How Do I Analyse Customer Behaviour?

“I’ve poured in so much time and money into advertising my products and yet my sales haven’t increased. Why is this happening?”

 

These are questions that many entrepreneurs and marketing personnel ask themselves – head in hands, desperately racking their brains for the answer. Unfortunately, advertising is not the surefire way to increase sales. Many other factors should also be considered to boost your sales.

 

In this article, we will be taking a closer look at these factors and how they can help you achieve your sales targets.

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Customer Behaviour

The Cambridge Dictionary defines Customer Behaviour as “the decisions that people make to buy or not to buy a product, and the things that influence their decisions.”

 

Picture yourself going into the mall. Where would you head to first? Was there something you wanted to buy there?

 

Actually, why bother going there when anything you want could be easily purchased online and delivered right to your doorstep?

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For those who find the thought of human interaction uncomfortable, online shopping is a godsend. However, for those craving the intimacy of talking to another human being, going to the physical store at the shopping mall is the only answer. Which one of these categories do you fall into?

 

Whichever you pick, it’s important to remember that everyone is different. Those who don’t enjoy human interaction can easily do away with it altogether by choosing from a wide variety of contactless alternatives in this day and age. At some restaurants, you can place your order through iPads and self-service kiosks. Most supermarkets also provide self-checkout counters for one to scan, pay for and pack their own items. This way, people can do away with the human interaction and still get the product or service that they want.

 

So, always keep in mind that everyone is different. Customers are not faceless beings who purchase your products or engage your services. They are humans with their individual personalities, preferences and needs. Empathy plays a big part in understanding your customers on a deeper level.

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Customer Personas

In addition to having empathy, what’s also important is to do additional research on the types of personas your products will appeal to.

 

A customer persona is a semi-fictional archetype based on data from user research and web analytics that synthesises the essential qualities of a large part of your audience.

 

Customer personas can provide invaluable insight. They can help you:

–  Develop a comprehensive understanding of the customer’s needs and formulate tailored solutions for them
–  Highlight the gaps in your products and ideate improvements to address them
–  Identify high priority areas for the allocation of your resources
–  Narrow down and identify your target markets
 

Based on your product, create a customer persona that would purchase it based on these characteristics:

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1) Gender

2) Age

3) Income level

4) Race

5) Education

6) Religion

7) Marital status

8) Geographic location

 

These 8 characteristics would make up the customer persona that would purchase your product. For example, if I were to create a persona for a customer that would purchase my product , it would look something like this:

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Now that you have created a persona, you can conduct more research on how to communicate with them and convince them to purchase your product. You can make them more personalised to be more specific. What are their hobbies? When do they do more of their shopping? Which platforms do they frequently shop on?

 

It’s these little things that will help you to attract customers in a more targeted manner. A blanket approach to advertising is not ideal and could even be counterproductive. The return-on-investment could be much lower than if you were to target specific customers. By creating a customer persona, you not only put yourself in your customer’s shoes but also discover how reach out to them more efficiently, saving you precious time and resources. Now that is how you increase sales.

 

“Everyone is not your customer” – Seth Godin

 

Should you wish to learn more, you could also utilise your SkillsFuture Credits to attend analyzing customer behaviours courses and develop the aforementioned character traits in this article. 

At All Hearts, we offer a Level 2 Customer Behaviour Analysis WSQ certified course that starts from S$105/pax only. 

In our course, learn how to: 

1. Understanding cultural influences and how it impacts global marketing strategies.  

2. Explain what customer personas ae and their importance in understanding user behaviour. 

3. Identify different types if graphical representation for visualising customer data. 

4. Identify direct and indirect competitors and analyse key insights to better your sales and marketing

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For more information regarding the course, click here to register your interest. 

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