Understanding consumer behaviour can give a business a competitive edge and help them to drive sales, but this is not a straightforward process.

Surveys and research that involves the target customer can sometimes be effective, but you may also find that people do not necessarily answer truthfully on these surveys to make themselves appear more rational or socially desirable.

To gain a better understanding, looking into the subconscious actions and signals of a consumer can reveal more about their spending intentions.

Subconscious Behaviour

It can actually be the subconscious that dominates when it comes to consumer behaviour which means that non-verbal components of branding can be powerful in terms of tapping into their subconscious.

Generally, consumers tend to make purchases due to emotional reasons, as opposed to a logical approach, and later rationalise the purchase with logic.

Analytics

So, what can a business do to drive sales by getting a better insight into their target customer? One key area to look at is the time that consumers spend on your website through analytics.

This is because the longer that a consumer engages with your brand on site, the more likely they are to make a purchase so by measuring metrics like bounce rate, the pages that lead to purchases you can determine what appeals to each individual customer.

Making your website as engaging as possible so that people stay on it for longer, and can engage better with it, is essential to driving sales.

Customer Identification

Another key area to focus on is customer identification. If you are able to recognise the subtle buying signals (or lack of) from individuals that visit your store, then it provides you with the ability to segment your marketing approach depending on the gauged buying intent of each customer.

Identifying Ready to Purchase Signals

Recognising signals from consumers that show they are ready to make a purchase means that you are able to use different tactics to push the sale over the line.

Speech analytics is a highly effective method for this, with the ability to use call tracking to monitor words and pitch used to determine how interested a customer is in making a purchase when conversing.

Mediahawk’s call tracking software can thus measure the value of inbound calls, since you can determine which channels customers with high purchasing intent are using to call your business.

Consumer behaviour can be highly complex but ability to understand can help you to take your company to the next level.

Survey data is not a truthful reflection of consumer intention and purchase decision, but digging a little bit deeper reveals a clearer understanding of the behaviour signals that flag purchase intent.

This can be achieved through a range of tools which will help you to learn more about your target customer, and how close each individual one is to making a purchase with your company.