Understanding Consumer Behavior and Its Impact on Marketing
Consumer Behavior: It is the study of the process involved when individuals or groups select, purchase, use or dispose products, services, ideas or experiences to satisfy needs and/or desires. Factors That Affect Consumption: Cultural: values, perceptions, preferences, behaviors, nationalities, religion, racial group, geographical areas. Social: membership groups, aspirational groups, dissociative groups, of orientation, procreation. Psychological: motivation perception, learning and memory, roles. Personal Factors: age, profession, lifestyle, personality.
Purchase Process: Awareness: when the consumer for the first time, realizes a need or desire, Research: moment to look for information about how to satisfy it., Evaluation: moment when the customer has a list of different alternatives to satisfy the need and evaluate each of them taking into account not only his attitudes and beliefs but is expected value, Decision: the consumer takes a final decision, Post Sale: how is the consumer behaving after the sales process. Motivation, Needs, Desire: Motivation drives consumers to buy and is triggered by psychological tension caused by “unfulfilled” needs. One of the phenomena that occupy a central place in human behavior is the concept of need. Human beings act because they feel needs or desires. Needs are circumstances or things that are wanted or required and they direct the motivational forces. Desire is the lack of something specific that satisfies basic needs. Demands are desires of specific products based on purchasing power. Elements of the Motivation Process: Utilitarian Factor: Buying something because it’s attributes help to satisfy your need. Hedonists: They reflect emotional experiences. There is no a specific need in buying them, only in enjoying life. Rational: Logically drive to seek a benefit. Emotional: They are not logical; pleasure, affection or power is sought. Positive Reasons: They serve to reach certain goals. Negative Reasons: it acts to avoid problems. Perception: Is the process by which individuals select, organize and interpret stimuli into a meaningful and coherent picture of the world. The stimulus comes through sense. A stimulus is any unit of input to any of the sense. phases: selectives exposure, s. attention, understanding, retention. Applications to Marketing and Advertising: Fear of harmful consequences on consumers derived from purchases is called perceived risk. Physical: fear that the products cause some damage, it is very characteristic of the elderly , Financial: fear of paying a high amount of money for a product or service, Psychological: fear of dissatisfaction derived from an unfortunate purchase, Functional: Fear of not knowing how to properly use goods or services, Social: fear that the products purchased will leave consumers in a bad place. , Time: feeling of having lost it after having been involved in a purchase process in case it does not end or full satisfaction with it is not achieved. , Transaction: perception of not being well received or attended by the seller.
Factor That Determine the Degree of Risk: Knowledge of product, price, disparity of prices, Complexity and disparity of alternatives.Attitudes: constitutes a learned belief or feeling that predisposes a person to react in a certain way to an object, person or situation. Functions: adaptation function, self defense function, expressive function, knowledge function, behavior function. Cultural Phenomenon: Is a set of values, ideas, attitudes and other significant symbols created by the human being to direct their own behavior and the procedures of transmission of this flow from generation to generation. characteristics: Functionality: Culture guides the behavior of people of luck that guarantees the survival of social groups . Social Phenomenon: Culture is generated through contacts between people and should be considered as a human creation. Prescriptive: You decide what is right or wrong, good and bad. It is Learned: We don’t inherit the culture. We learn it through interaction with our family, educational or social environment. It is Arbitrary: The values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors of one culture are characteristic of it and may be rejected by another. It is Loaded with Values: Culture transmits many norms and values and suggests the expected behavior of people. Facilitates Communication: in cultures there are forms of transmission, verbal and nonverbal. It is Adaptive and Dinamic: Because culture is constantly evolving and adapts to new situations. It is Forged in the Long Term, Satisfied Needs.
Social Class: Social class is the division of members of a society into a hierarchy of distinct classes. Members of each class have relatively the same status and members of all other classes have either more or less status. Determinants: income level, occupation, prestige profession, training, political power, economic power, class consciousness. Types: reputational method, sociometric m., subjetive m., objective index.
Group: Aggregate of people that maintains interrelationships that affect the behavior and attitudes of its members. Classification: primary groups (small groups): high communication and a very intimate connection. secondary groups: social organizations: relationships are less personal, and less communication daily, less continuous and less interactive. Reference Groups: Reference groups are groups that serve as sources of comparison, influence and norms for people’s opinions, values and behaviors. Normative Influence: Normative influence consists of learning and adopting a group’s norms, values, and behaviors. The most pertinent normative influence comes from groups to which people naturally belong, such as family, peers, and members of one’s community. Comparative Influence: Comparative influence arises when people compare themselves to others whom they respect and admire, and then adopt some of those people’s values or imitate their behaviors.