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Marketing Executive

Jamie Gentile-Clarke

Managing Director

Matt Cooke

Website Manager

Nathan McEvoy-Swann

Head of Digital and CRM

Charita Chutoorgoon

My sister can’t resist a bargain. She’ll go into town to buy a new pair of shoes… And return with three shopping bags filled with makeup and a new jumper, sweets and who knows what other unintended purchases. She then loves telling me all about the great deals she got. But the truth is, most people are guilty of an impulse buy here and there.

 admit to making impulse purchases in-store and online. Whether they’re consumers who make a spontaneous purchase here and there or they’re regular impulse buyers, this is clearly an important segment you can target to increase sales. Now the only question is, how can you draw out this type of customer’s natural impulses?

Well, it all starts with establishing the personality traits of the impulse buyer.

If you want to segment and target customers effectively, you need to establish customer personas. They provide a deep understanding of the behaviour and desires of different segments of your audience. Which you can use to provide a better overall customer experience. In fact, using marketing personas makes websites 

When it comes to impulse buyers, you no doubt want answers to the following questions:

, this is the first key attribute you need to recognise:

“Spontaneous buyers delight in quick purchases with perceived emotional benefits rather than following logic.”

Another discussion of the motivations behind impulse buying comes from 

Zimmerman believes that impulse buyers…

So, impulse buyers have distinct characteristics that drive their buying behaviours. This is powerful information that you can use to your advantage.

But how do these common personality traits and behaviours translate into marketing strategies?

All customers are driven by emotions when they make a purchase. Even the dude from American Psycho loved his material items out of a sense of vanity. But the particular emotion we must look at for impulse buyers is their fear of missing out (FOMO). You can heighten the emotional response by creating a sense of urgency surrounding a purchase.

Impulse buyers want to snatch up a deal before it’s gone. This is a strategy that has proven to be successful for many e-commerce brands. 

, an entrepreneur made a limited number of Groupon package deals available for just 100 hours.

He emphasized the sense of urgency by adding a countdown timer to his landing page:

This evoked a big old FOMO response in buyers that helped him increase sales by 332%.

Here are a couple of other ways you can create a sense of urgency that forces impulse buyers to take action:

1. Offer Free Shipping for a Limited Time

Shipping costs can be a deal-breaker for potential customers. In the above example, Kiehl’s displays their limited time offer of free shipping prominently on their homepage. So, there are no shipping costs to hold an impulse buyer back but only if they act now.

Many e-commerce stores offer “Today Only” deals. Here, Target cleverly creates a two-week event out of their daily deals. It’s likely to spark curiosity and encourage visitors to make purchases that they might not usually. They also rally excitement by giving customers the option to preview upcoming daily deals. By creating a sense of urgency you can evoke a range of emotions in impulse buyers.

Impulse buyers are the perfect customers to upsell or cross-sell. As we know, they’re spontaneous and unlikely to think about the consequences of putting that extra complimentary item in their cart. They simply want a good deal. And the bottom line is, cross-selling and upselling is excellent for business.

“Consistently upselling and cross-selling to new and existing customers can increase revenue double digits, depending on your business. Not using this time-tested 

 means you’re leaving money on the table.”

Upselling means increasing a customer’s average order value by offering a premium version of the product or a better deal on multiple items.

For example, you might give the customer a discount if they buy several of your products at once (a multipack):

Cross-selling is slightly different as it means offering products that compliment the item the customer is interested in.

For example, clothing stores often recommend complementary garments and accessories:

Here are some tips on how to cross-sell and upsell effectively:

You have a bunch of opportunities to make your move:

Test out these different options and monitor your sales to discover which works best for your store.

Your upsell or cross-sell must be relevant to the product in question. As opposed to just a random product recommendation. Furthermore, you should minimize the difference in price so the offer seems reasonable.

For instance, when you buy a growler bag from Brothers Leather Supply, they give you the chance to get a growler for $10:

The offer makes complete sense and the low price doesn’t seem like such a stretch. Make a good offer at the right time and impulse buyers won’t be able to resist.

Impulse buyers are drawn to sales. A flash sale is a particularly good idea because it incorporates a sense of urgency. Many flash sales last no more than 24 hours, some last only a couple of hours. This triggers an impulsive reaction as customers know that items will be more expensive in a very short space of time. Therefore, flash sales can achieve monumental results.

When Cardi B collaborated with Fashion Nova on a pre-Black Friday flash sale, her clothing line 

No doubt customers rushed to the online store for fear of missing out on Cardi’s new line.

It might be difficult to ascertain which products to include in your flash sale if you have a large catalogue. But you do have a few options in this case. Discover which product keywords your target customers are searching for.

Or simply choose popular products or seasonal items:

Impulse buyers are enticed by a quick, non-traditional buying process. If you market your flash sale weeks in advance you lessen the sense of urgency. Therefore, you should promote your flash sale via email, social and 

 a couple of days or even just hours before it commences. When done correctly, flash sales feed the desires of impulse buyers.

Impulse buyers are impatient. So, your job is to make the customer journey as quick and easy as possible. The best way to do this is by creating a positive user experience. Which will be hugely beneficial for your business, too...

Sites designed with the user in mind can see 

. The point is, you need to help impulse buyers come to a quick, simple decision. For instance, provide only one cross-sell so impulse buyers aren’t bogged down with too many choices. And make sure your site is not only easy to use but works exceptionally hard for them.

Next does this by placing popular subcategories at the top of their category pages:

Here are a couple of ways to boost user experience:

Customers don’t notice if your site is working perfectly… They just expect it. Thus, it’s better to monitor for any usability issues.

Does your site load quickly? Has all of the information that a customer would need being displayed clearly? Can they search for and find products easily? Etc.

If usability is good, it takes minimal effort for impulse buyers to make a purchase.

It’s predicted that by 2021, over half of the e-commerce sales in the US will be made on mobile. So, you need to make sure users have an optimal experience on mobile as well as desktop. Plus, mobile is the perfect place to encourage impulse buyers. They can make purchases from anywhere at any time. Essentially, the easier the journey is, the greater the likelihood of an impulse buy.

Impulse buyers are social and image-conscious. Therefore, if you market a product as a hot item, they’ll just have to have it. You can do this easily by providing social proof, of which there are several forms… Positive 

, for example, prove that an item is popular among buyers. Plus, when a customer interacts with a review they are 

Social proof not only shows that unbiased parties have used and benefited from your products… But also encourages the impulse buyer’s desire to conform and buy the product for themselves, too.

Star ratings are customary these days. Here, the rating gives customers an extra push on the product page. In other words, they don’t have to seek out reviews or ratings elsewhere. Which is also good for impulse buyers as they’re looking for a simple, easy process.

Most online stores source user-generated content from social media e.g. Instagram.

Which works well. Moleskine has gone even further by creating a community where customers can upload the artwork they’ve created in their notebooks. They encourage potential buyers to act as using this product is the only way to be a part of the community. Which is a great example of how through social proof you fulfil the impulse buyer’s need to be social and boost their image.

When you know where your audience hangs out, it makes life a whole lot easier. You can determine which 

marketing channels are best for targeting

 impulse buyers. And gain further insights e.g. what kind of content they engage with, their likes and dislikes and so on. You learn how to speak their language. Plus, what it takes to entice them to your 

The reason being, most impulse buyers fall into the 18-24 category. In other words, Gen Z and young millennials, and you know they love social media more than they love their own families. But how do you work out exactly where they hang out?

Search relevant terms related to your products on social media and forums. Let’s say you sell furniture, you might search for terms such as “interior design” or “home decor”. This will help you find Facebook groups, Pinterest group boards, subreddits and the like where you can market your brand or products.

Once you know where your audience hangs out online you’ll want to do some further research. What kind of content do they share and from which sites? Not only will this help inform your c

ontent and social media marketing strategies

… But you also get an idea of sites and blogs you can use for guest posting or display ads.

As you can see, it’s beyond useful to know where your ideal customers hang out and what they do there.

To create an effective marketing strategy for impulse buyers, you must first look at their key characteristics. This will help you come up with tactics to tempt them. Impulse buyers make purchases based on their emotions so you need to appeal to their fear of missing out. Also, they can’t resist a good deal which makes strategies such as upselling and flash sales particularly effective. They want to be able to make quick purchases with minimal effort, so make the process easy for them.

And they’re social characters so they respond to social proof and spend their time on social media which is the perfect place to reach them with your marketing strategies.

Now it’s up to you to implement these strategies.

To begin with, try making a list of traits you associate with impulse buyers.

Emil Kristensen is the CMO and co-founder of 

: a company that helps e-commerce brands turn their website browsers into buyers—without hurting the user experience.

, we'll be happy to help, call us on [phone].

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The Impulse Buyer: How to Create an Effective Marketing Strategy for This Persona