A huge metric in this industry is a consumer’s intent to purchase. It is easily measurable with just a single survey question and, in all reality, it is the only metric that concerns a company trying to drive sales through experiential marketing campaigns and consumer interaction.
But how does the consumers previous awareness and overall product attribute comprehension effect this metric? Well first we need to breakdown what categories we’ll be putting these consumers into.
- Newly Educated – These are consumers that have never heard of your product before this experience.
- Aware/ Non-Customers – These consumers are aware of your product but have never purchased or experienced it.
- Win-Backs – These consumes have previously purchased your product but have stopped for some reason.
- Current Customers – These are people that already have your product.
What’s most interesting is purchase intent among these consumers depends hugely on the purchase cycle of the product.
For example a recent project we had on a pasta sauce showed that Current Customers had the highest intent to purchase with 97% of them saying they would the next time they were grocery shopping. This is not terribly surprising because we know they have already tried the product and enjoyed it, your product demo only reinforced a decision they had made in the past.
Conversely, big ticket item demos will show the opposite as the Current Customers may already have a working model of your company’s product at home.
For example, a program we did on a line of grills showed purchase intent trending lowest for these Current Customers with only 39% saying they would buy (compared to 70% for Newly Educated, 69% for Aware/ Non-Customers, and 56% for Win-Backs).
So which consumer segment is the most important when looking at purchase intent?
In my opinion I say your impact on Newly Educated consumers is the best metric to see how your brand teams are doing. This doesn’t mean driving purchase intent in the segment is the most profitable or all that easy. It simply shows ‘this is how people that had no idea who you were coming into the event feel about your product now.”
And I think that alone speaks volumes!
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