Consumer Behavior and Audience Analysis
Questions here probe how and why audiences decide. Understand the buyer decision process (need recognition, information search, evaluation, purchase, post-purchase), and how involvement level shapes it-high-involvement purchases invite extensive research; low-involvement ones rely on habit and cues.
Know psychological and social drivers: motivation (Maslow), perception (selective attention, selective distortion), learning, beliefs and attitudes; and social factors-reference groups, family roles, culture, and opinion leaders. Segmentation bases include demographic, geographic, psychographic, and behavioral; behavioral and psychographic segmentation usually yield more actionable targeting than pure demographics.
Traps: stereotyping a segment from demographics alone (age ≠ behavior). Confusing needs with wants, or assuming all buyers follow the full decision process-many purchases are habitual and skip search. Another trap is the post-purchase stage: cognitive dissonance and satisfaction drive repeat purchase and advocacy, which questions sometimes overlook.
Understand the customer journey versus the funnel-journeys are non-linear and include multiple touchpoints. Attribution to a single touchpoint ignores assisted conversions.
Worked rule of thumb: When asked to improve targeting, prefer segmentation built on observed behavior (purchase history, engagement) over assumed demographics, because behavior predicts future action more reliably. If a scenario describes a high-involvement, high-price purchase, expect the buyer to seek reviews and compare alternatives-so content that educates wins over pure promotional messaging.