“A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is – it is what consumers tell each other it is”.   SCOTT COOK

Understanding a potential buyer and convincing them to buy a product/service is a difficult task to a marketer.  As each buyer has their own reason to make a purchase, the marketer must make sure to grab the largest share of the market in order be competitive enough and not loose his share of profit to his competitors. This requires a thorough research on the buying behaviour of his customers.

The consumer’s buying process plays an important role here right from the brand awareness stage till the final purchase of the product. During these stages, the marketer can identify the barriers or facilitators which results in the success or failure of the existing or the new brand introduced in the market.

From a marketer’s perspective, each product/service offering has its own barrier and facilitator. Barriers are the reasons why a consumer is not willing to purchase the product or why the sales or revenue of a certain brand is less compared to others? on the other hand, a facilitator is a positive side of the story, where the marketer must know, what made a consumer to buy the product?  What are the various reasons for increased sales of the product and many others.

Since the buyers taste and preferences keeping changing, it is difficult to know the exact reason for not buying the product/service. These reasons could be the price, especially in case of expensive items, product appearance, taste, quality or value for money. These reasons either trigger or become a barrier in the buying process.  In many instances, consumers tend not to show the signs of interest or disinterest in the products. In such scenarios, its difficult for a marketer to get a cue from that segment of customers who are not willing to make a purchase.

The marketer should design a marketing strategy now keeping in mind the consumer’s interest in owning that product and grab his attention to buy the product/ service. This can be achieved by identifying the potential triggers/facilitators and barriers that could be affecting the consumption of the brand internally within the marketing team and work on them to reduce the barriers.

On the other hand, marketers these days have access to abundant information with use of new technologies like analytics, AI, Big Data and others, which was never thought of decades ago. The goals of the marketer in earlier days was limited only to promote the products and create awareness through mass communication mediums including TV, Radio and Newspapers and earn the revenue, which has now gradually shifted to understanding the minute details of what consumers are exactly looking for.

With a boom in the online shopping trends, the consumers preferred mode of buying today is through ecommerce sites.  It is much easier for a marketer to understand the buying behaviour of his online buying segment. This has been possible with the availability of various automation and analytics tools and platforms as mentioned above; here the marketer can observe and gain insights on the buying intentions of the consumer. With an understanding of the number of times the buyer has visited the page, the amount of time spent on the page, the categories of products he is looking for and many other information, the marketer can have a track of the buyer’s purchase process and create strategies that will become a facilitator and reduce the barrier for the brands consumers are interested in.

Barriers and facilitators both play a major role in strategizing the brand promotions and bridge the gap (brand and its communication) caused due to a barrier.  Customer focused brand communication strategies will help reduce the common barriers faced and will also help in providing superior experience to the consumers. A happy customer will always contribute in reducing the barriers and facilitate the other buyers through word of mouth which will be a win-win situation to the marketer and the success of the brand.

Write to explore@researchfox.com for any query.