USING LOYALTY MARKETING TO INFLUENCE SALES
Through peer reviews, buyers have the power to influence sales for the products they buy. And, for the most part, buyers can be placed into one of two categories: emotional buyers and behavioral buyers.
Emotional buyers are more in tune with their emotions and more likely to buy on impulse. The satisfaction and social status received from making an immediate purchase is enough to justify the dollars spent to acquire the good. Emotional buyers want to be the first to try a product; then post, tweet, like, and comment about the product to maintain their social status.
The question is how to make sure emotional buyers buy, post, tweet, like, and comment such that your business will benefit the most.
To answer that we first must understand another type of buyer, the behavioral buyer. These buyers care a lot about saving money. They want the biggest bang for their buck and are willing to do the research to accomplish this outcome. For the most part, behavioral buyers will wait until the product has been tested and peer reviewed. They are not early product adopters.
To maximize sales, one should generate a mix of marketing that (1) encourages emotional buyers, those who are the first to buy, to write positive reviews and (2) offer deals to entice the behavioral bargain shopper.
By employing loyalty marketing, brands can automatically enhance the experience had by emotional buyers, regardless of the product being sold. When emotional buyers are offered status and recognition for their loyalty, they are more likely to write positive reviews. In addition, loyalty marketing can be customized to provide the benefits of discounts via points and rewards for shopping. This is the pièce de résistance for behavioral buyers because they get to save just for shopping. In the end, it’s a win-win for all.
