One of the many challenges I face with my clients is creating content that is visually appealing and informative, while also motivating them to make a purchase. While plenty of seminars, professionals, and books will tell you there are "five steps to success" or best practices, in the end, knowing your customer’s buying mindset will give you the greatest amount of leverage.

I found over the years of that in most cases, buyers break down into the following mindsets:

The Hunter:

The hunter, typically male and middle-aged, is too busy or doesn't require the support of reviews and social backing in order to make a purchase. You succeed with this customer by using globally deployed imagery and basic product facts, with a clearly visible “buy” link. Quick entry to commerce are such items as, large buttons with labels such as “buy at store now” or in many cases content imagery that is designed to look clickable in an effort to entice action. You don't pussyfoot around with this type of consumer. Simply give them the facts and assign trust assurance items such as 100 percent guaranteed; free shipping; “will match competitors prices.”

The Den Mother:

The Den Mother, often the mother or head of household that is overseeing a larger family collective, wants to be enticed by the product or service in such a way that it is fulfilling to all parties concerned. Therefore, the voice of your copy and imagery should support initiatives beyond the simple needs of the consumer. This content should reflect the fact that it is helpful; loved by all; and ensures success.  In addition, this consumer is often bound with a perceived limited amount of time, and for overtly busy schedule. Therefore, constructing contextual scenarios that convey time savings can also support purchase.

The Romancer:

The romancer, just as its name would convey, is usually the planner of the household, and in many cases female. This type of consumer wants to experience your product through the eyes of testimonials, stories, ratings, and reviews. They want to feel confident in their purchase, but also want a sense of experience with it prior to the actual purchase. Great sites such as zappos.com utilize video to show products in such a way that it conveys not only usage, but feelings, styles, and supportive advocacy creating trust that the decision is correct.

This style of consumer is very typical in the travel industry. Therefore, as one might expect, you will find imagery that supports comfort, intimacy, luxury, and accommodations in an effort to persuade this user to purchase. 

The Researcher:

Exactly what you would expect out of a researcher mindset will be content marketing objectives such as comparisons, charts, and previous user testimonial. Bear in mind that ratings and reviews used to go a long way. However, ratings and reviews no longer hold as much trust as they previously did. People are savvy enough to understand now that a lot of this content is actually manufactured on behalf of the brands or their competitors. That said, constructing authenticity around your product or service will benefit you to the researcher. Suggestions might include such aspects as “pros and cons" or levels of product such as  small business, large business, enterprise, and more. 

Once you start to see the way different companies market and position their content, you'll understand the type of mindset that THEY BELIEVE their consumer has.

But how do you ensure success with consumer mindset? Testing, testing, testing. Any opportunity that you have when you send out emails, do social media, or construct visuals and messaging, be sure to test each delivery with its own unique directive. The "calls to action” or hero visuals do not necessarily needed to be dynamically opposed to one another. However, it's best that you have varying styles of messaging to ensure success.

A/B Test any one of the following (consistently):

• Email subject lines

• Social media posting lengths

• Hashtags

• Videos versus photos

• Single photos versus galleries

• Varying amount of detail when it comes to the specifications of your product

• Differentiate your commerce by flow

• Vary your call to action

• Reports regarding your UI/UX touch points based on your consumer’s path through the commerce component

• Claims and offers

• Coupon types

• Rewards programs

Clearly this list can go on and on. There is no end to prototyping and testing for proper assurance that you are connecting directly with your best guess at your consumer’s mindset.

Only you will ultimately know the mindset of your consumers. I would also suggest that you do a deep dive in mapping the demographic, psychographic, and persona of your ideal customer and secondary customer. Once you have this in place, it will give you a firm understanding of whether or not the visual and contextual directives you are creating will cast the appropriate perception and lead to sales.