There is no doubt that Consumerism plays a major role in today’s marketplace.  Though Consumerism has several definitions, the focus of this article is on the concept that consumers are now more “informed” decision-makers; and how Consumerism impacts your brand, your marketing efforts, and ultimately your sales model.

How Consumerism Impacts Your Brand

In the eyes of the consumer, your brand distinguishes your organization, your product, and your service from your rivals. So the old adage, “don’t judge a book by its cover” should have been done away with years ago, because that is exactly what consumers do. Today’s consumer does their research, they compare you to your rivals in as many ways possible. So to say that your brand is just a name, slogan, or symbol is far from true.  Your brand is not who you are to you, it is who you are to your consumers. 

What this means is that you must first understand the needs and wants of your consumers before you can truly define your brand.  And if your consumer profile varies, you need to have a process in place to optimize your brand and alter how it is perceived in the marketplace. That is why building a brand strategy that respects and adapts to the behaviors of your consumers is vital to success in today’s marketplace. This can only be achieved by integrating your brand strategies throughout every touchpoint along the customer journey.

How Consumerism Impacts Marketing

Marketing 101; build your brand, differentiate with value propositions, and know your customer.  Sound familiar?  So what has changed? As a constantly connected society, the marketplace ecosystem has evolved. The social dynamics of today’s buyer impacts consumer loyalty, and since there is an infinite number of companies battling for the consumers’ business, today’s buyer-decisions are made on more than just price.

Let’s keep it simple, there are 4 main types of consumer buying decisions; routine purchases, low-decision purchases, high-decision purchases, and impulse purchases. Understanding how consumers make these purchasing decisions and studying buyer behavior should directly impact your marketing strategy. This is known as an Adaptive Marketing. Rather than utilizing a Standardization or Universal Needs marketing strategy, an Adaptive marketing strategy appeals to the wants, needs, and behaviors of consumers. The downside of this strategy is that it can be costly due to executing multiple marketing campaigns in a given market, time-consuming to develop each unique marketing campaign, and slower to execute because you have to track success and be ready to make changes as needed based on the data you receive. The upside is that your conversion rates and customer acquisitions will increase because you are speaking to the consumer in a manner that they want to be spoken to, and your marketing message will resonate with them on a personal level.

How Consumerism Impacts Sales

When it comes to sales, a product or service only has true value if that value is perceived as helpful or necessary to a consumer. So when a salesperson simply educates a consumer on the features and benefits of a product or service, they are taking the position that they know more than the consumer. A salesperson must first take the time to learn from a consumer before they attempt to educate them.  When a salesperson understands what is important to a consumer, they can tailor their sales pitch to directly address the consumer’s wants and needs, and ultimately guide the consumer through the customer journey and into the purchase funnel.

Conclusion

With Consumerism changing the way consumers interact with brands, changing the way organizations market their products and services, it is only logical to infer that the sales model must adapt to these market changes and a more conversational data-driven approach is essential to succeed in today’s marketplace. In some ways, you can say that Consumerism is leading to the death of the salesman because consumers may be 75% sure of their buying-decision before ever engaging with a salesperson. So it is the salesperson’s obligation to recognize this behavioral change and adapt their sales strategy or face the consequences.