4 types of consumers with different personalities and how to sell to them

When brands try to reach consumers, they employ different weapons to make their speeches fit exactly what their potential customers want to hear and, above all, what they are looking for.

The avalanche of data and information about how we shop and who we are has made it much easier to fine-tune how the message is created to match what consumers are expecting to receive. Companies can take a very refined approach. They can segment consumers based on very precise and very specific parameters, based not only on their demographics but also on their tastes or past activities.

But how important is what these consumers are like when it comes to establishing the relationship that brands create to approach them?

Consumers are not just consumer habits, online browsing patterns or demographic information. They are also entities with their own personality. And, if personality traits modify how they make decisions in their daily lives or how they deal with problems,

also change how they are in their shopping habits or in their relationship with their environment. As they recall in a Hubspot article, if there are so many presentations of sauces (such as all the multiple varieties of mustard that can be found in the supermarket, even when in the end the mustard is more or less the same in many of those presentations) it is because brands are trying to reach different people. Each type of jar of sauce is actually appealing to a different type of personality.

4 types of consumers with different personalities and how to sell to them

In general, experts who talk about personality types and purchasing decisions tend to focus on four broad types of personalities into which consumers can be divided, to be used as guiding elements in establishing how to reach the consumer. What are these personalities and what do each of them require?

The assertive or the driver

One of the personality types is what some call assertive and others prefer to call driving. People who fall into this watertight compartment are goal-driven and competitive personalities. What matters to them is achieving results above all else. They are fast decision makers, they like to be given information and they don't like to be wasted time.

They are, as some remind us, the type of personality who wants what they want when they want it. To reach them you have to offer a professional and solvent image. Products must be sold efficiently, as solutions to existing problems (do not promise vague promises but rather focus on facts, on easily demonstrable issues) and above all

must be sold without wasting time for these consumers. As Hubspot reminds us, there is no point in beating around the bush or repeating the same type of message twenty times. Get straight to the point.

And, besides, these types of personalities tend to have high self-esteem, so no attacking them by pointing out their faults or the things they are doing wrong. It would not be productive.

The friendly

This personality type is creative and loves to try new things and do different activities. When looking for business partners (or brands to accompany them in their activities) they expect to be able to trust them. They are unstructured and don't make quick decisions, while they like to talk to others to decide what to do or what to buy. And, of course, they value relationships highly: they love to build friendships and have a more personal touch. Possibly, to give a clear example from the B2B universe, it would be that owner of a small store who is treated as a friend by his distributors and about whom they know everything from how many children he has to the problems he has with his little boy every June because he gets bad grades.

Obviously, to reach this type of consumer, you have to establish a relationship with them. It's not just about pushing them to buy a product, they also have to feel comfortable with each other. It is also important to change how information is presented. With an assertive consumer, you had to give them the facts so they could make the purchase decision. With a friendly one, rather than offering everything in a raw and direct way, you have to set yourself up as a kind of advisor. You have to offer information, but above all you have to guide him through the buying process.

The expressive

Some other experts call them those who belong, because what they want is to be part of a group, to be part of history. They're the kind of people who are often held up as examples when they talk about the things they consume. They love relationships with others and like to connect with them. They like to keep others happy. For them, intuition is more important than facts (they make decisions based on what their intuition tells them). Therefore, to reach this type of consumer, you can't rely on facts as much as on other elements. Data is not going to make the consumer what the brand wants them to consume. It is important - and necessary - to look at how those products can relate to them on a human level. It's the type of consumer who likes to see how products affected others: it's the one who is won over by success stories in which they see how product X changed someone else's life.

Analytical

Who are the analytics? This type of consumer is pragmatic and not interested in nonsense. They always use logic. They love having information, data, details and being able to study what these things tell them. They don't make decisions quickly, because they like to weigh all the pros and cons of the things in front of them. They are the type of consumer who reads the product manual to know everything about the product.

To reach them, information must be released. A brand cannot make promises it cannot keep or offer empty data (the typical statistics that fall off as soon as you think about them) if it wants to reach this type of consumer. Nor can you forget that this consumer leaves nothing up in the air. Before approaching a store to buy, for example, he has done research at home and has been looking on the Internet everything he needs to know what he is going to buy and what he needs to know.

They should not be rushed and should be given time to look and compare as much as they want. The information should be clear and should always be kept that way.