by Giorgos Kitis
A very important piece of information for a marketer is why a consumer might make a purchase! Aristotle hundreds of years ago had defined the seven reasons of human actions. Let's look at them and explain how they relate to marketing but also to the communication that a brand has with the common goal.
Coincidence: We begin by admitting that marketing has never been one of those sciences which can precisely determine a sequence of events. No matter how much you prepare, no matter how much you put your data in a logical order and on a path that you expect your potential customers to follow, things do not mean that they will develop in the expected order.
Our Nature: The second reason that determines people's actions is their nature. It is all these characteristics that we carry with us and were determined by the way and the environment in which we grew up and also by the experiences we lived. As marketers we have the obligation to know them and use them in our communication.
Compulsion: People take actions and buy when pressured, when they feel squeezed and when they believe that a certain purchase will get them out of trouble. "Taking advantage" of this human need should be used in the right way and not in a way that will be annoying to the customer.
Custom: People obviously take actions and purchases out of habit. We can take advantage of this shopping reason by creating consistent and unchanging experiences from our brand.
Reason: People need a reason to buy something. They may often make purchases based on emotional criteria but if you give them a reason to make a purchase then you increase the chances of influencing them. Don't just ask your customers to make a purchase, tell them why they should do it and what they will gain.
Passion: We mentioned logic, but people do things and buy goods based on emotional reasons as well. One of them is their passion. It can be their passion for a specific brand but it can also be their passion for a specific action that the specific brand refers to.
Wish: We all have some desires which determine our actions. We all lack something, it could be an experience like a trip to the Amazon or an expensive car or a quality bag. Our job as marketers is to identify those needs and convince our target audience that our product will fulfill those desires.