Understanding The Consumer

Before you can even begin to prepare your sales message or workout a sales strategy and media planning, it helps to spend some time considering the consumer who may ultimately become the buyer of your product.

This isn’t easy because even buyers themselves find it difficult to articulate what motivates them to chose the way they do. Sometimes, we do not even want to admit what drives us to purchase certain items because, put simply, it isn’t always a rational choice.

For example, shopping can be a pleasant experience, well some types of shopping (not food shopping - not for me anyway - yuk). It’s more than just purchasing goods that we need. If that were the case, then we would only have one pair of joggers and one other pair of sensible shoes, and that would be just terrible.

Brands have an identity and a personality, they are much more than just a name on an item. They provide us with something else that feeds into an emotional need, a connection develops.

So, people are attracted to characteristics about certain brand’s personalities, intangible traits that the consumer may or may not be aware of. This has been proven by studies. When asked why people prefer a certain product over others, often the answer will be a rational answer like taste or smell but then in a blind study they cannot differentiate their (so called) preferred product from the rest. This proves that their preference was more likely to have been motivated by emotional responses rather than rational.

Examples of these emotional responses could be:

* the brand’s personality has connected with them through advertising
* the person relates to the brand’s image and wants to be associated with it
* the brand has a great reputation which they respond to
* the brand is building a positive relationship with the marketplace through philanthropy
* the brand is standing out from the crowd i.e. cutting edge
* they see the brand regularly which builds trust

By now you may be wondering why I’m talking about all this stuff to you when you are an artist, well do you think you could utilise some of this information to help to build the brand that is YOU? Do you think you could work on the Social Media sites to help to build a following and help your followers get to know you better? Do you think they would then feel more comfortable in dealing with you and potentially buying from you? Could you generate curiosity or interest in your work?

Basically this information is the same in a large or small environment...... People are people wherever they are.

Good luck! I will help you with your sales message too and coordinating your marketing materials. Hang in.... it’s coming.

Thank you Anne for this great photo from Chang Rai in Thailand, sporting yet another Miss Penny bag!! Woot woo!