Business News
Redefining your customer profile in the new economic climate
The economic downturn of the last few years has left a definite and lasting mark on the customer, with direct and indirect impact from redundancy, financial losses, career progression cuts and the doom and gloom of the media reporting on the financial status quo. Customers great and small have had to re-evaluate their consuming style, and how, when and why they are buying. All three of these factors are imperative to businesses to factor into their sales and marketing plans, and unwise to ignore.
‘The Just-in-Time’ customer, coined by the Wall Street Journal, has been highlighted as a new big player in the market place. They define this new consumer as those more likely to visit shops more frequently to buy necessities, and they sit amongst the many other categories of consumers having to adjust their buying behavior to fit into the new financial reality they are faced with.
No-one knows if the days of carefree purchasing will ever return; therefore, in light of this, businesses need to re-evaluate and re-identify their target markets.
The Just-in-Time consumer is not the only new category to emerge from the economic downturn, and their namesakes speak volumes about the attitudes and feelings following the last few years, echoing times of post Depression and Thatcher’s economy collapse:
• The Value or Discount customer – Following two years of heavy discounting, today’s customers face difficulties correlating value with price. Bargains have become the rule and not the exception for this customer.
• The Mistrusting customer – Following the disappearance of major brands, from Circuit City to Lehman Brothers, coupled with the challenges experienced by major brands such as Toyota, today’s customer is skeptical and lacks trust in once reliable institutions.
• The Fearful customer – This long economic distress shows no end in sight. Customers remain fearful over job security and their ability to help keep their loved ones afloat. This fear is becoming existential and persists during any transaction, owing to the hesitation and fear over the short- and long-term.
• The Do-It-Yourself customer – Many personal sacrifices have been made during these challenging economic times. Customers have given up indulgences as well as other products and services they might have considered basic just a few years ago. Our customers today are inclined to do things themselves to ensure that their scope of sacrifices need not grow any further.
• The Small Indulgence customer – Our customers are still human and want little more than to catch the occasional break. All their fears and mistrust are weighing heavily on them and they are reluctant to indulge on expensive vacations or a lavish night out on the town. They are increasingly substituting their lavish desires breaks with small indulgences. Small and personal indulgences are the manner in which customers are creating a small sanctuary away from their pressures and fears.
These new consumer types may be harder to convince and bring on board to your product or service using shrinkage alone; they want a personality and to really feel they – and their spending – are being looked after.
