Why you buy what you buy

The phone you own, why did you buy it? The career you chose, why did you pick it? The coffee brand you obsess over, why that one?

It’s good to reflect at times on why we, as a customer, really choose one thing over another. I’m not talking about all the good reasons we use to justify the decision but about the real reasons that pre-determined the decision. Here are a couple of the more common reasons:
– loyalty: we always buy from this brand
– recommendation: a friend who we trust recommended it to us
– bad experience: we tried something like this before and it didn’t work, so we’ll never buy from them again
– ethics: we refuse to buy from this sort of business
– sympathy: I don’t like you
– budget constraints: my boss won’t approve the budget so I need something cheaper (and won’t say so)
– status: this thing will boost my status
– belonging: my friends own this, too
– aesthetics: it looks gorgeous
– fear: bad things can happen if I don’t buy this
– … and many more

When we choose a thing – for whatever reason – our brain is super good at finding all the good reasons for why this is a good decision. Yet, these are hardly ever the real reasons we made the decision in the first place. It turns out that, as humans, we’re pretty good at finding good reasons for the things we do – as opposed to doing what we find good reasons for.

The same is – of course – true for your customers.

Marketing gets way easier if you understand the real reasons why your customers buy from you.