The Right Way to Influence Pre-Purchase Behaviour

Remember when marketers ran newspaper ads with discount coupons to encourage outlet visits? Customers had to cut and fill the coupon and present it at the billing counter. Such tedious tactics seem outdated in today’s digital world in order to influence pre purchase customer decisions. Retailers now have the privilege of personalizing coupons based on individual customer preferences by analyzing all the relevant data captured through the customer’s buying patterns and purchase history. Each customer can then be targeted with personalized offers and recommendations based on specific insights.

Advanced technologies can aid Retailers Identify Customer Buying Behavior Patterns and Preferences

To target a customer with tailored offers, he or she must have a unique identifier – a mobile phone is the obvious choice, given its ubiquitous nature. Retailers are now turning to facial recognition technology and AI-powered footfall counters. These intelligent technologies also help retailers study their customers’ likes, dislikes and navigation patterns around the store, and enables them to offer superior personalized experiences.

Retailers are also using location-based technology to study their customers. Geo-targeting technology can help brands target its customers based on their location – for instance messages about a sale in a particular locality can be pushed to customers’ mobile phones. Within a certain virtual marked off radius around the store, the brands can further target customers with short-time discounts using Geo-fencing, which employs GPS technology in a customer’s smartphone to push specific messages to the device. Retailers can also use in-store beacon technology that can communicate with a customer’s smartphone and send out targeted offers. Beacons can also be used to personalize the shopping experience for its customers. While these technologies help retailers reinvent the shopping experience, there is a flip side to such advancements. These technologies will work only after the customer takes specific action – i.e the customer needs to download the store’s mobile app, keep it active, and ensure that the bluetooth or GPS is turned on. There is always an inherent risk of annoying customers or losing their interest by asking them to take a concerted effort to avail offers or coupons. The need of the hour is to adopt a non-intrusive method that eliminates the above mentioned pitfalls and helps influence customer behavior in a subtle manner, by enabling the retailer to initiate a customer-oriented action.

For retailers, customer retention has always been a big challenge, especially when it comes to influencing pre-purchasing behavior and gathering customer data without asking the customer to carry out certain set of tasks. So how can you determine a non-intrusive method to engage with your customers? The answer lies in adopting new-age technology initiatives and big data capabilities that have the power to indirectly influence the customer’s pre-purchase buying behavior. Stay tuned to our product and blog updates to learn more on how you can positively influence pre-purchase consumer behavior patterns by avoiding any annoying and intrusive techniques.

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Capillary Technologies is an AI-powered loyalty platform for enterprise brands. Capillary Marcom is the official handle for Capillary's marketing and communications team. Write to marcomm@capillarytech.com for more information.