Why Consumer Behavior is Important

As an economist I have too many addictions, one of the is consumer behavior. I remember since I was a little girl I was obsessed on how people decided what, when and where to buy. A process that seems to be so natural, implies the conscient and inconcient analysis of human subjects as economics and psychology to technological subjects as data mining.

Commonly, consumer behavior is the  subject on marketing books, the favorite cause of marketing efforts within a company. Consumer behavior as a flag telling everyone one: the more you know your costumer, the most you can earn. I want to express this idea deeply, analyze it as two ways.

First: the more you know your costumer. Let’s leave company’s objectives apart and focus on consumer behavior. Suppose we were from United Nations and we want to know the behavior of Ipod consumers. We decide to do in depth interviews with people from different ages, race, sex, income. As interviews are finished, we can find a common  group of drivers to buy and Ipod, but also too many specific reasons depending on every interviewee, all that specific reasons linked to the personal history of everyone: values, family, professional interests, hobbies and social circle,  different in all the cases. If we apply this method to another product, say cookies or clothes, the result would be the same: we could find a general way and too many specifications. What are we interested in?

Obviously in the general way, but how can I manage that general way, the key drivers of my consumers? If I work for Apple instead of United Nations, how can I link consumer behavior to Apple’s growth and earnings objectives?

The most you can earn. That’s just the point where a qualitative research should switch to a quantitative one. The final objective of consumer behavior research is not to know the behavior per se, the objective is to transform this knowledge on data that let the company take better decisions to increase sells and earnings. The only way to quantify and transit from several ideas and arguments to specific actions is through a numerical analysis.

Technological advances help social sciences to improve their application and influence on decision making. In terms of consumer behavior research, data mining tools are they way to group consumers depending on their general characteristics and find common consumer habits with groups. That kind of analysis can be linked to company’s sales forecast to prepare marketing and sales plans.

The solid basis of the company’s plan should be linked not on what consumers need or want, it should be based on what of all those needs and desires, the company choose to satisfy based on expected sales, earnings and long term growth and expansion.

Marketing is just a tool, it isn’t an objective itself. Bran positioning, for example, is just a tool to be on consumers mind and eventually impulse preference. I don’t want just to be on people’s top of mind, I want those people to buy my products and my brand and that’s a big difference. A mistery shopper is done to evaluate products or services, but the last objective is: how should I improve to increase my sales and earnings??

My personal obsession on consumer behavior is just that: how to translate it into sales growth, on new business opportunities and the finding of new horizons.