Another Way to Think About Influencing Buyers

Do you know why your customers are buying from you? There are many factors that can affect this process as a person works through the purchase decision. The number of potential influences on consumer behavior is limitless. However, marketers are well served to understand the KEY influences impacting buying.  By doing so they may be in a position to tailor their marketing efforts to take advantage of these influences in a way that will satisfy the consumer and the marketer (The premise of marketing is identifying the people most likely to buy your produce/service, develop rapport or a close relationship with them and help them achieve their purchase goals).

As you think about these influencers, whether psychological, demographic, personal or social, also think about how impacting a customer’s attitudes and behaviors can assist with your marketing and business development efforts. It’s no secret that emotions are powerful factors that move people into action and cause them to make a purchase. To influence your buyers, you must understand and appeal to them emotionally.

•      Impacting Attitudes – How do you get customers to prefer your product/services, believe in your cause, trust/respect you, drop an objective they have about your product/services or recommend/endorse you?  Impacting attitudes is about how you communicate and what you communicate (key messages).
•      Impacting Behavior – How do you get customers to respond, attend an event, call you/accept a call, respond to a promotion/targeting campaign, actively consider your product/service or accept a meeting?  Impacting behaviors is the result of understanding your target.  If you can change a customer’s behavior, you are more apt to convert them to your product/service.

Taking a step back, the only way that understanding influencers matters is if you are properly identifying your targets. Without identifying your targets, you will not be able to accurately position yourself in the market and use influencers to drive marketing efforts. Targeting allows you to understand what venue you need to focus your marketing in that can generate leads that produce customers.  The use of targeting, customer influencers and a multi channel strategy is a successful formula for success in marketing.