Understanding your buyers’ behaviour to increase conversions

If you understand the behaviour of your buyers, you unlock the key to your marketing and advertising plans. In this week’s article, we examine the business, psychological and emotional aspects of buyer behaviour. We will also recommend some helpful tools to track their online behaviour in your store. Remember, whether it’s an in-store or online shopping experience, the same triggers are at play.

Posted 4 years ago by Tatiana Dudin

So, how do you stimulate that desire to buy inside your customer’s mind (and heart)? Let’s find out!

1. Researching Your Audience

This is the basis of every marketing strategy. To know your customers is to know how to attract similar people to your store.

Take a look at your sales data – the very first step of primary market research. The good news is that Shopify allows everyone to access the Overview dashboard and key financial reports.

If you’re on the Basic Shopify plan or higher, then you can access more reports. If you have social pages for your store, dig into the analytics for extra information. This will also help you with targeted ads that will reach people that are more likely to buy your product.

Questions and data to look out for may be :

• Where are your customers coming from? 

• Are customers buying any products together?

• Are there times certain products being sold the most?

Once you have this information, you can create a buyer persona.

2. Creating a Buyer Persona

A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of the kind of person that shops at your store. Once you’ve done your research on your audience, you can attribute certain characteristics to this fictional character. You may even have several buyer personas, depending on what your Shopify store sells!

Here are some basic information a buyer persona should include:

Personal Background

(Age, location, gender, marital status, income)

Lifestyle

(Work/life balance, hobbies, causes, work/life balance) 

Challenges

(Financial pressures, time availability)

Shopping Style

(Impulsive, sticks to a strict budget, has lots of disposable income)

Let’s say your store sells eco-friendly, luxury bath products. A buyer persona for this type of store could be:

Sarah

Personal Background

Early 30’s

Female

Married

Lives in a large urban city

Income is $60,000 USD/year

Lifestyle

Sarah is a busy professional, but she tries to make time for self-care activities like the gym, dance lessons and going out to restaurants. She also loves to pamper herself after a stressful day with a bath.

Challenges

She splits the cost of her mortgage and other expenses with her husband, which leaves some room for little luxuries. Still, life in a big city is expensive so big splurges are not in the budget. Sarah is time-poor and likes the convenience of online shopping.

Shopping Style

Sarah and her husband keep to a budget, but there’s room for little luxuries which make her feel pampered. She relies on online reviews when making her decision to buy a product.

Based on the above information, you can create ads and marketing ideas on how to engage with shoppers like Sarah. Remember, a buyer persona helps you think of your customers as real people, which in turn helps you empathize with them.

Check out our article on other ways to engage with your customers here.

3. Gathering Customer Feedback

Asking your customers for their honest feedback and replying to customer inquiries benefits your store in several ways. 

1. Ratings and testimonials are invaluable as social proof. Shoppers often rely on other online reviews when buying something, and if you have this positive feedback on your site, social media pages or other review sites, it shows that your products are well-loved by others. 
2. Negative reviews and complaints (whether it’s your product, check-out experience, or whatever else) are a chance for you fix what went wrong. Every customer wants to feel appreciated, so responding to a complaint, no matter how small makes them feel like they’re an actual person, not just a number.

You can ask for feedback with a follow-up email after they have received their product. Whether it’s a customer survey or a simple rating on social media, it’s always a good idea to ask!

Tip: Customer Fields is a Shopify app developed to gather customer info and help you understand them even deeper.

4. The Buyer’s Journey

There are three simple steps that a shopper goes through during the buying process.

Awareness: At this stage, the buyer becomes aware of your store and product, whether through advertisements or online search. 

Consideration: The buyer will start to gather information about your product, perhaps looking at your competitor’s sites as well as yours and reading online reviews.

Decision: The buyer decides whether to buy your product. This decision depends on factors such as cost, shipping time and their motivation to buy in the first place.

Identify the pain-points your customer may have during each step and you will have a deeper understanding of their shopping motivations, leading you to create a better shopping journey for your potential customers.

5. Understanding is Key

Understanding what motivates and drives your customers can help you create a better store and products. What are their fears, desires, and expectations?

Try walking a mile in your customer’s shoes, notice patterns in their behaviour and adjust your communications with them accordingly. Don’t forget that understanding your customers is an on-going process – the landscape of who visits your store may change with time, so make sure to check in and look at your customer insights often.

Want to see all the ways you can improve your store? Check out our catalogue!