The Ultimate Guide to Purchase Drivers Welcome to the Latana Guide to Purchase Drivers! What really matters to your target audience? Do they prefer luxury ora bargain? Or maybe they prioritize accessibility and convenience? These kinds of questions are mainly concerned with purchase drivers — aka factors that customers take into consideration when making a purchase. The art and science of purchase drivers is crucial to meeting customer needs and positioning your brand in a way that speaks to your target audience. In this guide, you will find out how purchase drivers influence your customers and how you can leverage this knowledge to drive awareness, sales, and brand loyalty. Table of Contents What Are Purchase Drivers? An Example Why Are Purchase Drivers Important for Brands? A. How Purchase Drivers Can Improve Your Marketing Strateg T Refine brand positioninO T Improve understanding of consumer desire) FT Drive sales and customer acquisition B. How Do Purchase Drivers Fit In With Other Important Brand KPIs T Brand Awarenes) T Brand UnderstandinO FT Brand ConsideratioR T Brand Advocacy How Do Real Brands Use Purchase Drivers? Value for Money Fast Delivery Sustainability Accessibility Conclusion What’s Next? C h a p t e r 1 C h a p t e r 2 C h a p t e r 3 What Are Purchase Drivers? C h a p t e r 1 What Are Purchase Drivers? C h a p t e r 1 Purchase drivers are factors that influence consumers’ buying decisions. Marketers look at purchase drivers to understand consumer priorities and reasons for choosing one product or brand over another. Purchase drivers cover a whole range of elements, such as: Value for money Convenience Quality Ease of accessibility Coolness and popularity Trustworthiness Innovation Sustainability An Example For example, let’s say you’re the brand manager of a mid-sized boutique company that sells prescription sunglasses. You’re putting the final touches on your Q3-Q4 marketing strategy when you realize you’re missing some key information — why consumers choose one pair of sunglasses over another. To solve the issue, you request purchase driver data in your next data wave from your brand tracking software provider. A few weeks later, you’re able to take a deep dive into your brand tracking data and discover a few interesting insights specifically via purchase driver data. When purchasing from brands in the sunglasses category: of Target Audience (A) reported that they’re influenced by visual appeal. How eye-catching and pleasing are your branded visuals? of Target Audience (B) reported that they’re influenced by ease of purchase. How convenient is it to access your products? of Target Audience (A) reported that they’re influenced by price. How much do your products cost compared to the competition? 61% 47% 24% Keeping this data in mind, you set about planning your next big brand marketing campaign. Compared to previous campaigns, this one will have: Thanks to the purchase driver insights, you can make data-driven decisions to improve your brand campaigns. Bolder, more eye-catching, on-brand graphics to boost your visual appeal Specific copy calling out the number of physical stores that sell your sunglasses, plus a QR code that leads to all the online shops where they’re available A CTA highlighting the good value for money compared to competitors Why Are Purchase Drivers Important for Brands? C h a p t e r 2 Now we’re clear on what purchase drivers are, let’s dive into how marketers use them to optimize their campaign strategies and deliver better marketing performance. Knowledge is power, and knowing what really matters to your customers will enable you to position your brand correctly and optimize your marketing strategy. Purchase driver data gives brands a clearer understanding of what customers and potential customers are looking for within a given category or industry — as well as what they don’t care about at all, or even dislike. Without this information, brands can easily bark up the wrong tree, choosing the wrong positioning and messaging and wasting time, effort, and money. Why Are Purchase Drivers Important for Brands? C h a p t e r 2 How Purchase Drivers Can Improve Your Marketing Strategy Let’s take a deeper look at how marketers can use purchase driver data to improve their campaigns and brand strategies. 1. Refine brand positioning How you position your brand has a direct influence on how customers perceive it. To do this correctly, you need a solid understanding of who your target audience is and what’s important to them. You could run into problems if your brand positions itself as exclusive and expensive if consumers in this category actually prioritize getting the best deal. On the flip side, you don’t want your brand to seem “cheap” if your customers are looking for quality and expect to splurge on luxury. Therefore, brands need to understand the factors behind customers’ purchasing decisions — or risk making costly mistakes. This can even happen to successful, global brands. For example, Burger King is a well-known fast food chain that competes with McDonald’s and Wendy’s. Their customers go to them when they are looking for food that is tasty and convenient. As consumers started shifting towards healthier lifestyles, Burger King decided to expand its options to meet this need. The fast-food chain introduced “Satisfries”, containing 40% less fat and 30% fewer calories. However, as customers typically choose Burger King for taste and convenience, this new product was not in-line with purchase drivers and, sadly, flopped. For example, people love Apple products and will pay above-market prices and even wait in line all night to get the latest iPhone model. Why is that? Essentially, customers trust the brand will meet their needs, with modern, beautifully-designed items that are intuitive and easy to use — combined with excellent customer support and a certain “coolness” factor. In this case, the purchase drivers are ease of use, innovation, and brand image. Notice how Apple has never tried to compete on price because they know other purchase drivers are more important in their segment for the audience they’re targeting. Doubling down on the purchase drivers that matter is part of the magic of the Apple brand. 2. Improve understanding of consumer desires Steve Jobs famously said: Tapping into your customers’ needs, desires, and priorities is a real competitive advantage in today’s tough market. There’s probably more than one thing that makes your brand great, but understanding what matters to your customers enables you to set priorities and focus on the most relevant purchase drivers in your campaigns. “Our job is to figure out what [customers] are going to want before they do.” 3. Drive sales and customer acquisition Doubling down on what matters to your target audience can help you win over new customers and get them to shop with you. For instance, 60% of customers abandon their carts if they feel shipping costs are too high. If price and accessibility are key purchase drivers for your brand, then you might want to consider offering fast, free shipping above a certain threshold. Customers today increasingly expect the online experience to be seamless and the convenience factor can be make or break. For example, online fashion platform Zalando realized that price and accessibility are highly important to consumers. Back in 2008, they launched their online shop with free delivery and returns within 100 days. They made it easy to find products people couldn’t get in their local clothing store, and their strategy worked: revenues grew 23% year over year, and, today, more than €1 out of every €100 spent on clothing in Europe is spent at Zalando. How Do Purchase Drivers Fit In With Other Important Brand KPIs? We’ve looked at many reasons why understanding purchase drivers is key to getting your marketing strategy and positioning right. But where does this leave other brand KPIs, like brand awareness, understanding, and consideration? Let’s take a look at the relationship between purchase drivers and the brand funnel: awareness, understanding, consideration, preference, and advocacy. Awareness Understanding Advocacy Consideration 1. Brand Awareness Brand awareness is the extent to which your target audience is aware of or can recognize your brand. There are two different types of brand awareness: aided brand awareness and unaided brand awareness. Measuring aided brand awareness means figuring out if your target audience says they have heard of your brand when provided with a list of companies in your industry. Unaided brand awareness is when your target audience mentions your brand without being prompted. This indicates that your brand is at the top of mind for consumers. For example, say you are the brand manager at Quorn. You ask your target audience, “What brands do you think of when you think of meat alternatives?” and 64% respond with Quorn. There is a direct relationship between purchase drivers and brand awareness. If your brand meets consumers’ needs, they’re more likely to have heard of you, find you in their research, or promote your brand via word-of-mouth marketing. That said, understanding and meeting the needs of your target audience might not be enough by itself — usually, you will need to do some kind of marketing to drive awareness. 2. Brand Understanding Once consumers are aware of your brand, the next important stage is that they actually understand what your brand offers and which industry it’s in. Thus, brand understanding is a trackable KPI that allows you to measure how well your target audience actually understands what your brand does. By tracking brand understanding, you can move one step beyond simple recognition and discover what percentage of those consumers who recognized your brand name and logo also correctly identified the industry or sector your brand operates in. Brand understanding is a vital KPI to track because it provides a degree of context to how your brand awareness is growing and allows you to gauge the quality of that growth. By allowing you to track whether a specific target audience understands what your brand does, you can also identify whether your brand positioning is working. By working to improve this KPI, you’re essentially developing your target audience one step further towards a deeper relationship with your brand, increasing the chances that they consider your offering in their purchase decisions. 3. Brand Consideration Brand consideration is how many of those people who are aware of the brand would consider using it. This is a key drop-off point in the customer journey, and purchase drivers play a key role. A common reason why consumers don't move from the awareness to the consideration stage is that the brand is targeting the wrong audience or trying to appeal to everybody at once. While this might lead to high reach and lots of clicks, if your product/service isn't what the consumers are looking for, they won't consider your brand — let alone purchase from you. If your target audience is the right one, but they are not considering your brand, then your positioning and message might be the issue. Let’s say a consumer wants to purchase a new handbag. She has heard of your brand, but she wants to treat herself to a luxury product, and your messaging positions your brand as a cheap option. In this case, your brand has awareness but not consideration — and could improve business results with a better understanding of key purchase drivers. 4. Brand Advocacy Brand advocacy is what happens when, of their own free will, happy customers promote your brand’s products and services to other consumers. Be it in person or via online reviews, brand advocates spread the word about how great your brand is to family, friends, and even strangers — which ends up making a big difference. The better your brand understands what really matters to its customers and delivers on those specific needs, the more likely it is that customers will tell their friends and family how great you are! As you can see, harnessing the power of purchase drivers has a positive effect across the entire brand funnel, from awareness to advocacy. How Do Real Brands Use Purchase Drivers? C h a p t e r 3 Let’s take a look at some examples of the most common purchase drivers and how real brands use them to drive awareness, sales, and customer loyalty. How Do Real Brands Use Purchase Drivers? C h a p t e r 3 Value for Money You might have heard the expression “buy cheap, buy twice”. While shoppers love a bargain, most people know that the cheapest option isn’t always the best. Especially for important purchases, like a car, cell phone, or laptop — consumers will compare prices in terms of the features and benefits that come along with them. Let’s consider the following example: Peter is a student who needs a new laptop. He doesn’t have a huge budget, but the laptop needs enough computing power for basic browsing and working on university projects. HP isn’t the cheapest laptop out there: Acer and Asus are more affordable, but they have less storage space, lower battery life, and lower resolution. Peter looks at Apple, but a Mac is out of his budget, and he finds reviews online saying HP laptops are reliable and work well. Therefore, he decides to buy an HP laptop as he considers it offers the best value for money.. Exmple