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When you’re running a business, there are a huge number of factors that can impact whether you experience success or not. But when you are advertising your products and services, it can be so easy to get sucked up into focusing on solely the ones that you can control. You will think about things like ad targeting, market research, ad spend and more. But one factor that many people don’t fully understand the importance of is current events. At the end of the day, your customers are real people living in the real world. Current events that impact that them will inevitably see them adapt and alter their behaviour to get by, and you need to make sure that you understand how these changes can impact their spending habits and, ultimately, your business’ stability and success. Here’s some more information on consumer behaviour, current events and how this can impact your company and its success as a whole.
Current Events That Impact Consumer Behaviour
There are countless events in people’s lives that can impact that their spending behaviour, many of them personal. At the end of the day, you’re not going to know these and can’t do much to manage this area. But there are also more broad situations, circumstances and events that impact a lot of people and that you can therefore gain insight into and manage. Some include:
- Social Unrest – social unrest often means that people’s attention is largely consumed by a cause or current situation. This can impact spending, unless you are operating in an area that people are shopping in to help their cause in some way.
- Financial Instability – many countries are currently going through a cost of living crisis, meaning that people are growing more reluctant to spend.
- Disasters – disasters can impact people’s spending significantly. Just take a look at the Covid-19 pandemic as an example. Here, many people reduced spending in areas they usually would and increased spending in areas that managed their health and improved their home lives.
Keeping Up to Date
It really is important that you’re up to date with current events and that you know where things may lead. Reading or watching the news, checking in on social media regularly and other steps can really help you to keep in the loop and get an idea of where things are going. Make sure you never underestimate the importance of staying up to date with current events on a global and more local scale.
Accommodating Changes in Consumer Behaviour
So what can you do to accommodate changes in consumer behaviour? It’s all good and well noting and acknowledging changes but you need to ensure your business accommodates these changes and fluctuations too. Here are some steps you can take.
Altering Your Advertising
One step to take when you find that current events are impacting consumers’ spending is to alter your advertising. A good example is advertising around political campaigns and times of voting. You may find that you need to consider ad spending during specific times of year like this. Often, huge amounts of money are spent on political advertising, which means ad costs drastically increase for the months leading up to the vote. In this situation, you need to be aware of things like Political Ads to Preempt Law Firm Advertisers As Election Day Nears. In short, if there are big current events coming about, you may need to edit and change your plans to stick to budget and make sure you get exposure to the right audiences.
Altering Your Brand Image and Practices
You may also find that you need to change your brand image as time progresses. You need to ensure that your brand is aligning with the views and beliefs of your target demographic, ensuring that they feel a sense of comfort shopping with your brand. Take the Black Lives Matter movement as an example. Many people started to show a significant preference to brands that have more diversity within their teams, advertising and every other element of their business. Some brands find that during times when people are more concerned about workers’ rights, they can maximise brand appeal by ensuring that their supply chain is accountable and fair.
As you can see, current events really can have a significant impact on your consumers and how they act and interact with your business. Hopefully, some of the information above will serve as guidance to help you through these times. Each step can make all the difference, so give them a go
