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The Five Types Of Consumers in 2022

In a recent advisory project, I wanted to show how the world of content consumption and creation has greatly shifted.

Many on the project only considered their own thoughts and journeys and I broke down different user types and consumers we have to serve in consumer business.

The five types of consumers are:

Research For – someone who goes deep and researches a top and looks for a solution for a really specific problem. Will check trust and review sites and have deep knowledge of the product before purchase and likely beware of why they purchased from a set retailer. Β 

Search For – someone who searches for an answer, typically looking for a quick answerΒ and will impulse buy a product, but have limited knowledge of the product, the offering and the retailer they purchased from.

Receiver – someone who is sent a lot of information and then makes decisions from the information sent to them. Loves word-of-mouth referrals and will make purchases based on these product recommendations. Easily influenced, likely will do less research than an average consumer.

Discoverer – someone who discovers from social and reads 1 page or watches one short-form video. Often takes a while to purchase a product as will not research or requires it to be in their feeds a number of times.

A Headliner – someone who reads just the headline + pic – then feels informed. Will likely be a tricky customer as they will not understand the product or service offered. Β 

Yes, these can interchange, however, the majority of users have traits that defines them as their consumer type. Consumers will change their actions based on the price and the value of the product, however, they typically stay in their consumer profile.

Someone who researches every product they are served, reads reviews, review a trust platform review, goes deep into the value of a product versus just the price and importantly is a completely different consumer to the person who sees a product from a TikTok ad and just goes and buys without any other research.

Many consumers are very light on detail and will feel like a subject matter expert with a headline and a very brief read of the schema snippet shown in a SERP (search engine results page) or answer box on a voice search. These will feel like they can make a choice quickly and will be very different to deal with from a customer support and success perspective.

It is important as business leaders and Marketing & Growth leaders we break out these types of consumers and either cater for each or understand you have to target specific segments and know you will improve your metrics. The informed, “research for” is less likely to return their product and buy into your brand versus a “discoverer” who will likely know less upfront and make impulse buys.

Yes, framings like these can come unstuck like persona’s, however, knowing how to define your content type, your product offering and how you might target on different platforms is essential to creating a better chance to win.

Good luck and remember often the best marketing and growth comes from your existing audience and understand them more than others πŸ˜‰

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