Do you know somebody needlessly flexing about their marketing knowledge or a self-proclaimed marketing guru? Well, to confirm whether they know their stuff or not, ask them about the fundamentals of consumer behavior and all the encompassing determinants that must be perceived in order to influence the consumer.
Firstly, those words strung together could intimidate anyone. Secondly, anyone who gives you a confused look, retorts with a morbid laugh or a condescending remark, is definitely faking it. But how would you know if the person who answered with tangible words is correct? That’s where this article comes in, welcome to consumer behavior 101.
Consumer behavior
The term is pretty self-explanatory, but just to clear any misconceptions; it is the study of individuals, groups, or organizations and all the activities related with the purchase of goods, services, products etc. It involves understanding the psychological factors, emotional and impulsive behavior as well as understanding the consumer’s basic, everyday needs.
Importance of Consumer Behavior
Now since that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the importance of consumer behavior; consumer behavior is the very foundation of marketing. The essence of a marketer’s job is to optimize the sale of a certain product, service etc. That is achieved by understanding what a consumer prefers to purchase and the reasons that compel them to buy it. Investigating buyer behavior helps to aim at the targeted populace with effective marketing; developing advertisement strategies, accurate brand representation, product positioning and so forth. In short, understanding what people like and why they like it equals more sales.
Factors Influencing Consumer Behavior
There are many factors that may influence consumer behavior. Here are the important ones you should know of:
Social Factors
The Social Factors are widespread in a society where a consumer lives. Social influence stems from family, role models, secondary influential individuals, relatives, colleagues, acquaintances and you get the point. For instance, if the masses prefer “Fortnite” over “PUBG”, most will not question why. Instead, they will go along with it because it is the “popular opinion.”
Personal Factors
People come from all sorts of different walks of life, every person is different with respect to age, occupation, lifestyle, medical condition, personal preference. Thus, everyone will make a buying decision, judging on what suits them best. For instance, when it comes to purchasing music. Each person has a different way of doing so. A young, college student would download it illegally, an old, retired musician would prefer the vintage pleasure of a Beetle’s vinyl record, a truck driver would buy a music disk for his vehicle’s audio system.
Economic Factors
The economic conditions of an individual would greatly influence their buying choices. No college student, with a student loan on his back, would want to eat from a high-end restaurant and no fancy businessman would ever want to be seen at the shady burger shack. Keeping this factor in mind, helps markets and businesses come up with innovative products that anyone can afford and would like to buy.
Psychological Factors
These factors help convince consumers into buying products. Psychological actors can be further divided into:
Perception
Individuals’ opinion of something can be enormously different from others, People are constantly receiving stimuli from their external environment, through their five senses; touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound and forming opinions about it. From a marketer’s point of view, perception helps in figuring out how consumers view a company’s product or service.
Motivation
Consumer behavior is a desire for a product, service, etc. It is the drive to satisfy needs and wants, both physiological and psychological, through the purchase and use of products and services
Beliefs and Attitudes
A company must aspire to share the common ideals and beliefs as the consumers. The whole point is to make the consumer trust the brand. When the consumers find the product to be somewhat relatable to their needs, ideas and beliefs, they develop a positive attitude towards the brand or product. Thus, improving the brand identity which will eventually lead to successful sales.
I’ll be summing this up with Micheal LeBoeuf’s words, “A satisfied customer is the best business strategy.”
I hope you enjoyed reading this article and found it enlightening, even a little bit.
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