Consumer engagement is critical for any consumer products company today. Understanding your consumers, their motivations, and their connection to your product is what drives success, and it needs to be a cross-functional effort. In our last episode of Taking Stock, we dove into the concept of consumer engagement – what it is, how it’s evolved over the past years, and what to consider when building an effective consumer engagement strategy. Today, we’re talking about understanding consumer motivations and the steps companies can take to ensure they’re meeting their consumers’ needs and expectations. 

Knowing Your Consumer 

It may seem obvious, but the foundational step for a strong consumer engagement strategy is knowing your consumer. Who are they? What do they purchase? How do they use your products? Knowing your consumer is so critical – and a seemingly simple concept – but companies continue to struggle with it. They have a product, they put it on the shelf, people buy it (or they don’t!), and they keep moving forward. But they don’t always understand their customer’s path to purchase or why they purchased (or didn’t purchase) the product in the first place. Without that in-depth understanding of the consumer and their motivations, companies are missing out on opportunities to drive product innovation, expand complementary products, and dig into big data that can ultimately drive further growth and success for your brand.  

Knowing your consumer is more than just having the right product to the right consumer; it’s also about making sure you’re meeting your consumers with the right product, at the right time, and in the right channel. If you don’t take steps to truly understand your consumer and their motivations, you’re going to fall behind in today’s competitive and ever-evolving consumer products landscape.  

In this episode of Taking Stock, I’m joined by Amy Levine and Reed McKenzie as we chat through considerations for understanding your consumers and their motivations as well as implementing cross-functional efforts across the organization to further drive engagement and innovation.  

You can listen to Understanding Consumer Motivations: Taking Stock with Amy L. and Reed M. here.  

Taking Stock    

In this podcast series, Clarkston Consulting Partner Steve Rosenstock sits down with experts and thought leaders from both within Clarkston and throughout its consumer products, life sciences, and retail client base, covering a range of topics from industry trends and consumer dynamics to organizational governance and business strategy. Steve provides you access to the passions of the guests and allows you to benefit from their stories, knowledge, and deep expertise.