With the amount of KPIs that brand managers are already expected to track in 2022 — from brand awareness to consideration to preference and associations — it may feel a bit overwhelming to add another to the list.
But, we promise — purchase drivers are worth it. Why is that? Well, gathering purchase driver data allows brands to gain a better understanding of what potential customers are looking for within a given category or industry.
This knowledge then makes it possible to tailor brand messaging, visuals, and marketing to tap into consumers’ purchasing priorities — thus, leading to higher conversion rates and greater brand loyalty.
So, let’s take a deep dive into purchase drivers — discuss what they are, the types of brands that benefit from them the most, and how they can help improve marketing strategies going forward.
What is A Purchase Driver?
A purchase driver is a key performance indicator (KPI) used to understand consumer purchasing or usage priorities in a given category, which is unrelated to brand specifics.
For example, a question designed to gather purchase driver data could look like the following:
“What is most important to you when deciding on {CATEGORY} brands?”
According to SLD, purchase drivers can include things like “visibility, access, ease of purchase, communications, education, involvement, value/price, alignment and appeal, and personal values.”
Thus, knowing what drives consumers to make purchase or usage choices in your brand’s category will allow you to tailor your marketing strategy accordingly.
For example, let’s say you’re the brand manager of a mid-sized boutique drink mixers company, called “Bevers”.
You’re working on improving your Q3-Q4 marketing strategy and you realize you’re missing some key data — why consumers choose one drink mixer over another. To remedy the situation, 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 drink mixer category:
45% of Target Audience A reported that they’re influenced by visual appeal, aka how eye-catching and pleasing your branded visuals are
63% of Target Audience B reported that they’re influenced by ease of purchase, aka how easy it is to get ahold of your products
22% of Target Audience A reported that they’re influenced by price, aka how much your mixers cost compared to the competition
Keeping this data in mind, you set about planning your next big brand marketing campaign. Compared to previous campaigns, this one will have:
Bolder, more eye-catching on-brand graphics to up your visual appeal
Specific copy that mentions the number of physical stores that sell your mixers, plus a QR code that leads to all the online shops where it’s available
A CTA that specifically mentions your value for price compared to competitors
Thanks to the purchase driver insights you gleaned, you were able to make data-driven decisions that will improve your brand campaigns going forward.
Which Brands Benefit From Purchase Driver Data?
In short, all brands benefit from having purchase driver data — as being aware of what your target audiences are looking for in your category is imperative to correctly positioning your brand.
However, purchase driver data is particularly important for growing, low-awareness brands who are still working to position themselves within their category.
These growing brands greatly benefit from understanding core consumer priorities and using them to direct their brand positioning and marketing strategies. Without this kind of knowledge, up-and-coming brands can easily choose the wrong positioning and messaging — wasting time, effort, and money.
For example, it could be problematic for a brand to position itself as exclusive and expensive if consumers in this category actually prioritize getting the best deal. Therefore, brands of all sizes that want to avoid making costly mistakes should consider tracking purchase drivers for their category.
How Does Purchase Driver Data Improve Brand’s Marketing Strategies?
There are many ways that purchase driver data can help brands improve their marketing strategies. However, we’ll focus on the top three benefits in this section.
1. Helps Refine Brand Positioning
Brand positioning is what allows brands to distinguish themselves from their competitors and find their brand’s ideal role in their market.
Perhaps best explained by Phillip Kotler, brand positioning is “the act of designing the company’s offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the mind of the target market.”
Essentially, brand positioning allows you to figure out where you fit within your market and how you are different from the competition. But how do you decide on your brand positioning?
Part of your brand positioning will be informed by your brand values — aka what your company stands for and believes in. Another part will need to be influenced by your brand associations — aka the traits and characteristics that consumers associate specifically with your brand.
However, to identify your ideal brand positioning, you need to take a step back and consider your purchase driver data — which answers questions like:
What is important to consumers when making a purchase from my category/industry?
What aspects influence consumers to choose one brand over another within my category/industry?
With this information at hand, you will be able to create a more refined brand positioning that takes into account a wider range of consumer data and desires.
2. Allows Brands To Better Understand Consumer Desires
When creating products and services, everything has to be informed by consumer desires. After all, you can produce amazing, high-quality products that you personally love — but if they don’t meet consumer needs, they’re not going to be successful.
Purchase driver data provides a window into consumer desires. It tells brands what consumers are looking for when making purchase decisions within their category. Therefore, this data should be used at the beginning of product ideation, before you get too far into the specifics of it all.
For example, let’s say you work as a product manager for a new brand that will sell upcycled shoes, called “Upkick”.
You’re looking to start your product line with five different shoe models. Obviously, they will be made of upcycled materials, but you want to gather more intel on what consumers are looking for when buying from this category.
Shoes that are high-quality? Stylish? Environmentally-friendly? Priced competitively? This is the kind of data that purchase drivers provide. By including purchase drivers in your next wave of brand tracking data, you can better understand what consumers want from your category — and give it to them.
This makes product ideation, creation, and roll-out a much smoother process, as you already know what consumers want from brands that sell shoes.
3. Drives Sales & New Customer Acquisition
When you understand what drives consumers to make purchases, it’s within your power to use this knowledge to increase sales and attract new customers.
For example, does your purchase driver data indicate that consumers shopping in your category want personalized offers? Then it’s your job to ensure that your brand focuses the right amount of time and energy on upping personalization at all customer touchpoints — from email to social media posts to chatbots.
Or, does your purchase driver data reveal that high-quality customer service in your category increases the likelihood they’ll spend more?
Then it’s time to beef up your customer service team and focus on improving important customer experience KPIs — like response time and consistent brand communication.
When you understand what your target audience is looking for in your category — what drives them to make a purchase — you can and should fully integrate your insights into your marketing strategy.
Final Thoughts
Ultimately, having access to purchase driver data will allow you to craft and execute more effective marketing campaigns and lead to a more successful overall brand.
But to be able to integrate such findings into your strategy, you first need the right data. That’s where brand monitoring software like Latana comes in. With the ability to track purchase drivers for the target audiences that matter, you’ll be able to make smarter, more data-driven decisions.
