These categories are designed for individuals, yet with a bit of thought they can be customised to corporate entities. In our case online marketing can be taken as a physiological need in our modern era where the internet is fast becoming the most important marketing platform.

Depending on where your product falls onto the needs pyramid you’ll end up using different advertising channels and methods. For example falling into the base of the pyramid means there is a large demand for your product, yet there is naturally a lot of competition, thus you’ve got to pay careful attention to your marketing plan before launching headlong into a campaign that may end up just pissing into the wind! You don’t need to go generating a lot of awareness for the need as it is well known, unless of course it’s a new problem, whereas if your product falls into the top category you may need to pay careful attention in reinforcing the need. Let me try explaining this better with some simple examples.

Let’s say we have two products: Bread and an expensive bottle of wine. Both are classified as food types yet they’re on totally opposite sides of the spectrum. The first forms part of a staple daily diet whilst the other is something you’d like to have, fulfilling very different needs. So for the first the need you appeal to is physiological, simply; you need to eat, whilst with the second you appeal to esteem category clearly very different marketing strategies will be employed.

Once you’ve got a good idea of your needs category move onto the next aspect of consumer analysis: User VS buyer.