11 Needs That Shape Consumer Behavior
11 Needs That Shape Consumer Behavior
What are people’s motivations for buying products? Would you like to learn how to increase your sales by tailoring products to fit different needs?
Everyone has certain basic human needs that serve as motivation for him or her to take action, including buying action. There are 11 different consumer behavior categories that help to explain why people buy what they buy.
Identifying and satisfying these needs in selling will bring you more sales and greater customer satisfaction.
Why Do People Buy What They Buy?
In each of the 11 consumer behavior needs, customer satisfaction comes from the motivation that the customer has the best product they could possibly buy to fulfill one or more of these needs. People buy a product because you as a salesperson has convinced them it fulfills their needs.
1) Money
Everyone wants to have more money. This is a basic need. Whenever you can use customer service to link your products and services to making or saving money for the customer, you will have his total attention. Money is always a top motivator in consumer behavior.
2) Security
Each person has a fundamental need for security. Most people feel that if they had enough money, they would be completely secure. So although money is hard and cold, the need for security is warm and personal. Just as no one ever feels he has too much freedom, very few people ever feel that they have too much security. They always want more.
3) Being Liked
Consumer behavior dictates that everyone wants to be liked by others. We need to feel accepted and respected by the people around us. We want to be admired by our friends, neighbors, and associates. Achieving these goals satisfies our deep need for belonging and self-worth. Customer satisfaction comes from the motivation that if they purchase your product, they will be liked by others.
4) Status and Prestige
In dealing with customer needs and consumer behavior, a very powerful motivation for people to buy a product is status or personal prestige. We want to feel and be perceived as important and valuable. As customers, we want people to look up to us and praise our possessions or accomplishments. Perhaps the deepest of all needs is the need to feel important, valued, worthwhile, both to ourselves and in the eyes of other people.
5) Health and Fitness
Everyone wants to live a long time and enjoy great health. Economists predict that health products such as vitamin/mineral supplements and physical fitness equipment will be the next trillion-dollar industry. We all want to be healthier and to be thin and fit. Consequently, we are attracted to products and services that will enable us to be thinner, more energetic, and in top form.
Learn more about consumer behavior and how to increase YOUR sales from my book “The Psychology of Selling.”
6) Praise and Recognition
When you can position your products and services in a way that a person feels that he or she will achieve greater recognition or status by using it, you can create buying desire. Since the need for praise taps into the deepest emotional need in consumer behavior of all; self-esteem, convincing your prospect that he will get additional recognition by using your product or service weakens their price resistance considerably.
7) Power, Influence, and Popularity
People want power and customer satisfaction will come from products or services that will give them more of these things. People want to be popular and to be liked by other people. When your product or service offers to make a person more influential and popular, it arouses buying motivation in people.
8) Leading the Field
Another of our deepest needs and desires in consumer behavior is to be considered up-to-date. We want to be seen as current and modern. We want to be leaders and trendsetters in our work and social group.
Many people will buy your products and services simply because it is the newest product on the market. They want to be ahead of the pack. They will buy the product or service for no other reason than that it is new and different. Customer satisfaction comes from the belief that they own the newest and best available.
9) Love and Companionship
One of the primary motivators in consumer behavior is the desire for love and companionship. Use customer service to present your products and services as making the prospect more attractive and desirable as a companion, immediate buying desire is achievable through this.
10) Personal Growth
Many products and services appeal to the desire for greater self-understanding or self-actualization. That’s because the needs for self-expression and personal fulfillment are profound. People want to feel that they are becoming all that they are capable of becoming. When you promote your products and services as something that can help people reach even greater heights of personal success and self-realization, you again generate a desire to purchase.
11) Personal Transformation
Perhaps the most abstract need in consumer behavior and the need for which people will pay the most, is the desire for personal transformation. If a prospect feels that your products and services will take them to a new, higher level in their life or work and make them a different person in some way, there can be no limit to the amount they will spend. The customer will pay the most for these products, because customer satisfaction in this category is the greatest.
Increase YOUR Sales!
By knowing these 11 consumer needs, you will be better able to identify what your product does well and be able to market and sell it in the right way. If you would like to learn more about selling and customer satisfation download my FREE report “Everyone is a Salesperson.”
