Back to School: 4 Marketing Theories to Better Understand Your Target Audience

Going against the grain of the latest buzz around technology—especially AI and ChatGPT—we wanted to take a step back in time to explore the History of Marketing and the many theories that have emerged from it.

While new technologies can make our work more efficient, can decades-old marketing theories (some over 50 years old) still help us today?

Spoiler alert: absolutely yes!

Let’s take a look back together at 4 major marketing theories, handpicked to help you gain perspective, build your brand strategy, and better understand your target audience.

Why is (re)visiting key marketing theories a smart move?

What can old marketing theories, learned at university or in business school—or straight from classics like

“Marketing for Dummies”—really do for us? 😃

Better understand your target audience’s behaviour

Marketing theories are typically grounded in research and real-world observations, not just guesses. They offer keys to analysing a specific market or consumer behaviour—and consumers as a whole.

By putting these theories into practice, you’ll gain deeper insight into the motivations, attitudes, and behaviours of your target audience—helping you design more relevant marketing campaigns that ultimately deliver better results.

Avoid costly mistakes

Yes, relying on theory often pays off and can save you from expensive strategic mistakes caused by misunderstanding your market, your customers, or even your competitors.

Anticipate market trends

Marketing theories can help you anticipate new market trends and identify growth opportunities. For example, the diffusion of innovation theory can highlight key moments when a product or service is ripe for adoption.

Boost your profitability

By using marketing theories, you can create more profitable strategies by maximising advertising effectiveness, identifying the best channels, and offering products and services that meet your customers’ needs.

Which marketing theories matter most for e-commerce and brand building?

The AIDA Method

The AIDA method is a persuasion technique widely used in marketing to convince consumers to buy a product or service.

AIDA stands for:

Attention

It’s all about capturing the consumer’s attention—usually with a catchy headline or an impactful image.

Interest

After grabbing attention, the next step is to build interest by showcasing product or service features and benefits.

This stage aims to spark the consumer’s curiosity and make them want to learn more.

Desire

Once the consumer is interested, you need to trigger their desire by presenting your unique benefits and the reasons why your offer stands out compared to others.

Action

Finally, the last step is to prompt the consumer to take action—in other words, to buy. This can include clear and compelling calls-to-action, special offers, or purchase incentives.

By adopting the AIDA method, you can design targeted marketing strategies that address your customers’ needs and desires at every stage of the buying journey.

SWOT

The SWOT method is a strategic analysis tool that helps businesses evaluate their market position and pinpoint the next steps to improve performance.

SWOT stands for:

Strengths

First, identify what your business does well: your advantages, unique selling points, and successes.

This means spotting what sets you apart from the competition.

Weaknesses

The second step is to determine your company’s weaknesses—areas to improve, gaps or shortcomings that could hurt performance.

Opportunities

Third, look for opportunities that your business can tap into, such as industry trends, new technology, law changes, and so on.

Threats

The final step is to identify threats facing your business—like competitors, market risks, or economic and political changes.

In short, the SWOT method helps you audit your business by analysing internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as external opportunities and threats.

This analysis helps you pinpoint actions to take to build on strengths, overcome weaknesses, leverage opportunities, and tackle threats.

It’s a go-to tool for strategic planning and offers countless insights for creating a focused and effective marketing strategy.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow’s hierarchy is a psychological model that describes basic human needs in a ranked order. This theory often informs marketing strategies by helping us understand customers’ motivations and needs and thereby craft more targeted campaigns.
Here’s how Maslow’s pyramid can guide your marketing:

Physiological Needs

Needs like food, water, and sleep are the most fundamental.

If your products or services relate to these, highlight how you directly address them—emphasising quality and availability, for example.

Safety Needs

Once physiological needs are met, safety becomes a priority.

Customers want protection from physical and emotional harm (like disappointment). Here, your main communication angle should be about reliability, durability, and ultimately the safety your products provide.

Social Needs

Social needs involve relationships and a sense of belonging. You can meet these by offering products or services that foster connections and community.

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Even if your products don’t directly create social bonds, you can go for a fun, quirky style—like Kinder’s chocolate bar campaign for Kinder Country.

To fully meet the need for social interaction, you can also focus your messaging on celebrating your online follower community, highlighting the positive exchanges and mutual support found there.

Esteem Needs

Esteem needs mean recognition, self-confidence, and respect from others.

You can tap into this by showcasing products that encourage hands-on achievement: cooking, sewing, DIY, and more.

Or, you could use communications that invite customers to take pride in themselves—highlighting their achievements in their professional or personal lives.

Self-Actualisation Needs

These needs involve fulfilling one’s potential and personal aspirations.

You can support your customers here by offering products or services that help them reach their goals.

By leveraging Maslow’s pyramid, you can develop targeted marketing strategies catering to your clients’ needs at every stage of their journey.

Studying this hierarchy can greatly help you boost the relevance of your marketing and maximise the success rate of your campaigns.

The 4Ps

The 4Ps Marketing Mix is one of marketing’s best-known theories.

Developed in the 1960s by marketing professor Jerome McCarthy, this framework is about taking a deep dive into your four key elements: product, price, promotion, and place.

The first area, Product, covers everything you offer your customers—whether a physical product or a service.

Quality, design, features, brand, and packaging are all vital factors when crafting a product your customers truly need.

Second is Price—the amount customers are willing to pay for your product or service.

Price needs to align with your costs, competitors, and market demand.

Third is Promotion—as in, the activities you use to build awareness and drive sales. From advertising and promotions to public relations and direct marketing, these are essential for attracting new clients.

Finally, Place refers to how you distribute your product or service.

Distribution channels—such as retail stores, online shops, distributors and wholesalers—help you reach customers. The 4Ps aim to find the perfect balance between these areas to meet your clients’ needs while boosting your sales and profits.

Conclusion

To wrap up, the great marketing theories—AIDA, SWOT, Maslow’s pyramid, and the 4Ps—are still must-have tools if you want to deeply understand your market and audience, or build an effective marketing plan. These time-tested ideas remain go-tos for marketing pros to

analyse market trends, spot opportunities and threats, assess company strengths and weaknesses, and set clear, achievable goals.

By weaving these theories into your e-commerce marketing, you can boost your effectiveness, grow your profits, and hit your business targets even faster.

In short, key marketing theories are a real asset for any business aiming to succeed online.

It’s your turn!