Let’s be honest. None of us are fundamentally rational in our decision making when it comes to shopping. Flashy gimmicks, big signs, bright colors and loud noise have been the typical go-to for brands hoping to narrow customer decisions in retail.
How does irrational shopping mix with the growth of retail data-driven marketing?
Data from researcher, Clicktale, has stated that as much as 76 percent of big data professionals admit that consumers are not totally rational when they shop.
How Much Should Brands Rely on Data?
How can brands trust in the data they’ve been collecting? How can they rationally profile and quantify consumers when in reality those consumers are not using rationality as the guiding force for their purchasing.
Consumers can’t be treated like data in a spreadsheet, categorized and sorted. Consumers have fluid personalities. Brands need to recognize the nuances that canbe used to advance their customer relations and become even more successful.
Emotions help impact purchasing decisions
At the root of this is something that’s always been there: emotion.
Consumer buying habits are influenced heavily by impulses, behaviors and moods. This is much unlike repeatable, rational decision making. Brands will have difficulty tracking and predicting future purchases if those purchases are based on impulse. The behavior of the consumer can vary drastically day to day with good and bad moods impacting how they perceive their interactions with a brand.
Emotions can be the driving factor in any purchasing decision, so make your consumer experience great!
The truth is, we all think that we’re making a rational decision at the moment that we purchase, when in reality that can be nothing more than a cognitive deception.
Emotions and urges play a big part of our purchasing decisions. Brands must constantly improve the ways that they’re acting upon the customer experience, otherwise you can be missing out on sales opportunities. Make sure your brand is making an effort to make your potential customer happy, and engaged!
Never Intrusive, Always Positive, Always Value-Added
Such psychological understandings must not be intrusive and shouldn’t ever be used as an aggressive sales technique, instead it’s used as a way to improve customer experiences.
Experiential Marketing can be a great way to improve customer experiences and act as a vehicle for brands to show shoppers they’re individuals rather than numbers with no face and no personality.