Comparison sites, consultation platform user opinion about products or services, attention to the ethical behavior of the company … New technologies are promoting a change in the profile of the consumer, increasingly demanding and thinking and analyzes when buying. Sales techniques must meet and adapt to the new features of smart consumer.

Simply just a click to see if the hotel at which you want to vacation has good housekeeping; if you are offered very few services on your car insurance or if a company has a little ethically responsible behavior with its employees, the environment, etc. Today’s customer search, browse, query, and compare before making a purchase decision. Traditional sales techniques work, but they have to adapt to this new profile smart consumer.

Javier Fuentes Merino, CEO of Group Sales Proactiva, explains that the smart consumer is one who wants to invest their money in a responsible way. “It does not mean you intend to spend less, sometimes even willing to pay more, but want to make sure you are doing it in an optimal way.”

The smart consumer is in turn composed of a series of types of consumers that make up all their ways:

• He is conscious consumer : know what you want and need at all times.
• It is informed consumer : read, documented and research before making the purchase.
• It is critical consumer : after purchase, examines whether the product meets your expectations or if not, return it .
• It is healthy consumer : look for products that improve their health (both physical: food diet, sport, pain … as psychological: welfare, happiness, satisfaction, …).
• It is sustainable consumer : want your product does not cause any harm to the environment.
• It is solidarity consumers : it has special attention by companies that carry out projects to help society.
• It is active consumer : it can become an ally or a destroyer of the brand. Know your consumer rights and the power it has. Therefore, he will not hesitate to disseminate their comments (both positive and negative) in both social networks and circles of friends, family, etc. Often it has great power of conviction and a large number of followers and extensive social relations.

To try to capture this type of consumer, it is essential that the company is transparent, explains. Much of the marketing strategies must be aimed at it.”It is not only subjective values that inspires a brand, it is necessary to communicate and report what the brand really does.” From offline methods such as, for example, information on the labeling, packaging , etc., to methods online, with sending newsletters , search prescribers (also known as influencers ) in social networks, etc.

Unlike fixed spaces of advertising, there are other messages that slip each other sites that also have a good preferred position, for example, when someone shares on your Facebook wall negative news of a particular company or from the positive point of view, when someone hangs a picture on his Twitter on the so succulent menu offering a particular restaurant. All this is creating brand specifiers that cannot be underestimated. Recall, a positive communication by a customer expands less than a communication or negative criticism, so it is very important reputational effect.

Does this mean that disappears means direct selling? In all, the business has the power to turn the stimulus purchasing a fact and should know that when serving a customer, this is already informed about your product. “It happens to be carrying a shopping iPad to show what they say about your product on social networks,” anticipates Fuentes Merino