10 Common Buying Motives to Consider for Your Business in 2024

As a sales or marketing manager, knowing your buyers' buying motives in consumer behaviour may help you craft the right sales strategy based on their preferences and biases so you don't lose a deal.

Unlike each buyer who ever bought something, every motivation has a different trigger.

As a seller, your goal when selling a product or service is to satisfy the motivations of the buyer.

Regardless of the reasons for their buying motives, you would want to sell your product or services to this demographic to grow your business and earn profit.

However, Emotions and practical considerations influence customer purchases. So, how do you know your customer's buying motives?

In this article, we let you know buyer motives and the definition of different motives. We also list the ten best buyer motives that will help you develop your sales and marketing strategy. Let’s get started!

What are Buying Motives?

Buyer motives are emotional and intellectual reasons behind a consumer's purchase decision. These factors include cost, accessibility, emotional value, societal pressure, and quality.

Whether it is an ecommerce app development company or healthcare startup ideas, understanding the buyer's motivation is crucial to building a marketing campaign that will succeed.

Buyers require initial motivation before listening to any marketing campaign, even if you s ell the most amazing product.

Below is an outline of some of the stages:

Awareness

It’s a stage where it’s the first time a customer learns about your product.

Interest

When a customer can show interest in your brand and what it can offer them.

Consideration

A stage in which a customer assesses whether your product meets their needs.

Purchase

This is where a customer commits to buy your product.

Post-Purchase

It is when a customer determines how they feel after buying your product.

Re-Purchase

If the customer is satisfied, then this is the time for them to consider buying from you again.

If you can identify when a customer is, then you have a greater chance of cultivating that customer toward the most important step of purchasing.

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What are the Types of Buyer Motivation?

Although there are different types of buyer motivation, they all consist of psychological and physical behaviour.

Such behaviour may lead people to decide who they want to buy from and what, when, where, and how much they want to buy. Considering the limitations of e-commerce, it’s necessary to explore these motives.

You can classify these motivation types into two major groups, each containing its subcategories:

Product Motivation

Product buyer motivation often makes a buyer choose one product over another. Sometimes, it's a physical choice, as you might want the product because it is a particular size, colour, or shape.

Other times, it is a psychological choice, such as wanting the same product as your friends.

For example, your friends use the most expensive game on the app store to socialize, but now you want that for yourself, even if that’s expensive.

There are two subcategories of this type of motivation:

Emotional Product Buying

You buy something because it will comfort you or make you popular at school or work.

Rational Product Buying

It involves sound reasoning or thinking before concluding to purchase a product. Your decisions are even more conscious, such as regarding durability or safety.

Patronage Buyer Motivation

Patronage buyer motivation is the feeling that compels people to buy a specific brand or to choose one store from another. Subcategories of this type of buyer motivation include:

Emotional patronage buying

You decide based on how a store appears or because your friend told you he liked the store.

Rational patronage buying

You think about whether the store has good benefits. Upon researching, you will find that the store is cheap or offers many brand options.

Top 10 Buying Motives In Marketing Context

Here is the list of the top 10 buying motives in consumer behaviour in marketing:

1. Practical Need

People may buy a product or service to fulfill a practical need to solve some problem. Suppose you have an automobile business; what are your potential customers' needs?

For example, a person buys a new car just because the previous one ceases to work properly.

It is then based on the motive of performing a desired task or accomplishing a specific practical result.

The second is that the business appeals to the functional benefits of its product or service and how it can assist customers in solving a specific problem or need.

2. Personal Desires

People sometimes buy due to emotional desire or to fulfill a personal objective. For example, a person purchases a new outfit for confidence or to celebrate a special event.

This motivation arises due to how a person wants to feel or achieve an outcome for a personal or emotional need.

In this respect, the best strategy that businesses can use is to show how they can help people achieve their emotional or need-based desires or outcomes.

3. Social Pressures

Social pressure works as a motivator by identifying needs with a certain social group or conforming to what society expects from the potential customer.

For example, an individual might buy a certain type of clothing because that is currently trending among their friends.

It is largely because of a desire to belong or be accepted by others.

Businesses can show the social benefits of their product or service and explain to customers how it may empower them to fit into some social group or conform to certain societal norms.

4. Personal Values

A specific product or service that reflects the customers’ personal values or beliefs could be the driving force for the purchase.

In such a scenario, a customer may buy from a sustainability or corporate social responsibility-oriented organization.

Personal value motivation is mainly driven by the need to satisfy one's values or beliefs.

For this type of motivation to resonate, the company should emphasize the values or ideals that the product or service embodies and how they resonate with the client's values.

5. Status or Prestige

People sometimes buy a product to enhance their social status or reputation. A successful status is the reason for buying a luxurious brand of clothes.

There is respect or prestige from others for this aspect, which the best business ideas in India are dependent on foundationally.

Suppose you want to capitalize on this motivation. In that case, you must determine the status or prestige your product will confer and show how it may help the customer enhance their position or reputation.

6. Convenience

Convenience is also an extremely relevant purchasing motivation because it saves them time or effort to get something.

A person may buy a pre-made meal in the grocery because it saves them from the hassle of cooking from scratch.

Customers want to make their lives easier and more productive, which drives this motivation.

Let the customers know about the convenience of the product or service, and show how it can help them save time or effort and help businesses increase sales thanks to this buying motivation.

7. Scarcity

People are motivated to buy a product or service if it is in short supply or only available in limited edition. A limited-time chance to buy the product also triggers buying behaviour.

Many companies use scarcity as a marketing strategy, called FOMO (fear of missing out).

Imagine you see a limited-time offer for cloud services while surfing your website.

As a business owner dealing in the technology sector, you will be triggered to purchase the product and take advantage of this opportunity.

Businesses can cash into this kind of motivation by emphasizing the scarcity of their product and creating a sense of urgency or exclusivity.

8. Health

People will be motivated to buy something that will benefit their physical or mental health, such as membership at the local gym or healthy food.

This motivation often originates from a desire to care for oneself or prevent future health problems. Even healthcare apps in India can benefit from analyzing their users’ behaviour to make their app business better.

Appeal to this type of motivation by advertising the health benefits of your product or service and showing them how it will help keep customers healthy or even healthier.

9. Impulse

"Impulsive shopping" or "whim buying" can be motivated by many factors, including emotion, a sense of urgency, or a desire for instant gratification.

The source of such motivation is, first and foremost, a desire for immediate pleasure or reward.

You can appeal to this motivation by creating an exciting or emotional customer experience or offering "flash sales" or "deal-of-the-day" promotions.

10. Pleasure

We can all agree that "happiness-hunting" or "pleasure-seeking" can motivate buying a product or service, such as tickets to a concert or a vacation package.

A desire for leisure or enjoyment drives it.

Only make the "fun" part of your product or service come out and "build anticipation" and the "thrill" when a customer uses it, and then you will be one step closer to increasing your revenue.

The point is these motivators are not necessarily exclusive. One person can be motivated for both reasons.

Meanwhile, people's motivations change over time; the business must stay attuned to what is changing concerning their target audience's needs and desires.

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The Benefits of Understanding the Customer’s Buying Motives for Businesses

Buyer motivation may bring several benefits to businesses, especially in the following:

1. Improved Marketing and Sales Activities

Understanding buyer motives and how a business learns what makes an individual buy something by making their marketing and sales campaigns relevant to the buyer.

They must choose the best marketing trends to allure their customers.

2. A Satisfied Customer

Individuals should develop products or services that fit their customers' needs.

3. Increased Productivity

Identify the buyer's motives and guide their efforts to fulfill them.

4. Competitive Advantage

A competitive or unique advantage enables businesses to predict and better serve their customers' needs than competitors.

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Buying Motives Categories: A Brief Comparison

A buyer's desire to buy an offering depends on his rationalizations, emotions, and gut reactions. There are three most general categories of buyer motives:

Conscious vs. Dormant Buying Motives

These will be the buyer's apparent motivations for buying. An example of a conscious buying motive is a buyer wanting to save money, maybe because of an event or because they need a certain product for their work.

They know about what is pushing them to buy a product or service.

On the other hand, active buying motives in consumer behaviour guide the buyer's purchase decision when your sales and marketing representatives actively encourage them to act.

Dormant purchasing reasons appeal to a desire in the buyer that they didn't know they had before.

Rational vs. Emotional Buying Motives

Emotional buyer motives compel consumers to acquire products because they need feelings of safety, security and well-being, status, fascination, respect, adoration, etc.l

They are also driven by the need for admiration, love, or to be considered beautiful.

Rational buying motives guide the customer's purchase decisions, which a customer seeks to fulfill by making purchases based on rational reasons such as cost, statistics, or research.

Consumers apply rational motives when purchasing products to meet a need or solve a problem.

Product vs. Patronage Buying Motives

Product buying motives refer to the product's physical and psychological characteristics, including style, dimensions, cost, and quality, which influence a customer's purchase decision.

A patronage motivation encourages consumers to support a particular business when purchasing. This buying motive fits the needs of customers who buy from familiar vendors.

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How to Create and Boost Buying Motives?

Businesses can better understand the factors that drive a person to make a purchase and how their product or service meets the buyer’s needs and desires.

Knowing the buyer's motivation helps profile and customize the business’s marketing and sales to be more relevant and appealing to the buyer.

Give Your Buyer an Analysis of Your Product or Service

A business should first understand what a buyer needs and how a particular product or service can serve those needs.

By understanding the buyer's needs, a business can customize its marketing approach to be more relevant and appealing to a buyer.

For example, if you are making a game app for Android, you must inform your buyer of its characteristics to attract their attention.

Create a Sense of Scarcity for Your Product or Service

Utilize the tactics of limited-time offers and scarcity to establish a sense of urgency that should motivate the buyer to purchase.

Offering a product in limited quantities makes it seem scarce, or it could offer a discount by using a popup builder for a certain period.

Emotionally Appeal To Your Buyer

Tap emotions like desire, fear, or greed to satisfy the buyer's motivation.

For example, a business can use persuasive words or create exclusivity to appeal to the buyer's desire to own something scarce or difficult to get.

Offer Value to Your Buyer

To make your product or services more appealing to buyers, you can use discount codes and promotions or even add value with bonuses or freebies.

For example, it might provide a first-purchase discount coupon or an accompanying gift upon booking on a taxi app.

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How can Arramton Infotech Help You Sort Your Potential Customers’ Buying Motives?

It would be best if you had the best social media marketing strategy or marketing campaign to improve as you understand why your target market buys.

Eventually, having insight into such data will bring in more customers and increase the chances of loyal customers.

Being a seasoned digital marketing agency with numerous years of experience, Arramton Infotech can help you boost your sales. Our digital marketing experts customize campaigns to fit your target group.

Call us today to discuss your strategy with a strategist and learn how we can get you up and running with segmentation right now to improve your strategy.

Key Takeaway

In brief, We hope we’ve clarified your question: what are buying motives in marketing, and why does buyer motivation in marketing matter as we wind down this blog post?

After all, it is the driving force behind every big and little purchase.

Understanding your audience's motivations puts the pedal to the metal for your sales strategy.

Whether you’re conjuring up fintech startup ideas or money making agriculture business ideas in India, you must understand your buyers.

Motivated buyers are happy, and happy buyers drive a successful business. So, let's keep the motivation going and those sales rolling in!

However, for any marketing or development assistance for your business, connect with Arramton Infotech.

We provide Social media marketing to on-demand app development services, all in one place.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What do you mean by buying motives?

Ans: Buying motives are the thoughts, feelings, and instincts influencing a customer's purchase decision. Some examples of buying motives  in consumer behaviour include:

👉 Pleasure

👉 Practical Need

👉 Scarcity

Q. Are consumer motives and buyer motives the same?

Ans: Yes, consumer motives and buyer motives are the same thing:

Q. What is the difference between buying motives and selling points?

Ans: The primary distinction between buying motives and selling points is that the buying motive is the reason for which a buyer purchases a particular product or service. However, the selling point is the attribute of a product or service that seems attractive to the buyers.

Q. How does buyer motivation impact buying decisions?

Ans: Buyer motivation is critical in purchasing decisions because it helps people understand what they need and what best suits them. If buyers know what drives them, they can make intelligent choices and choose products that should meet their requirements. At the same time, you can use the advantages and disadvantages of social media and the buyer’s motive analysis to form your marketing strategy.