“Why (and how) do personalities, self-concepts, and lifestyles influence consumer-related behavior choices? and How can marketers use this type of information?

Introduction

Good marketing is the result of good strategizing. Knowing your consumers and understanding what they want is vital to good marketing. However, a successful marketing campaign will also research “the why” behind what the average consumer purchases. In discovering “the why” there are a few important things to consider: personality, self-concepts, and lifestyle.

Personalities

A consumer’s personality traits influence them to make consumer-related decisions. They tend to buy things that align with their personality. Value consciousness, materialism, and innovativeness are just a few personality traits to consider. Marketers can gather information about their target consumers by using the VALS assessments. These assessments provide information about the psychological traits of their target consumers. Careful research and study about consumer tendencies based on personality can help develop an effective marketing strategy to sell them the goods and services that they value.  

Self-concepts

Consumers often want to express themselves with what they own. Their self-concepts, how they feel about themselves and perceive themselves, influence consumer purchases. These consumer-related behaviors tend to align with their self-image. If a consumer wants to be perceived as wealthy and perceives that being wealthy means owning expensive things, they will desire to own expensive things. A marketing tool that marketers can use to gather information related to this topic is PRIZM. This marketing tool provides information on how people in the same regions tend to emulate each other. It also provides socio-economic variables that give insight into the motives behind the consumer’s self-concepts. Knowing this information will the help marketer properly present to the consumer the product or service being offered.

Lifestyles

The consumer’s behavior is influenced by how they spend their time and money. For example, someone who practices a healthy lifestyle will purchase goods and services that are also healthy. They may spend time at the gym, purchase dietary supplements, and shop at organic food stores. The PRIZM marketing tool is the ideal lifestyle analysis tool for a marketer. The information provided by the PRIZM analysis helps the marketer identify the consumers whose lifestyles align with the product or service they are selling.

Conclusion

Understanding “the why” behind what your target consumer consumes is an important part of a good marketing strategy. There are great resources available that can help the marketer get to know the consumer better. Careful research and investing time in learning what makes your target consumer “tick” will help your marketing campaign be a success.