Every email marketing campaign has an end recipient: the consumer. It may sound obvious. But many companies still design their messages with the product in mind, not the person who will use it. Understanding who that person is, what they need and why they buy \u2014 or why they don’t \u2014 changes the way you plan your sends, your subject lines and your offers.<\/p>\n\n
A consumer is a person or organization that buys and uses goods or services. They do so to satisfy a need or a desire. Put simply, the consumer is the final destination of any product that is made.<\/p>\n\n
There is one point worth clarifying, because it’s often confused. The person who buys isn’t always the person who consumes. A parent who buys diapers for their baby is the buyer, but the actual consumer is the baby. And this difference isn’t just a matter of semantics.<\/p>\n\n
It determines who you should address your message to. The person who pays or the person who uses? In economics, the consumer also acts as the driving force of demand. The more people want a product, the greater the demand for it. And that affects prices, production and how brands \u2014 yours included \u2014 design their campaigns.<\/p>\n\n
We use “customer” and “consumer” almost as synonyms. But they aren’t exactly the same thing. The customer buys from your brand and maintains a business relationship with it. The consumer uses the product, whether or not they bought it themselves.<\/p>\n\n
When you define your ideal customer<\/a>, you are actually describing two figures at once: the buyer and the consumer behind the sale. Sometimes they are the same person. Sometimes they aren’t.<\/p>\n\n Because a campaign aimed at the person who makes the purchase decision needs a different approach from one aimed at the person who will use the product every day. Segmenting without taking this into account is often the reason a campaign gets good open rates and still doesn’t convert.<\/p>\n\n Not everyone buys the same way, or for the same reasons. There are many classifications. These are the ones that come up most often in marketing, and the ones you should keep most in mind when segmenting your subscriber list:<\/p>\n\n None of these profiles is pure. Most people combine traits from several of them, depending on what they are buying and what stage of life they are in. And that’s the key: the better you segment your list according to these behaviors, the more relevant each email will be.<\/p>\n\n Purchase decisions are rarely purely rational. Psychological factors play a part: perception, motivation, learning. So do social factors, such as family or reference groups. As well as cultural and personal factors, such as age, income or lifestyle.<\/p>\n\n This is where psychological triggers<\/a> come into play: small mental nudges, such as scarcity or urgency. They speed up a decision the person was already considering. Our blog has a full analysis of consumer psychology<\/a> and purchasing behavior<\/a>, in case you want to go further.<\/p>\n\n Nobody decides in a vacuum.<\/p>\n\n Everyone believes they choose freely. But much of that decision is shaped by what they see, by who recommends it to them and by how the offer is presented. However, this isn’t manipulation. It’s well-structured information. And that’s exactly where email marketing comes in.<\/p>\n\n For any company, understanding the people who buy from it is the foundation of its sales strategy. Brands that analyze habits, preferences and behaviors create more relevant messages. And today’s consumers \u2014 far better informed than a decade ago \u2014 reward that relevance with their attention. They also harshly penalize those who fail to offer it.<\/p>\n\n Because today anyone has comparisons, other users’ reviews and alternatives just a click away. Consumers demand transparency. They demand authenticity. And they won’t forgive a brand that talks to them as if they were just another number on a mailing list.<\/p>\n\n At Mailrelay, we believe all this information is only valuable if it’s turned into action. And in email marketing, action starts with segmentation. It’s about dividing your list by purchasing behavior, instead of sending the same message to everyone.<\/p>\n\n Our platform lets you create custom fields to record those behaviors. You can also automate sends based on how each person reacts \u2014 whether they open, don’t open, click or buy. And measure the results with real-time reports, including click maps and heat maps that show, literally, where people look inside the email.<\/p>\n\n And all of this at no cost on your free plan, which includes up to 80,000 emails a month and 20,000 contacts.<\/p>\n\n If you want to get started today, you can create your Mailrelay account<\/a> and try it out with your own subscriber list. Or check out our email marketing<\/a> section to see the rest of the tools available.<\/p>\n\n Is a consumer the same as a user?<\/strong> Not exactly. A user uses a product or service; a consumer also does so to satisfy their own need. They are almost always the same person, although they didn’t always buy the product.<\/p>\n\n Why is it important to segment by consumer type?<\/strong> Because a message designed for a rational profile \u2014 data, comparisons \u2014 doesn’t work the same way with an emotional one, who responds better to urgency. Segmenting increases relevance, and with it, open and click-through rates.<\/p>\n\n How can I tell what type of consumer my subscriber is?<\/strong> By observing their behavior: which links they click, how long they take to buy, whether they respond better to discounts or to informative content. Over time, that data builds a fairly reliable profile.<\/p>\n\n Understanding your consumer is probably one of the most profitable tasks in your marketing strategy. You don’t need a complex analysis to get started. Simply observe how your subscribers interact with your emails and then adjust your message.<\/p>\n\n Every open, every click and every purchase is a clue about who that person on the other side of the screen is. Making good use of those clues is, to a large extent, what separates a campaign that converts from one that simply gets sent.<\/p>\n\n You may also be interested in: Narcissistic consumer<\/a>.<\/p>\n\nTypes of consumers<\/h2>\n\n
\n
What influences consumer decisions<\/h2>\n\n
Why consumers matter to brands<\/h2>\n\n
How to apply consumer insight to your email marketing<\/h2>\n\n
Frequently asked questions about consumers<\/h2>\n\n
In conclusion<\/h2>\n\n
Related entries<\/h2>\n\n
\n