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Should the Goal of Marketing Be To Change Customer Behavior?  

:: Saturday, June 04, 2005 ::

Two related topics have my attention these days. The first is understanding target users and building for what they want, like and need. The second is the curious consideration that not only might we want to understand them, but then perhaps we ought to change their behavior.

DCrx, an introspective member at Cre8asiteForums, offers up some thoughtful discussion in The Marketing Mission: Change Customer Behavior?. He asks:

"Is the mission of marketing to change customer behavior? Does this imply (or does it neglect) the responsibility to discover customer behavior before you can change it? What is the responsibility to create a product or service people want to buy, or is this basically the mechanism through which behavior change is effected?

If someone has decided they are in the market to buy product category X, marketing is pretty much just going to determine which product. It may be argued all marketing in the category creates awareness that one is in the market and what the options are. How does the idea of behavior change apply?"

I had blogged earlier this week about designing with your web site visitors in mind, but I didn't offer suggestions for how to get that information or what to consider. There's a Cre8asite discussion that offers some insight Define your Audience

DCrx asks, "How does the target audience fit the overall objective of the web site?"

Related topic: Customer Satisfaction Doesn't Count

:: posted by Kim Krause Berg on 6/04/2005 09:37:00 AM

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