uncovered that these preferences are forward-looking. People’s attitudes give us an insight into what happens tomorrow and what products you should launch in the future. If you do your market research properly and find what someone’s preference is today, it is possible for you to do something about it tomorrow.
The thoughts and feelings of your “top” customers — on whom businesses traditionally focus — and the mindsets of the “bottom,” or less lucrative customers, are pretty self-evident. The question is which of the customers that are in the middle will become top customers as well as which will become bottom ones. Ascertaining this information will also assist you with your product launches.
Why market research involves finding out about attitude
Finding out about attitude lets you know what those middle customers are going to do because behaviour is noisy. It’s up, it’s down. That’s why they’re in the middle. If you merge attitude and behaviour, you become better at ascertaining who to target as well as how to target. It’s a better approach as opposed choosing only one or the other.
For example, Jane and Martha both buy chocolate chip yoghurt once every two months. Merely looking at this information would suggest that Jane and Martha are equally valuable for the manufacturer of the yoghurt. However it turns out that one of them is more valuable than the other one is.
Upon nearer inspection, we find that Jane really loves this particular brand of chocolate chip yoghurt. However, she has just started eating yoghurt and is slowly building up her consumption rate. Sometimes a discount may inspire Jane to buy the brand. On the other hand, Sara is indifferent to the different types of yoghurt that this brand sells and only buys it when it is on special. It is more probable that Jane will continue to purchase this brand of chocolate chip yoghurt longer than Sara.This scenario shows how firms can use knowledge of consumer attitudes to predict the most profitable consumers.