The psychology of basic human decision making, is motivated by three distinct actions: knowledge, emotion, and desire. These primary behaviors have remained true since the dawn of mankind, and is the core of human intent today.
So influencing consumer buying habits still remains the same, when it comes to making online marketing decisions, as they did selling “widgets” fifty years ago.
Using these various behavioral targeting tools, online marketers now have the resources to be able to capture data regarding basic human emotions.
Then you can use this information to take advantage of tailoring specific marketing campaigns.
What doing so does, is it extracts more of the desires, emotions, and the knowledge, in order to encourage potential buyers to take some type of action.
This will prompt those who are window shopping, to take the next step, such as submitting their email address for more information.
Doing so motivates potential browsers to click the “BUY” button to make a purchase, or to return back to the site at a later date, to purchase more product.
Fulfilling Basic Human Needs
Take email for instance, as applying behaviorally targeted messages, has proven to perform up to 3 times better when it comes to conversions. This over blasting out traditional generic email messages.
If you’re not using behavioral segmented strategies, you could be losing out on declining revenues.
There are a few specific consumer behaviors, which you should be aware of to accomplish this.
Tracking Past Behavior
Knowing what a customers past tenancies are, is one of the best indicators of their future behavior, and how they’re going to react.
What you need is to segment customers by what they’ve purchased in the past, and then send them additional information on any complementary products, that’s related to their original purchase.
If they do happen to purchase again, then you should be able to establish an accurate profile of their buying behavior.
Doing so gives you better insight into their wants, needs, and their preferences, which can be applied for future marketing purposes.
Tracking Consumer Items Not Purchased
These potential buyers were originally motivated enough, as their desire led them to go through the research process, and land on your web page. But it wasn’t strong or convincing enough for them to actually purchase the product.
So what happened. Did they decide they didn’t want it, or did they find the same product at a better price from a competitor.
What you need to do, is segment and sort these customers by what they happened to look at. Then send out an email message which includes unbiased reviews on the product, or a similar product, or special pricing or a promotion for the item.
Purchased Specific Items In A Category
This is when a customer happens to purchase something from a specific product category, then happens to return later, and views another similar product which is in the same category.
The behavior of these buyers, reveals that the product will most likely be their next purchase. Take advantage of that knowledge, by specifically marketing that latest product to the customer.
When you’re marketing at this product specific level, what it does is it’ll keep the customer completely engaged.
The product will remain on the top of their minds, and at the tip of their fingertips. So make sure you position your site as the destination to buy that product from, once they do decide to buy.
Spending Time Window Shopping But Not Buying
The most critical resource to your customer, is their time. So if a potential buyer has the time to “window shop” products on your site, they should be courted.
Begin by segmenting how much actual time they spent on your site, or the product itself.
Then you can get the exact insight of your most engaged and interested customers, even if they’re not ready to purchase anything yet.
You can then get specific in your marketing efforts, by highlighting the products of their desires, or you can be more direct.
Send an email offering a special promotion or a limited time coupon to these customers. Highlight your return policy, or give them “free” shipping.
This will give them good reason to go beyond engagement, by they possibly buying.
Unbiased Review On Products
Regardless of which industry you’re in, what customers overwhelmingly seek out are unbiased reviews, feedback, remarks, from their peers and other buyers, good or bad.
This is the last hurdle, when they’re ready to make a buying decision.
So genuine user submitted reviews and testimonials, can be an extremely powerful marketing tool.
So much so that vendors should be somehow rewarding their customers who are willing to participate, if they share their views and opinions on their site.
Going beyond that, these reviews can also be used to personalize your marketing, by drawing segments around those individuals who left positive or negative reviews, regarding the products.
Then cross sell or up sell them on other products in the same category.
These reviewers are buyers who are invested enough, to take the time to give their opinion regarding the products on your site. So give them something good to write about.
Tracking Human Behavior
In the early days of E-commerce, attempting to perform behavioral segmentation, wasn’t even on the online marketers radar. But with all of the data that’s available today, it’s now possible to do so in real-time.
It’s becoming easier to know, track, and gauge exactly what your customers intentions are when it comes to your marketing efforts.
Then pinpoint and manufacture more excitement, emotion, and desire. Begin to track this engagement, and your conversions should increase.