Examine the factors inherent in consumer buyer behaviour which marketing managers should consider in the marketing of consumer goods?

2003. Examine the factors inherent in consumer buyer behaviour which marketing managers should consider in the marketing of consumer goods?

General speaking, there are two sorts of questions, one is talking about the factors influencing on the consumer behaviour, another emphasizes on the reasons and the ways of adoption consumer-oriented strategies for marketing managers. Therefore, I am going to interpret both of questions together first, then discuss with you all on Monday’s meeting. Honestly, I’m not sure how to answer each question using the preparation below.

Definition

Consumer buyer behaviour refers to the buying behaviour of final consumers – individuals and households who buy goods and services for personal consumption. It equals the decision process and acts of individuals involved in buying and using products.

The important of understanding

From the viewpoint of marketing philosophy, understanding consumer behaviour is good business. A basic marketing concept states that firm exits to satisfy consumers’ needs. One of the definition of marketing is about understanding the needs of customer, anticipating what they require, and offering them the correct marketing mix in a way that is different to competitors’ marketing strategies and programmes. Thus, under the marketing philosophy, customers are consulted at every stage of the process, the marketing mix being varied accordingly. Consumer response may often be the ultimate test of whether or not marketing strategies will success. The marketing process is shown below:

From the viewpoint of marketing stages, there are two key stages in modern marketing: the development of a marketing strategy and the implementation of a marketing programme. Marketing strategy is the identification of consumers to target and the positioning of a product or service, against competitors in the marketplace. The implementation of marketing programme is facilitated through the development of a marketing mix. The understanding of how and why people buy gives an insight into how best influence the buying activities and can result the development of a more suitable marketing mix (product, price, promotion, and place) for the customers targeted.

These needs can only be satisfied to the extent that marketers understand how consumers response the marketing stimuli and other environmental forces, which called by marketers as 4Ps(Product, price, place and promotion), and PEST (economic, technological, political and cultural). Firstly, the buyer’s characteristics influence how they perceive and react to the stimuli. Secondly, the buyer’s decision process itself affects the buyer’s behaviour. By appreciating the processes which consumers go through, marketers can decide what kind of marketing effort to target at consumers at the different stages. Finally, marketers can observe and analyze buyer responses, such as product choice, brand choice, etc. then formulate the marketing strategies and plan activities. It is essential task of marketing management to understand the buyer’s characteristics and buyer decision process.

However, buying behaviour is not simple. The marketers can find out what consumers buy, where and how much, but it is not easy to lean about the reasons of consumer buying behaviour, which are locked deep within the consumer’s head. There are four different factors affecting consumer behaviour: cultural, social, personal and psychological characteristics. Although many of these factors cannot be influenced by the marketer, they can be useful in identifying interested buyers and in shaping products in order to serve consumer’s needs better. The main points are shown below:

Factors influencing consumer behaviour:

Cultural factors

Cultural ...

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Factors influencing consumer behaviour:

Cultural factors

Cultural factors influence on consumer behaviour broadly and deeply. The marketers need to know the roles of culture, subculture, and social class.

Culture is the most basic determinant of a person’s wants and behaviour. To learn culture is about learning human behaviour of every group and society, which vary greatly from country to county, even neighbourhood to neighbourhood. Marketers need to know the people under different cultures, who have different basic values, perceptions, wants, and behaviours.
Subcultures are “cultures within cultures” that have distinct values and lifestyles and can be based on anything from age and ethnicity. For example, in the U.S. markets, there are some subcultures differing from the groups of Hispanic consumers, African American consumers, Asian American consumers, and mature consumers. As a result, each subculture has its own preferences and behaviour.
Social classes are relevantly permanent and ordered divisions in a society. Marketers are interested in social class because people within a given class exhibit similar buying behaviour.

People with different cultural, subcultural characteristics in certain social class have different product and brand preferences. Therefore, marketers need to focus their marketing progammes on special needs of certain groups. For example, in America, financial services marketers have long targeted Chinese American consumers because this group of people not only have much higher household income than general standard, but also they like investing in stock – they trade two or three times trading than others.

Social factors

A consumer’s behaviour also influenced by social factors, such as the small groups, family, and social roles and status.

Marketers think groups as two or more people interact to accomplish individual or mutual goals. People often are influenced by membership groups, which they belong to, as well as by reference groups, which they do not belong to. A person’s reference groups – family, friends, social organizations, professional associations – strongly affect product and brand choice. Therefore, marketers try to identify opinion leaders within the reference groups of their target markets, then direct marketing efforts to them, because this group of people own special skills, knowledge, personality, or other characteristics and exert influence on others’ buying behaviour.
The family is the most important consumer buying organisation in society. Marketers have been researched extensively in the roles and influence of the husband, wife, and children on the different purchases.
The person’s position in each group can be defined in terms of both role and status. The roles played by people are related to the persons around them and each of roles reflects a status given to it by society. So people often choose products that show their status in society.

Personal factors

A buyer’s decisions are influenced by personal characteristics such as the buyer’s age and life cycle stage, occupation, economic situation, lifestyle, and personality and self-concept.

People change the goods and services they buy over their lifetime. Marketers often define their target markets in terms of life cycle stage and develop appropriate products and marketing plans for each stage. If doing so, the firm is able to create brand loyalty early and to develop long-term relationships.
Consumer lifestyles – the whole pattern of acting and interacting in the world – are also important influence on purchase decision. Marketers to understand how they affect buying behaviour can use some lifestyle classifications or segmentations, and the concept can help marketers change consumer values.

Personality is a person’s distinguishing psychological characteristics, which are usually described in terms of traits. Marketers study brand personality, which is the specific mix of human traits that may be attributed to a particular brand. Hence, the brands built aim to attract persons who are high on the same personality traits.

Other elements, like occupation and economic situation, will affect product choice of consumer. This is not difficult for marketers to identify and direct the marketing programmes.

Psychological factors

A person’s buying choices are further influenced by major psychological factors: motivation, perception, learning, and beliefs and attitudes.

Marketers want to know what needs is the consumer trying to satisfy. A motive is a need that is sufficiently pressing to direct the person to seek satisfaction. After knowing the motivation of a consumer, marketers can collect in-depth information to uncover the deeper motives for their product choices at the particular times.
Perception is the process by which people select, organize, and interpret information to form a meaningful picture of the world. Marketers have to work especially work hard to attract the consumer’s attention, to use right advertising and sales information to effect the mind-sets of consumers, and to retain the messages in the mind of their targeting consumers.
Because most of human behaviour is learned, marketers can build up demand for a product using the learning theory.
People often formulate about specific products and services. These beliefs and attitudes make up product and brand images that affect buying behaviour. If some of the beliefs and attitudes are wrong and prevent purchase, the marketer should launch a campaign to correct them. But to change an attitude is very difficult.

Types of buying-decision behaviour

Buying behaviour may vary greatly across different types of products and buying decision, which are based on the degree of buyer involvement and the degree of differences among brands.

Consumers undertake complex buying behaviour when they are highly involved in a purchase and perceive significant differences among brands. Dissonance-reducing behaviour occurs when consumers are higher involved but see little difference among brands. Habitual buying behaviour occurs under conditions of low involvement and little significant brand difference. In situations characterized by low involvement but significant perceived brand differences, consumers engage in variety-seeking buying behaviour.

The buy decision process

When making a purchase, the buyer goes through a decision process consisting of need recognition search, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision, and postpurchase behaviour.

The marketer’s job is to understand the buyer’s behaviour at each stage and the influences that are operating. During need recognition, the consumer recognizes a problem or need that could be satisfied by a product or service in the market. Once the need is recognized, the consumer is aroused to seek more information and moves into the information search stage. With information in hand, the consumer proceeds to alternative evaluation, during which the information is used to evaluate brands in the choice set. From there, the consumer makes a purchase decision and actually buys the product. In the final stage of the buyer decision process, postpurchase behaviour, the consumer takes action based on satisfaction or dissatisfaction.

By studying the overall buyer decision, marketers now recognize that consumer behaviour is an ongoing process, not merely what the exchange happens at the moment between consumers and producers. Marketers may be able to find ways to help consumers move through the process. When launching a new product, marketing might use advertising messages that trigger the need and show how the product solves customers’ problems. If the customers know about the product but are not buying because they hold unfavourable attitudes towards it, the marketer must find ways to either change the product or change customer perception.

Segmenting consumer markets

Market segmentation is an important aspect of consumer behaviour. It results from a determination of factors that distinguish a certain group of consumers from the overall market. Classifying consumers in this way can help marketers adjust their marketing strategies and implementations, such as advertising, distribution and pricing, to reach target markets more effectively. Depending on its goals and resources, a company may choose to focus on just one segment or several, or implement a mass-market strategy.

There are four commonly used bases for segmenting consumer markets. The first two are geographic and demographic segmentations are physical attribute classification, which refer to the dividing of an overall market into homogeneous groups based on characteristics, such as country region, population location, age, sex, and income lever. On the other hand, psychographic and behavioural segmentations are behavioural or psychological attribute classification, which refer to the dividing of a market into different groups based on social class, lifestyle, personality, or consumer knowledge, attitude, use and response to a product.

Moreover, emerging developments, such as the new emphasis on relationship marketing and the practice of database marketing, mean that marketers pay more attention to the wants and needs of different consumer groups.

Marketing’s impact on consumers

Marketing activities exert an enormous impact on individuals, because everybody is surrounded by marketing stimili in the form of advertisements, shops and products competing consumer’s attention. Especially, marketing can create and communicate popular culture and public policy issues. Hence, marketers should use the marketing tools properly and have responsibilities for the whole society development.

The goal is to get closer to consumers.