COMMUNICATING THE VALUE: FROM NEEDS TO INTENTION TO BUY

COMMUNICATING THE VALUE: FROM NEEDS TO INTENTION TO BUY

Posted By ABHASH KUMAR

Before we start, let’s do a small mental exercise. A simple one and an easy one.

1. Think about the? product? category that you buy the most ?
2. Now think about the topmost brand in that product category ?
3. Does the brand name,? the slogan and the complete advertisement flashed in your memory in the last 10 seconds?

If the answer is yes to the final query, then the brand you own is the brand you know. The intention to buy for those brands is so high, that you have invariably made those brands not only a product brand but a category brand: for you, the brand in itself is the category of product you want. Think about maggi, xerox and coca cola, and you would understand what we are talking about.

Just to make it simple to understand, while there are commonalities across these brands and their approach, there is no direct secret sauce to get to this level. Every brand is special and they have been successful because they have been able to position themselves very deep in the mind of their consumer to trigger long term intention to buy by focussing on direct and indirect needs of the consumers.?

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THE CLUTTER AND THE COMMUNICATION

In the current marketing universe, clutter is the first thing which gets noticed. It’s a blind-sided customer, we all are targeting one consumer segment. It has nothing to do with the objectives and motivation of the customer but the sheer volume of competition and clutter of advertisements, which is there in the digital ecosystem.?

The amount of content that users are consuming , generating and expecting in this digital era, have made it very important for brands to create a pull effect towards the brand rather than a general push effect in the same cluttered ecosystem.?

The system has the brand’s work cut out: as there are only two major influencing factors for marketing success for brands: intention to buy from the consumer and the sustainable core proposition of the product/offerings.?

Before we get any way close to discussing the above two pointers ; let us try to deep drive first into understanding the most important aspect of the consumer decision making cycle; the actual needs and wants of the consumer.?

As these are the precursor of demand for any product, a marketer needs to understand the science behind these needs and wants and how they could be smartly influenced by constructing a smart marketing and communication strategy targeting the right needs and wants of your target customers.

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WHY UNDERSTANDING THIS NEEDS AND WANTS ARE SO IMPORTANT

Let’s do some reverse engineering to the complete process of the consumer’s intention to buy: how this intention is built. Our intentions are built around our anchored perceptions for the offerings. These are further influenced by our attitude (build around our values and beliefs), our motivation and? our personality.?

If we look at these elements, factors which are the biggest influencers would be our peer group and family, our culture and our self concepts -what we think we need and want about ourselves and what others would think we need and want for us.

This establishes the premise that there is a direct correlation between the intention to buy and the direct or indirect needs and wants of the consumers. All these needs and wants are not only influenced by product attributes but also by emotional attributes smartly constructed by the marketers as a part of their communication strategy.

While we are going to discuss the needs and wants from both the fundamentals and applications perspectives; it is imperative to underline the fact that the customer does not have a very clear understanding of their actual needs and wants from a product or service segment.

THE NEEDS , THE WANTS AND THE DEMANDS

The Needs: While there are multiple definitions of need both from the marketing and economic view-point, we would limit our discussions to marketing definitions and practically refer to psychological motivations and needs as defined by Alfred Maslow. Starting point of marketing is human needs, which is a combination of deficiency needs and self actualization needs for an individual.They create a sense of psychological motivation that influences their major life and consumer decisions, which are mostly directed to meet the unmet needs for the individual.

Different people have different needs some of them are as follows

• physical needs- Food, cloth, house, safety etc.
• personal needs- self expression, discussing feelings etc.
• Social needs- love, affection etc.
• Ego needs: status, recognition and self-esteem

We would discuss in detail about Maslow’s Need hierarchy and associated marketing implications in our future blogs.

The Wants:? Wants are requests directed to specific types of items. Wants are desires for specific satisfier of need. Wants are a form of needs and which are greatly dependent on the human needs. Wants are unlimited and Customers want high value and satisfaction for money.?

The Demands: Demands are requests for specific products that the buyer is willing to and able to pay for. Demands are wants backed by ability and willingness to buy. Specific products have the ability to satisfy specific wants.?

Just to cite a very basic example, when you are thirsty, your state of thirst is a physiological need and a state of deprivation that may lead to significant weakness or dehydration if the need is not fulfilled. ( not to mention, you may die in case of total deprivation of this need for a prolonged period).

In case of this physiological need, you may want to quench the thirst and for that you have multiple options. You may go for cold water, a cold drink or any other beverages. Your want for these specific item categories depend on the severity of the need and the availability of the options.

Let us say you are pretty clear in your mind that you need a cold beverage then you would have multiple options of brands which may satisfy your want for a cold beverage. Now the decision of going ahead with a specific brand or product is prominently dependent on your motivation, ability and opportunity at that specific time and situation. We would discuss these parameters of consumer behavior elements later in our future blogs.

THE NEEDS MET OR UNMET: PSYCHOLOGY BEHIND UNMET NEEDS

Met needs aren’t that big of a deal,? unmet needs definitely are. They cause us stress. We worry about them. We feel anxious. We just don’t feel comfortable having these unmet needs in our life.

Unmet needs are great for your marketing, and you can use them to your advantage. In fact, you should use them to your advantage. when you have a good solution to what people lack, addressing people’s fears, anxieties and worries can help both you and your prospect get exactly what they need. You get a sale; they get peace of mind.

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CUSTOMER SATISFACTION FOR THE DEMANDS

Once the demand for a product has been met by a brand, Customer satisfaction after buying the products ensures long term customer retention and loyalty for that brand. If the demand has been fulfilled by a product or offering limited by ability and opportunity of the customer ( mostly in the form of affordability and investment with respect to time), the customer’s dissonance is limited as expected.?

In the case when the demand has been met by significant investment both in time and money, customer dissonance would be pretty high immediately after the product is bought, as the customer would want to assure its value ( benefits against investment done) as soon as possible and perceived quality of the product or offering would decrease there dissonance over a period of time and lead the consumer towards a well established brand loyalty.

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THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND

While we have discussed in brief about the needs and wants of the consumer, it is very important to understand the real psychological motivation around the needs and wants of the consumers. The same could be understood in detail by learning about the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and associated marketing implications of the concept. Communicating to the right needs of the right segments is very important to derive utmost value from your marketing campaigns. Marketing pillared around creative and psychological constructs create long term sustainable core propositions: something which is very important for a profound intention to buy and long term retention.