The Power of Habit in Marketing

Today’s marketing world is interconnected through behavioral economics, enabling marketers to leverage new tools and frameworks to maintain, improve, or change consumer habits. A business’s economic value is primarily determined by the habits they create. Such businesses produce products and services regularly used by their customers. Habits result from the frequency of previous behaviors in a stable and recurring manner. Consumers’ recurrent behaviors can lead to habit formation, which is vital for any organization to enhance customer relationships with its brand. Contemporary marketing models are premised on the notion that customers’ intentions and attitudes motivate behavior. Habits in marketing are multidimensional. Customers form habits according to any temporary recurring interaction with a brand.

Habitual behaviors are portrayed by returning previously bought products, buying low-margin products, and promoting products through direct marketing. For instance, a customer may buy a particular cheese brand to try it, and if they like it, they are likely to buy it repeatedly until it becomes their brand choice. The repeated buying of the cheese brand leads to an unconscious habit. Marketers use various strategies to influence habitual buying, such as loyalty schemes and discounts. The points earned after every purchase encourage customers to become repeat customers and ultimately habitual customers. Habits determine consumers’ purchase decisions, particularly regularly repeated purchases, lead to competitive advantage, and compel businesses to align supply with changing consumer preferences

Habits drive consumer purchase behavior. Habit is formed through recurrent actions and activities considered valuable and valuable by consumers. Research by Sharifi Fard et al. (2019) shows that contemporary businesses want to develop certain habits for their customers by satisfying their needs and wants. Companies are studying and analyzing the characteristics of the habits of their target market and accordingly developing marketing strategies that align with their demands. Products and services align with consumers’ habits to influence purchasing behavior and promote habit buying.

Habits in marketing provide businesses with a competitive advantage in the market. Enhancing consumer habits increases a business’s value through high customer lifetime value (CLTV). Research by Yu and Yuan (2019) shows that consumer habits increase the frequency and duration of using a product leading to high CLTV. Habits lead to business growth. Consumers who find value in a rand are more likely to recommend its products to their acquaintances. Frequent interactions with the products turn consumers into brand evangelists, encouraging them to invite their friends and share the value of certain products through word of mouth. High user engagement supercharges growth and provides a firm with a competitive advantage. Marketing products that change customer habits are less prone to attack from competitors.

Habits help marketers to exploit market opportunities. Koschate-Fischer et al. (2018) note that changes in consumers’ preferences are a good opportunity for marketers to introduce something new that aligns with the changing consumer preferences and trends.   Consumer habits are determined by their diversified and dynamic preferences. Customers nowadays prefer valuable goods with maximum benefits. Knowing consumer habits is critical to understanding their diversified preferences. Along with new opportunities, habits inform a business’s marketing mix (Sulaiman et al., 2017). The marketing mix includes the product, price, place, and promotion of goods and services. Customers often buy valuable goods sold at a moderate price and whose place distribution is appropriate and intensive.

Understanding consumer habits is critical to determining how a business can market its products and services. Knowing how customers feel, think, and choose to buy a specific brand enables a business to identify new growth opportunities. Marketers analyze consumer demographics such as income, age, and education to product buying habits. Studies indicate that millennials, for instance, are likely to buy goods promoted through word of mouth (Naumovska, 2017). Marketers know that using a traditional billboard to market their goods and services is not a good strategy for millennials. Understanding these consumer habits enables markets to connect and influence consumers’ behavior.

Reflection

Due to increasing marketplace competition and customer empowerment, businesses need to create engaging customer experiences. Customer experience is fundamental for a business’s competitive advantage. Habits formed through repetitive buying of a brand’s products and services influence customers’ buying choices. When customers buy a specific product frequently, and it becomes part of their daily activities, they are likely to recommend it to their friends, leading to business growth and expanding the brand’s market share. Marketers use rewards to maintain customer habits (Dietrich, Mulcahy, and Knox, 2018). When customers are rewarded for buying a given product, it provides them with feel-good stimuli, motivating them to buy more.

Understanding habits is critical to influencing product purchases. Customers with habits have solid expectations for the brand, and stable business cues motivate them to continue with their buying behaviors. Marketing should aim at creating habits. Brands should have habit-focused taglines to promote habitual behaviors. For example, Nike’s tagline, “Just do it,” implies that being fit should be every person’s habit, and hence everyone has to do it. Habit-focused taglines attract customers’ interest and motivate them to buy the product regularly. Marketers should also provide habit-forming products with value to the users. Consumers invest heavily in valuable products. Habit marketing should align supply with consumer trends and preferences.

References

Dietrich, T., Mulcahy, R., & Knox, K. (2018). Gaming attribute preferences in social marketing programmes: Meaning matters more than rewards. Journal of Social Marketing. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JSOCM-06-2017-0038/full/html