Importance of Consumer Behavior - Essay Example

CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR INTRODUCTION Consumer behavior is important for all the marketers because it helps them to predict and also to understand the buying behavior of all the consumers in the market place. It is not only concerned with what the consumers buy, but also with the main reason that why they buy it, where and when and how they buy it, and also how often they buy it, and how they consume it and how they dispose it. Generally every marketer knows that various services and material goods serve multiple purposes to all the consumers. They have functional uses in order to meet their basic needs such as protection and subsistence. Additionally, they also serve symbolic purposes that help consumers to facilitate a variety of complex, social cohesion, group norms and also the pursuit of the cultural and personal meaning. Moreover, motivations on the other hand for purchase may also vary from being deliberate in intent towards more of an expression of "routines, habits, expectations and social norms, and dominant cultural values" Different conceptual models also enable the marketers in order to obtain a deeper understand of what actually motivates the consumer behavior and drives the change. Quite simply, these models do the following things: Provide "heuristic frameworks" that helps to conceptualize the social and the psychological influences on both the pro-environmental and on the mainstream consumer behaviour." Enable different ways in order to determine the correlation between various kinds of relationships in different situations. At a very simplistic level, marketers also tend to wrestle with all the seemingly conflicting social-psychological motivations that do include, Rational vs. less-than-rational choices e.g. emotional response, and various mental short-cuts. Social conformation vs. individual selection e.g. constraints, contexts, and expectations. Internal antecedents e.g. attitudes, values, intentions vs. different external antecedents e.g. incentives, institutional constraints and social norms. IMPORTANCE OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOR Consumer behavior has now become an integral part of the strategic market planning. It is also termed as the main base towards the approach of the concept known as Holistic Marketing. A marketing manager would always like to know that how the consumer behavior will help him in order to design better marketing plans, and also to get those plans accepted by the company. (Smith, 2000, pp. 40-47) 10 MOST IMPORTANT THINGS THAT ALL THE MARKETERS SHOULD KNOW ABOUT CONSUMER BEHAVIOR: Following are the 10 important things which marketers should know about consumer behavior: 1. To Know One Own Self. This is one of the most important points which should be the top most priority for every marketer to know that what actually he is trying to do. How he wants to influence his customers, what are the main ideas and what are the techniques with the help of which he can very easily attract his customers. 2. Marketer should know the inner feelings of the customers. It is the second main responsibility of every marketer to know that what actually their customer want from them. What actually are their needs and demands and how they can cater to them. In order to know the inner feelings of the customer, the marketer should be strong enough; he should be creative and should be research oriented in order to know that what actually the customers want. 3. Atmospherics. Atmosphere is one of the important factor with the help of which marketers can easily attract the customers. For e.g. if an atmosphere is pleasant then customers will for sure feel comfortable and they feel good while shopping in any store. Following are some ways with the help of which marketers can attract the customers if they are providing good and pleasant atmosphere. Organized checking counters. Pleasant odors. Pleasant environment Good customer services. These above mentioned are some of the examples of maintaining good and a friendly atmosphere with the help of which a marketer can very easily gain the attention of the customers. 4. Buyer characteristics This is one of the third important points because it is the utmost duty of every marketer to keep this in mind that what actually are the characteristics of the buyers related to any product. The characteristic of any buyer means that while buying or while selecting things how the customer is motivated, what are the main things with the help of which he get attracted towards the product and what kind of personality does the customer have so that the product should be according to his personality. 5. Demographics. A demographic is a term which used in marketing and broadcasting, in order to describe a market segment or a demographic grouping. This basically involves Gender, age brands and social class brands. This is one of the important points which each marketer should know because with the help of this they can advertise their brand very well by knowing that what customers actually want. Income is one of the major points which should never be neglected. Marketer should keep this in mind that, what we are providing is according to the income of our customers. Marketers should advertise such products which people can buy easily. They should make and advertise products according to the income level of every customer. 6. Culture. Culture is another most important thing. As everyone belongs to different culture, have different beliefs, norms etc. marketer should know that what we are providing and to whom we are providing. This is the main responsibility of every marketer to make this clear that are we providing things according to the customer's culture. 7. Social Class. This is the sixth main point for every marketer. In this the marketer should be able to know that what consumers actually want. The marketer should know the lifestyles of all the consumers so that they can cater to their needs according to their values and beliefs. Different people do have different set of thoughts, ideas. People have their own lifestyles and therefore they want things according to their lifestyle. The marketer should be able to know that what actually the demands of the customers are. 8. Decision Making Process. This point is termed as a seventh important point. The marketer should know the decision making process of every customer. How they actually select the product. The technique of selecting product is different for every customer; therefore each marketer should know that how actually people select the product so that they can be catered in the same manner. 9. Motivation This is the eighth most important thing because this will help all the marketers to attract their consumers in order to increase the sale of their product. Needs of Hierarchy is the term which every marketer should know in order to cater their consumers. 10. Marketing Stimuli Marketing stimuli means the product, price, place and promotion. All the marketers should know that what actually the product is, for whom it is meant for, what are the pricing strategies and how to promote that particular product. 11. Environmental Stimuli Environmental stimuli consist of all the factors which are economical, technical, political or cultural. The marketer should know that what the factors which can harm the product are. (Kotler, 2006) REFERENCE Kotler, Philip, 2006, Marketing Management, McGraw Hill. Smith, John, 2000, Importance Of Consumer Behavior, Princeton Hall, pp. 40-47. Read More