High-effort consumer behavior involves central-route processing, meaning that it takes a consumer a conscious effort to change or to form their attitudes about your product. High-effort purchases are often thought of as cars, homes, or other high-priced items, but they aren’t always determined by price. High-effort behavior consumers follow a specific, five-step process. This involves: 1. Problem recognition 2. Information search 3. Evaluation of alternatives (often called the consideration set) 4. Purchase decision and 5. Post-purchase evaluation.[1]
In high-effort behavior, depending on the consumer and their habits, a typical consideration set ranges from 2–8 alternatives.[2] Marketers of high-effort consumer behavior need an in-depth understanding of each step of this decision-making process for their brand to be part of a customer’s consideration set. A high-effort marketer’s typical day involves trying to get their target consumer to recognize a problem by introducing an incongruence between their actual state vs. their ideal state. Basically, we try to create reasons for them to want something better than what they currently have. In my experience, however, the really good high-effort marketers understand cognitive miser theory and are experts at information search. This approach is less about style, and more about substance. They are experts at providing information that helps their consumer solve a problem.
What’s been your experience with high-effort behavior?
[1] Hoyer, W., MacInnis, D., & Pieters, R. (2018). Consumer Behavior (Seventh Edition). Cengage Learning: 180–199.
[2] Shocker, Allan, Ben-Akiva, Moshe, Boccara, Bruno and Nedungadi, Prakash. 1991. Consideration Set Influences on Consumer Decision-Making and Choice: Issues, Models, and Suggestions. Marketing Letters: A Journal of Research in Marketing, Vol. 2, №3: 181–197.