Consumer Behavior Trends and
How They Will Shape 2021
Our world is changing at a very fast pace. 2020 flew by as all the issues of COVID-19 made it one of the worst-ever years for merchants worldwide. Naturally, marketers and business owners are wondering how buying behavior will look different in this post-pandemic economy. This is where our research comes in.
We collected a large amount of data and extracted useful insights that will help you better understand when the upcoming changes in consumer behavior will look like. Then, based on that, you will be able to improve your marketing strategies and align your efforts with what your target audience expects to see. Let’s check the top trends that you should keep an eye on.
1. Personalization is attractive
Over the years, data collection tools (like Retail CRM Cloud) and the shift towards digital purchases have given merchants a lot more information about who their customers are and what they are looking for. This, in time, affected the average consumer.
Most people, nowadays, expect to be treated in a personal way, having store owners and marketing campaigns refer to what they want most - and give it at a premium price. This is especially true with younger generations (Millenials and GenZs) and heavily saturated industries with many brand options.
2. Experience-based purchases
Apart from adopting a personalized targeting approach, companies need to also involve feelings in the purchase. This is where experiences come in. The average buyers no longer buy a product for its quality but rather for the way it makes them feel.
For that reason, many digital stores are changing their marketing approach, aiming to offer a truly experience-based offer to their customers. This could be as simple as a luxury treatment in the store, or a surprising “only for you” discount code that is exclusive to VIP customers.
We expect to see a continuation of this trend in the next few years, as software becomes better and consumers become even more specific in their demands from the brands they follow and buy from.
3. Loyalty as a retention strategy
Another trend that is slowly growing is that of reward programs and loyalty schemes. In short, it has become more important due to its cost-effective way to increase revenue, while also gaining free word-of-mouth advertisement. Several studies have shown that retention is 6 times cheaper than acquisition (When it comes to marketing strategies).
Overall, it is important that your brand builds up a loyal and engaging audience that will, in time, have a higher customer lifetime value, making advertisement efforts even better in quality. For that reason, many companies create loyalty and reward programs for their next strategies in the upcoming year.
If you are considering to do that same, you should explore different companies that offer development services for mid-size and enterprise customers. One of these solutions in MVP development agency Coara, who are building products for several types of customers.
4. Betting on diversity
As we are slowly coming to a conclusion of this post, it is important to also briefly touch upon the trend of acceptance and diversity. This year has been very eventful and we are seeing all kinds of cultural subgroups trying to claim their spot in the world. This is why many companies adopt values towards equality, similar to how they chose to focus on sustainability a couple of years back. You should consider adoption whatever political movement is more important in a particular year and bet on it with your marketing efforts.
A good way to understand how to approach this is by taking your complete list of customers, breaking it down into segments (based on buying behavior, demographics, sex, age, or other criteria), and approaching each subgroup individually, with a separate marketing campaign.