updated or find relevant ideas
3. Find: seek answers or advice
4. Comfort: seek support or insight
5. Connect: learn something new or be part of a community
6. Feel Good: improve mood or feel relaxed
7. Entertain: look for an escape or a mental break
8. Update Socially: stay updated or take a mental break

“AOL’s Content Moments study has uncovered the consumer mind-sets that drive engagement in a media landscape where decisions are frequently made in a split second or on-the-go,” explains Andrew Consky, director of research at AOL Canada. “By having a better understanding of these moments, advertisers can use the insights to inspire creative executions and create more customized experiences for consumers.”

Here are the key findings from the study, for Canadian consumers.

• Canadians spend the most time in an Entertain Moment

On average, Canadians spend 12 minutes in a Content Moment, however they spend more time in Entertain, Connect and Find Moments.

• French Canadians are more likely to be in a Find, Entertain and Feel Good MomentAt any given time, French Canadians are more likely to be in a Find, Entertain and Feel Good Moment, while English Canadians are more likely to be in a Comfort, Update Socially and Connect Moment.
• Canadian consumers are spending more time in an Emotional Moment

Canadians are spending a longer time in emotional outcome-driven Moments such as Entertain (18 mins on average) and Connect (15 minutes on average) when seeking relaxation and escapism.

• Women are more likely to use mobile devices when engaging with content

Women are more likely to reach for their tablet or smartphone when engaging with content, whereas men are more likely to use a PC and be on a games console.

• Women and men engage differently in Content Moments

In Canada, women over-index more on “lean-back” Moments such as Inspire and Entertain, while men index significantly higher on Connect Moments and are more motivated by visual, sticky content that can be shared with friends and social groups.

• Millennials index highly on Inspire and Connect Moments

Canadian millennials (16-34 year-olds) are much more likely to use their smartphones to engage with content and index highly on Inspire and Connect Moments, driven by distraction or a desire to try something new or be shocked and amazed. Those aged 45-64 predominantly use tablets and PCs and are more focused and intent-based Moments, over-indexing on Find and Be in the Know Moments.

• Canadians spend twice as long in a Moment in the evenings

Canadian consumers spend nearly twice as long in a Moment later in the evening (16 minutes on average between 8pm and 11pm) than they do in the morning (10 minutes on average between 9am and 12pm).

• During the weekend, Canadians are more attracted to emotional and entertaining Moments

On week days, consumers are motivated by staying updated on current affairs, researching something specific or seeking moments to take a mental break and are therefore more likely to be in intent-based moments such as Update Socially, Be in the Know and Find. This changes during the weekend, when consumers are more attracted to emotional and entertaining Moments such as Comfort, Connect and Feel Good.

“The end result here, for us, is to provide a framework for marketers to better engage with consumers and move away from traditional audience-based campaigns toward moment-based segments,” says Consky. “Marketers can better align with consumer motivations by selecting the right combination of moments, formats, and topics to drive more relevant content experiences.”

Learn more: Here’s how AOL defines the 8 moments that spark engagement with online content (click to enlarge):

To view the full research click here

Five Ways Marketers Can Rev the Consumer Engagement Engine

To understand how consumers learn about and take actions related to brands, for more than a century marketers have relied on the Attention-Interest-Desire-Action (AIDA) model, developed by Elias St. Elmo Lewis in 1902.

However, the growing influence of the consumer's voice in an always-on digital environment has made obsolete many of the assumptions that underlie that funnel-based view of how consumers and brands engage with each other.

Among the obsolete assumptions about the funnel are the following:

• Engagement is a linear process with a distinct beginning and end.
• Communications are initiated and controlled by the brand.
• The only communications that influence the purchase are between the consumer and the brand.

If consumer engagement can no longer be explained by the brand-managed funnel, what construct accurately depicts the way that engagement occurs? And what types of engagement has the biggest impact on customer lifetime value?

Northwestern University's Spiegel Research Center set out to answer those questions, and the findings of its study have powerful implications for marketers.

Introducing the Consumer Engagement Engine

Northwestern's research showed that engagement in today's digital communications ecosystem works not like a funnel but like an engine where brands and consumers are synergistically interacting with each other in new ways that can have a powerful impact on customer value.

Although the Consumer Engagement Engine differs from the traditional funnel in many ways, these five characteristics are particularly important to marketers looking to engage with consumers in relevant and valuable ways:

• The engine is elegant. It's made of five interlocking components: brand actions, customer motivations, purchase behaviors, brand consumption, and brand dialogue behaviors. Consumers are constantly being influenced by messages from friends, social networks, strangers, the media, and intermediaries—messages that are sent and delivered across numerous platforms and devices.
• There is no on/off switch. Unlike the funnel, which represents engagement as a linear process with a beginning and an end, the engine reflects the always-on state of engagement. Unlike the funnel's "end," the purchase is often the catalyst for the start of new and enhanced levels of engagement. The engagement engine is in perpetual motion.
• Brand actions are just one of the cogs. The brand no longer controls when and how consumer engagement occurs. Today, customers and other actors are just as likely as marketers are to initiate brand-related communication. Brands are moving from being broadcasters to being listener-responders.
• Users of the brand are vital. Buyers' brand consumption experiences—good or bad—are fuel for sharing. The good ones positively power the engine.
• Brand dialogue behavior is the biggest cog. Our research found that nonpurchase behaviors, or "brand dialogue behaviors" (BDBs), have the greatest impact on future engagement. We uncovered powerful insights about how BDBs are driving customer lifetime value.

Understanding and Ranking Brand Dialogue Behaviors

The research found that the types of engagement that frequently had the greatest impact on consumers were brand dialogue behaviors (BDBs), which can involve consumers, other purchasers, nonpurchasers, and the brand itself.

The research also found that these BDBs currently lack a categorization, taxonomy, or ranking according to the value they create for the brand. Marketers need to better understand the opportunity presented by BDBs, as well as the brand's role in BDBs—a role that involves enhancing the customer experience and listening and responding to the engagements.

BDBs can be categorized into three distinct types, all of which have an increasing degree of interactivity and value for the brand:

1. Observation: "Lean back" behavior, when the consumer takes a passive role, such as reading a tweet or looking at a retargeting ad
2. Participation: The consumer takes an active role in engaging with the content, such as retweeting or looking up a consumer review of a product
3. Co-creation: The consumer creates original content that is relevant to the brand, such as participating in a contest to create a new flavor of potato chips, writing a blog post, or voting in a reality TV show

Northwestern's research found that as consumers engage more actively and in ways that involve relevant interaction with the brand, there is a strong correlation to increasing levels of customer lifetime value.

Revving the Engine

Here are five things that that marketers can do to engage with customers in ways that drive customer lifetime value in today's digital ecosystem:

1. Adopt the engine: Use the engine framework to better engage and drive value for your brand.
2. Map your engagement: Identify where your engagement efforts lie on the brand dialogue behavior hierarchy.
3. Invest in your customers: Invest heavily in customer experiences and help this audience become your advertisers.
4. Drive relevant engagement only: Stimulate only the types of engagement that creates a relevant connection to the brand.
5. Listen and respond: Use social media to be a responder, not just a broadcaster.

As marketers continue to adapt to the opportunities and challenges presented by today's rapidly evolving communications landscape, the Consumer Engagement Engine will be a valuable tool for helping marketers engage with existing customers, prospects, intermediaries, and other actors in ways that create value for the brand.

See this video in which I discuss the findings of the research that led to the development of the Consumer Engagement Engine:

Read more: http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2016/29927/five-ways-marketers-can-rev-the-consumer-engagement-engine#ixzz48pa78fUR

Study: Online reviews have big impact on offline purchases

By David Kirkpatrick | March 10, 2016 print

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Dive Brief:

• A new report by BazaarVoice, a retail review platform, on the ROBO (research online, buy offline) economy has found that consumer-generated content in the form of reviews had a dramatic impact on offline purchases.
• 82% of consumers reported consulting their mobile devices about purchases they were about to make in stores, an effect the report calls “reverse showrooming” where shoppers use online resources to research in-store purchases.
• The report found that consumer generated content, specifically reviews, are a key element in the research aspect of the ROBO phenomenon.

Dive Insight:

The retail business has gone multi-channel in recent years, and retailers are having to unify their online and offline experiences in order meet consumers in their channel of choice.

“We’ve now gone to a business where your best customer can be standing in your best store and with three touches of their thumb to a piece of glass, they can buy from your biggest competitor,” Fred Argir, Chief Digital Officer for Barnes & Noble, told our sister publication Retail Dive in an interview about the evolution of the business. “That’s changed everything.”

One of the more compelling results of the BazaarVoice research was that online reviews have a greater influence over offline purchases than online. In fact, for every $1 of online revenue influenced by reviews, the offline impact is as much as five times higher.

In the report, BazaarVoice CMO Sara Spivey described the impact of user reviews: “More so than ever, consumers place their faith in the opinions of peers based on the content they are producing online—across brand and retailer websites, social media, and an ever-growing mix of new and emerging platforms.”

The report outlines three ROBO opportunities for marketers:

1. Guide consumers from consideration to purchase by increased consumer generated content volume to offer more perspective and give shoppers the confidence to convert.
2. Create a seamless experience by integrating consumer generated content in the store to help guide shoppers, introduce new products/brands, and encourage alternate brand decisions.
3. Use photos and videos for discovery by prominently featuring consumer-generated reviews, photos, and videos throughout the online user experience.

Recommended Reading

BazaarVoice: The ROBO economy: How reading reviews impacts offline sales 
Marketing Land: Report: For every $1 online influenced by reviews, offline impact at least $4

Marketing Psychology: 10 Revealing Principles of Human Behavior

June 11, 2015 // 8:00 AM

Written by Ginny Soskey | @gsosk

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One key part of being a great marketer is understanding how (and why) people think and act the way they do. It's much harder to create compelling content marketing, for example, if you don’t know why it would be compelling to your audience in the first place. 

Before you jump into the tactical nitty-gritty of marketing, it’s really helpful to understand how people operate … which is essentially what the entire field of psychology attempts to explain.Understanding some key principles of psychology can take your marketing from good to amazing, all because the right audience is reading and identifying with it (and most likely converting on it, too). 

To help you attract, convince, and convert more people with your marketing, you should know the following lessons about psychology. 

You can also download our free buyer persona template to get a better understanding of your buyers' needs.

Psychology and Marketing: 10 Important Principles of Psychology You Should Use

1) Priming 

Have you ever played the game where one person says a word, and the other immediately responds with the first thing that comes to mind? 

That's kind of how priming works. You're exposed to one stimulus, and it affects how you respond to another stimulus. Psychology Today gives the example of two groups of people reading the word "yellow" followed by either "sky" or "banana." Because people have a semantic association between the fruit and its color, the "yellow-banana" group will recognize the word "banana" faster than the "yellow-sky" group recognizes "sky." 

What's this got to do with marketing? Lots. Using subtle priming techniques, you could help your website visitors remember key information about your brand -- and maybe even influence their buying behavior.  

It's been tested before. In a study by Naomi Mandel and Eric J. Johnson, researchers manipulated the background design of a website to see if it'd affect consumers' product choices. Participants were asked to choose between two products in one category (like a Toyota vs. a Lexus). According to Psychology Today, "they found that visitors who had been primed on money (the website’s background was green with pennies on it) looked at price information longer than those who had been primed on safety. Similarly, consumers who had been primed on comfort looked at comfort information longer than those primed on money."

Source: Journal of Consumer Research

So if you're trying to make use of priming in your marketing, think about the small details. They could be the difference between someone buying your highest product price point and bouncing from your page. 

2) Reciprocity 

Introduced in Dr. Robert Cialdini’s book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, the concept of “reciprocity” is simple -- if someone does something for you, you naturally will want to do something for them. 

If you've ever gotten a mint with your bill at a restaurant, you've been the victim of reciprocity.According to Cialdini, when servers bring a check to their patrons without a mint, the diners will tip according to their perceptions of the service given. With one mint, the tip jumps up 3.3%. Two mints? The tip jumps "through the roof" to roughly 20%. 

In your marketing, there are a lot of ways to take advantage of reciprocity. You don’t have to be rolling in dough to give something away; it can be anything from a branded sweatshirt, to an exclusive ebook, to a free desktop background, to your expertise on a difficult subject matter. Even something as simple as a hand-written note can go a long way in establishing reciprocity. Just be sure you're giving away the free thing before you ask for something in return. 

3) Social Proof 

Most marketers are aware of this concept already, but it was too important to leave out from this list. If you're not familiar with it, social proof is the theory that people will adopt the beliefs or actions of a group of people they like or trust. In other words, it’s the “me too” effect. Think of this like an awkward middle school dance -- few people want to be the first one on the dance floor, but once a few people are there, everyone else wants to join in. (Keep in mind, this desire to conform doesn’t go away when you get older and less bashful about your dance moves.)

One easy way to make the most of social proof is on your blog. If you're not already, use social sharing and follow buttons that display the number of followers your accounts have or the number of shares a piece of content has. If those numbers are front and center and you already have a few people sharing your post, people who stumble on your post later will be much more likely to share. 

4) Decoy Effect

You'll often see this effect in pricing models -- one price point is intentionally included to entice you to choose the most expensive option. 

In Dan Airley's famous TED talk, "Are we in control of our own decisions?", he describes an ad from The Economist outlining their latest subscription packages. Here's what they offered:

• Online subscription: $59
• Print subscription: $125
• Online and print subscription: $125

Crazy, right? You could get the print only subscription and the online and print subscription for the same price. Why would they offer that?

That's what Airley thought, too. He reached out to the folks at The Economist, but he never got a straight answer from them.

So he decided to run his own study with 100 MIT students. He gave them the pricing packages outlined above and asked which one they'd want to buy. When all three options were there, students chose the combo subscription -- it was the best deal, right? But when he removed the "useless" option (the print subscription for $125), the students preferred the cheapest option. 

Turns out that middle option wasn't that useless after all -- it gave students a frame of reference for how "good" the combo deal was and enticed them to pay more for that deal.

So if you're looking to increase conversions on a landing page with two options, you might want to add a third. It could help increase the conversion rate of the option you'd ultimately want people to take. 

5) Scarcity 

Ever gone to buy airline tickets and seen a tagline that says “Only 3 seats left at this price!” Yup, that’s scarcity (another Cialdini concept). This psychology principle goes back to the simple formula of supply and demand: The more rare the opportunity, content, or product is, the more valuable it is.

In 1975, Worchel, Lee, and Adewole conducted a study to see how scarcity affected people's perception. At the start of the study, they asked people to rate chocolate chip cookies. According to an article by my colleague Lanya Olmstead that describes the experiment, "[The researchers] put 10 cookies in one jar, and two of the same cookies in another jar. The cookies from the two-cookie jar received ratings twice as high as the 10 cookie jar even though the cookies were exactly the same." 

But if you want to properly use this principle, you need to be careful how you word it. If you approach the scarcity concept as if there used to be a ton of a product or service, but due to popular demand there’s a few left, people will be very receptive. On the other hand, if you approach it from the angle that there are only a few products total, so get it now, the principle won’t be as effective. Check out this post from Nir and Far for a deeper explanation on why that distinction is important.

6) Anchoring

Ever wondered why it's so hard to resist a sale at your favorite clothing store? 

Often, it has to do with anchoring -- people base decisions on the first piece of information they receive. So if my favorite store typically retails jeans for $50, but I find them on sale for $35, I'll be ecstatic. "I just got a crazy deal on these jeans," I'll think. I'll probably even buy them. But if my friend typically shops for jeans that are $20, she won't be nearly as impressed. 

For marketers, anchoring is important to know -- especially if you're ever running a sale. You'll want to clearly state the initial price of the product (this is "setting" the anchor), and then display the sale price right next to it. You might even explain how much of a percentage off your customers will receive with the sale. 

Image credit: Express

7) The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon

Ever heard about a product and then start seeing it everywhere you look? You can thank the The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. It starts happening after you encounter something for the first time, and then you start noticing it cropping up in everyday life. Suddenly you see ads for the product every time you watch TV. And when you go to the grocery store, you happen to walk down the aisle and spot it. And alllllll of your friends all have the product. 

It's weird right? Here's why you're suddenly seeing this new thing everywhere.

According to PS Mag, this phenomenon (also called "the frequency illusion") is caused by two processes. "The first, selective attention, kicks in when you’re struck by a new word, thing, or idea; after that, you unconsciously keep an eye out for it, and as a result find it surprisingly often. The second process, confirmation bias, reassures you that each sighting is further proof of your impression that the thing has gained overnight omnipresence."

For marketers, this phenomenon is precisely why nurturing is incredibly important. Once someone starts noticing your brand (aka clicking around on your website), you'll want to help them start seeing you "everywhere." Send them targeted nurturing emails and retargeting ads based on their behavior, and you could increase the possibility of them converting.

8) Verbatim Effect

According to a study by Poppenk, Joanisse, Danckert, and Köhler, people are more likely to remember the gist of what someone said, not the specific details. So when you attend a session on how to blog for your business, you're most likely going to remember details like "Have another person edit your work," not "Send a Google Doc three business days ahead of time to a peer so they can edit your work. Don't forget to use Track Changes so you know what you missed!" 

They called this the "verbatim effect." And it can have a huge effect on how your content performs.

To begin with, people are spending less and less time actually reading online. According to data from Chartbeat, more than half of your visitors will spend less than 15 seconds on your site. So if people aren't reading your content and not likely to remember specific details, what's a marketer to do?

I'd recommend spending even more time than you already are on perfecting your headline. Not only should it be search- and sharing-friendly, but it should also accurately describe what's in your article. This way, when people are looking for more information on a given topic, they'll think of that one helpful article they read a while ago and Google the topic to find it again. If you've done the work, you should appear in the search results. If you need some help writing compelling headline copy, check out this post on our blog.

9) Clustering

People have a limited amount of space in their short-term memory. In fact, most people can only remember seven pieces of information (plus or minus two pieces in any given situation) at a time.

To cope, most people tend to cluster similar pieces of information together. For example, if you had a whole grocery list of random items, most people would tend to mentally group items into certain categories (dairy, grain, meat, etc.) to be able to better remember what exactly was on the list.

So when you're creating content, keep clustering in mind. How can you design and lay out your content to increase memory retention? One way to do it is by grouping similar topics together -- either under numbered bullet points or with different header sizes. Besides being much easier to scan, your writing will be much easier to remember and recall down the road -- especially if you’re creating long lists of content.

10) Loss Aversion 

Loss aversion means pretty much exactly what it sounds like: Once someone has something, they realllllly don't like to lose it. 

When Daniel Kahneman studied this concept, participants were given mugs, chocolate, or nothing. Then, they were asked to make a choice, they were give two options: If they were given an object, they could trade their objects, or if they were given nothing, they could choose one of the two items. The result? Roughly half of the participants who started with no items chose mugs, but 86% of those given mugs to begin with stuck with that item.

Moral of the story? People don't like to lose what they've already gained.

Though this could open up some semi-sketchy doors for certain types of marketers, loss aversion could have a significant factor in freemium products and increased product adoption. For example, you could ungate a feature for the free version of your product for a certain amount of time. After that time period is up, that feature could be removed unless you upgrade to becoming a paying customer. While you certainly have to be careful how you play to this psychological need, loss aversion is a very important concept for every marketer to know.