Market by Political Propensity

Your customers who hold politically conservative opinions are less likely to go public with complaints about your store and the products you carry than are the political liberals. They’re also less likely to argue with you about the suggestions you make for resolution when they do complain.
     This finding from researchers at University of Sydney is in one article that’s part of a noticeable uptick in professional journal publications about the influence of political affiliation on consumer behavior, an uptick I think is due largely to surprise over the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president and a perception of increased tribalism.
     In many circumstances, you’d want to surface complaints from your shoppers, since unknown dissatisfactions can sabotage customer relationships. But the situation is different in this case. The relatively lower tendency to complain among political conservatives appears to be due to two related factors: First, their desire to justify existing business systems rather than challenge them. Second, a comfort with power inequalities in society. Thus, there’s less chance that unstated, but deeply felt, complaints are lurking. There’s less need for you to probe.
     A New York University summary of research provides other insights about the relationship between political affiliation and consumer behavior:

• Liberals pay more attention than do conservatives to the logical and emotional quality of a sales argument, while conservatives pay relatively more attention to the reputation of the argument source. 
• Conservatives are sensitive to statements of stability, such as “We’ve been here for 100 years,” while liberals are sensitive to statements of growth, such as “We’ve been changing for 100 years.” 
• In marketing to conservatives, highlight the concepts of tradition, conformity, security, power, and materialism. With liberals, highlight harmony, benevolence, universalism, and egalitarianism. 

     Such findings could be useful when you’ve evidence the community in which you do business is primarily conservative or primarily liberal. The findings also could be useful in predicting preferences of your shoppers based on preferences you’ve already observed. But don’t oversimplify. Some behaviors depend on stereotypes and surroundings: One study found that conservatives are more likely to contribute to a cause when thinking their contributions will become known to a liberal, rather than conservative, audience. The study’s researchers, at Saint Louis University, University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign, Pennsylvania State University, and University of Minnesota, explain this by saying that conservatives are motivated by a desire to disprove widespread impressions that liberals are more generous.

For your success: Retailer’s Edge: Boost Profits Using Shopper Psychology

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