Business
Review: Hot Button Marketing
Hot Button Marketing, written by Barry Feig, focuses on the intricate and complex subject of consumer behaviour. As a specialist in the subject, Feig reproduces some of the finer points of consumer purchase behaviour that he managed to observe and develop through his innovative marketing strategies for organizations across the globe. He quotes a number of multinational organizations, such as Colgate-Palmolive and American Express, to name a few, that benefitted from his strategies. This clearly vindicates Feig’s mastery over human buying behaviour.
The book; Hot Button Marketing, provides a comprehensive evaluation of human behaviour by listing sixteen possible psychological motivations that determines a consumer’s purchase behaviour. He begins his revelation by saying that a hot button can trigger a particular motivation in a consumer, which may, or may not instigate the purchase sense in a consumer. Therefore, the first step to spark this thought in a consumer would be for organizations to create a viable market for them. The hot button, according to Feig in this case, is to wake the sense of satisfaction in a consumer through a luring statement that can move the world. This, according to Feig is the development of brand resonance. Brand resonance is the ultimate loyalty a consumer shows a brand. For organizations to attain brand resonance, they need to get the customer to say ‘yes’ to their product. This can be achieved once organizations influence a consumer’s thoughts of buying the product, or at least, get the customer to request for details.
In all, the book comprises of sixteen chapters, and each chapter is a stand-alone; which means that each chapter targets a particular emotional sense of a consumer. He has included a number of scholastic views to support his theories, and they are used to support his views on the emotional triggers a consumer’s buying behaviour. What makes this book interesting is that it allows readers to select the chapter of choice or interest. By including a synopsis at the beginning of each chapter, a reader need not scroll through the pages of a chapter to understand whether there is something valuable available to them. Structurally, it is well laid out; each hot button is an emotional button, and each one of them are given equal importance, vide individual chapters. Feig introduces a number of proven motivational theories that have found favour with government and university think tanks, in addition to business firms and Madison Avenue. This book is easy to read and understand, and has numerous examples to make the reader understand his hot buttons well. This book is definitely recommended to those business people who want to understand how consumers think and buy.
In chapter one, Feig talks about the two reasons why people buy a product or service. He covers the challenges ‘producers’ face in terms of competition, and suggests solutions to overcome them by saying, “filling with insights and tips can be effectively applied at every single stage of marketing from the product development stage, to the final one-to-one selling. Hot button marketing shows one how to hit the sixteen main essential hot buttons in marketing to get their product sold.” In chapter two, Feig suggests that learning how motivation moves a particular market segment can help producers create visions, images, and words that will trigger the consciousness of buyers. He remarks “Hot button marketing is a blatant sell to the self. Hot button selling is about selling to your consumer’s aspirations. It’s about selling to the consumers the way they want it to be, rather than the way they are
In chapter three, he talks about how hot buttons influence the behaviour of selling to the inner self. He answers questions such as, why people specifically buy what they buy and do what they engage in on a daily basis to define their behaviour. Finally, in chapter four, Feig talks on “how to find your buyer’s hot buttons”. “You can observe a lot by watching; you can hear a lot by listening, and you can get a lot of answers by asking questions.”
