Analysis of Internal Influences on Consumer Behavior - Example

Analysis of internal influences on consumer behavior Motivation and involvement of Consumer The study of customers assists companies and organizations improve their marketing policies by understanding matters such as how the psychology of 1. How customers believe, consider, and select between different alternatives (e.g., brands, products); The psychology of how the consumer is influenced by his or her environment (e.g., culture, family, signs, media) 2. The behavior of customers while shopping or making other marketing decisions 3. Restrictions in consumer knowledge or information processing capabilities influence verdicts and marketing result  4. How customers incentives and verdicts strategies differ between products that differ in their level of importance or interest that they require for the customer 5. How marketers can adopt and progress their marketing campaigns and marketing strategies to more successfully reach the consumer. Consumer behavior is study of persons, set, or organizations and the procedures they use to select, secure, employ, and order of products, services, experiences, or thoughts to assure wants and the impacts that these processes have on the consumer and culture. (Block, Roering, Engel, 1976) There are a number of units in the market that can be analyzed. Our main driving force in this route is the customer. On the other hand, we will also need to examine our own company’s strengths and weaknesses and those of competing companies. For example, suppose, that we make a product intended at older customers, a rising segment. A competing company that targets children, a dwindling market, is likely to consider moving toward our market. To assess a competing company’s potential risk, we need to examine its resources (e.g., technology, patents, market knowledge, awareness of its brands) against pressures it faces from the market. Lastly, we require assessing conditions i.e. the marketing environment. For example, while we may have developed a product that put forwards great appeal for consumers, a decline may cut demand considerably. (Block, Roering, Engel, 1976) Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs Abraham Maslow, in 1943, one of the founding fathers of humanist advances to management, wrote a prominent paper that set out five elementary human needs and their hierarchical nature. An important feature of the model is the hierarchical nature of the needs. The more fundamental they are and the more a person will tend to abandon the higher needs in order to give concentration to adequately meeting the lower needs if we lower the desires in the hierarchy. For example, we care little for what others feel about us, when we are sick. Every one of us is aggravated by needs. Our most basic needs are inborn, having developed over tens of thousands of years. Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs helps to explain how these needs inspire us all. (Fournies, 1999) Below is the diagram, which shows the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs. The five needs are 1. Physiological needs are to do with the maintenance of the human body. In case of our Compaq personal computer product, the marketing of the product is important. 2. Safety needs are about putting a roof over our heads and keeping us away from harm. Compaq personal computer provides safety screen, which provides eye protection against harmful computer rays. 3. Belonging needs set up our tribal nature. If we are supportive and kind to others they will want us as friends. So, if we introduce Compaq computer as friendly product and deal our customers kindly and guide them about our product then we can gather more and more customers. 4. Esteem needs are for a higher point within a grouping. We have greater power and esteem if people respect us. So in order to gain respect we have to sell better quality and maintenance services to our customers. 5. Self-actualization needs are to grow to be what we are able of becoming, which would our maximum attainment. (Fournies, 1999) Distinguish and help people to meet the needs on which they currently focused. Their concentration is here and they will be grateful for helping in congregation their present needs. Make people realize that our Compaq product will be helpful in meeting their technological requirements. Promote them in reaching up to higher requirements. Let them see and make up to the greater things in life. Create a pressure, which you can use for your purpose. Seek only requirements at your existing level. Neither leave too fast to lower needs nor reach too quickly for upper needs. When you are prepared, only then attain in your own time for high needs. If other people seek to help you, you may accept their help but are not grateful to pay back in any way they order. Motivational conflicts mediate management and innovator interest in commercializing technology. Issues or circumstances resulting from conflicting aims should be considered by companies in developing strategies toward laboratory-generated technology. These issues include where the technology was developed, relationship with the laboratory's activity, deliberateness of the discovery, protectability, exclusive rights, processes versus products, maturation required, and cost to commercialization. Companies must give weightage to these matters in deciding to work with laboratories on innovations or continued commercial development. The issues regarding Compaq computer can raise like the working of machine better than other compatitive manufacturers. Customers may have conflicts on the price of the computer and the guarentee of the computer. The customers can be convinced by telling them the features of the Compaq computers and by convincing them that this will play better role for achieving your tasks as compared to other manufacturers. (Fournies, 1999) By keeping in mind my product, I have selected two theories: 1. Theories Trait theories: Consumer innovativeness 2. Trait theories: Consumer materialism Theories Trait theories: Consumer innovativeness Pragmatic studies provide an unpredictable picture of the relationship between an innovative personality predisposition i.e., innate consumer innovativeness and innovative behavior i.e., new product adoption behavior. Such inconsistencies suggest dominant variables that may intervene the relationship have not been considered. Innate consumer innovativeness does not openly persuade adoption behavior but does so indirectly through two of three components of explicit innovativeness modeling and engagement in word of mouth but not exposure to advertising. Moreover, in spite of the evidence that consumer decision processes differ for service versus product adoption, extant studies largely ignore the role of innate consumer innovativeness in new service adoption. It is suggested that explicit innovativeness plays a similar prevailing role in service contexts. At last, different operationalizations of adoption behavior i.e. ownership, relative time of adoption emerge to perform equally well. (Lin, Atkin, 2007) Trait theories: Consumer materialism This theory is a main exit from the qualitative or subjective approach to personality measurement. It suggests that individuals possess innate psychological traits for example innovativeness, need for cognition, and materialism to a greater or lesser degree, and that these traits can be measured by specially designed scales or inventories. Because they are simple to use and to score and can be self-administered, personality inventories are the preferred method for many researchers in the assessment of consumer personality. Product and brand personalities symbolize real prospects for marketers to take benefit of consumers’ connections to various brands they offer. (Lin, Atkin, 2007) Brand personality Based on the principle that brands can have personalities in much the same way as humans, Brand Personality explains brands in terms of human characteristics. Brand personality is viewed as an important factor in increasing brand engagement and brand connection, in much the same way as people relate and bind to other people. A great deal of the work in the area of brand personality is based on translated theories of human personality and using similar procedures of personality characteristics and factors. (Kapferer, 2008) The Brand Personality Dimensions is a framework to explain and determine the personality of a product in five core dimensions, each divided into a set of features. (Kapferer, 2008) The five core dimensions and their facets are: 1. Sincerity i.e. down-to-earth, honest, wholesome, cheerful 2. Excitement i.e. daring, spirited, imaginative, up-to-date 3. Competence i.e. reliable, intelligent, successful 4. Sophistication i.e. upper class, charming 5. Austerity i.e. outdoorsy, tough (Kapferer, 2008) Example of online ad of Compaq computers: Title: Get your own new PC on economical price Description: You can order online order us on telephone or send pay order to our company. You will find hard disks and processors of high quality and high speed to accomplish your work efficiently. Just click on the following link to view latest brands of Compaq computers. On giving order today you will get discount of 7%. Visit our site: www.Compaqcomputers.com Perception and Positioning: There are many things that can affect decision-making process as a person works through the purchase decision.  The number of possible influences on consumer behavior is limitless.  However, marketers are well provided to understand the major influences.  By doing so they may be in a position to modify their marketing labors to take advantage of these influences in a way that will persuade the consumer and the marketer. For the majority part the influences are not commonly exclusive.  As a substitute, they are all interconnected. Perception is how we observe ourselves and the world we exist in.  On the other hand, what ends up being stored inside us doesn’t always get there in a direct way.  Often our mind makeup results from information that has been deliberately or undeliberately cleaned as we experience it, a process we refer to as a perceptual filter.  To us this is our reality, though it does not mean it is an accurate reflection on what is real.  Thus, perception is the way we clean stimuli e.g., someone talking to us, reading a newspaper story and then make sense out of it. Perception has a number of steps: 1. Exposure i.e. sensing a stimuli e.g. seeing an ad 2. Attention i.e. an effort to recognize the nature of a stimuli e.g. recognizing it is an ad 3. Awareness i.e. assigning meaning to a stimuli e.g., humorous ad for particular product 4. Retention i.e. adding the meaning to one’s internal makeup i.e., product has fun ads How these steps are finally carried out depends on a person’s approach to wisdom.  By wisdom it means how someone changes what he or she know, which in turn may influence how he or she act. Customers are likely to keep information if a person has a strong interest in the stimuli.  If a person is in need of new car they are more likely to pay concentration to a new advertisement for a car while someone who does not need a car may need to see the advertisement many times before they recognize the brand of automobile. The intrinsic nature of the international e-tailing atmosphere escorts to the deliberation of purchase risk. The exogenous or extrinsic factors affect a mediator, i.e., perceived e-tailer service quality, which in turn affects purchase risk perceived by online shoppers in a borderless marketplace. Re-enforcing Consumer Learning: Marketers pay out large sums of money in an attempt to get customers to have a positive intuition of their products.  But obviously the existence of a perceptual filter proposes that getting to this stage is not easy.  Exposing consumers to a product can be very tough bearing in mind the amount of competing product ads that are also trying to achieve the same objective i.e., advertising clutter.  So marketers must be innovative and use various means to deliver their message.  Once the message reaches consumer it must be interesting enough to capture their attention e.g., talk about the product’s benefits.  But attending to the message is not enough.  For marketers the most serious step is the one that occurs with awareness.  Here marketers must continually monitor and respond if their message becomes distorted in ways that will negatively shape its meaning.  This can often happen due in part to competitive activity e.g., comparison advertisements.  Finally, getting the consumer to give positive meaning to the message they have retained requires the marketer make sure that consumers accurately interpret the facts about the product. That’s why perceptual marketing in proper way is important step for my product. (Nash, 2000) All behavior change receives from the reinforcing or discouraging effect of immediate payoff experiences. Over time, the objective level is adjusted towards the actually experienced payoffs. Aspiration level adjustments may improve the decision maker's long-run presentation by avoiding him or her from feeling discontented with even the best available strategies. However, such movements also lead to persistent deviations from expected payoff maximization by creating probability-matching effects. (Nash, 2000) Consumer Attitude formation and foot-in-the-door technique: The foot-in-the-door is basically to ask for something small and when they give it to you, then ask for something bigger. Yes, this strategy is applicable on my brand. The main thing is to convince the customer to buy my brand or product. I will try to rule out the main issues or questions raised by the customer about my product. Try to create good perception about Compaq computer and will remove any negative perceptions about Compaq computer. Compaq has been expanding beyond personal computers, and now it is providing handheld devices, servers and storage systems, in addition to software and consulting services. The Houston, Texas-based company designs, manufactures and products a range of computer products in more than two hundred countries. Compaq says its vision is to be everything to the Internet and it relies on online advertising and traditional media when devising ad campaigns. Compaq believes that the key to an effective online ad campaign is matching the message to the audience. If an ad is displayed in the right place to the right people, it can be very effective. In order to convince customer it is better to provide customer service online via phone and internet. Latest trends in the market also influence the perception of the customer. New products like taking notes and using an MP3 player, portable talking computer, portable scanning and reading, computer to talk to will definately appeal to people who are keen to have good portable note taking, reading and computing solutions. As cost is always an issue when in comes to technology, the introduction of a free screen reader is sure to be very welcome. In order to make the Compaq successful brand, new features should be added when introduced in the market in order to compete its competitors. Use of Communication media: Among all the advertising media, I will select T.V and Internet for my Compaq product advertisement. The main reason for this is that T.V is being watched by all and it is an effective source of communication, which attracts many watchers. Internet is another good option as it is a cheap source to advertise the product. Many online companies provide facility of uploading the ads free of cost and they then publish on their website and also to the Internet users. So by this source many customers can be attracted by this source of communication. Bibliography: Block.C, Roering.K, Engel.J, 1976, Essentials of Consumer Behavior, Dryden Press Fournies.F, 1999, Coaching for Improved Work Performance, McGraw-Hill Professional Lin.C, Atkin.D, 2007, Communication Technology and Social Change: Theory and Implications, Routledge Foxall.G, 2002, Consumer Behaviour Analysis: A Behavioural Perspective, Taylor & Francis (Foxall, 2002) Kapferer.J, 2008,The New Strategic Brand Management: Creating and Sustaining Brand Equity Long Term, Kogan Page Publishers Nash.E, 2000, Direct Marketing: Strategy, Planning, Execution, McGraw-Hill Professional Read More