Consumer behavior | Marketing Concepts.
It is defined as the individual activities for the acquisition and use
of goods or services, including the decision-making processes that
precede and determine those activities. Actions that the consumer just in search, purchase, use and evaluation of products waiting will serve your needs.
It is also defined as the final buyer or buy to eat. It follows that a buyer is a consumer when you purchase to consume. This definition can have meaning only if it is generally agreed that consumption means the Act of purchase made without the intention of reselling it purchased, under this definition, brokers, manufacturers and others are excluded from consumers. However, when this manufacturer or intermediary buys, for example, capital goods, it is still a consumer, since your purchase is usually made without any purpose of resale.
The definition of consumer marketing depends in part on their conduct, that is, of the nature of their decision-making processes.
Currently the conduct is considered as a set of activities elementary, both mental and physical, as it may be preparing a shopping list, search for information, discussion on the distribution of the family budget, etc. that somehow influence each other and induce the Act of purchase, to the choice of a product or brand, or service.
The study of the behavior of the consumer is focused on all acts of individuals that are directly related to the production, use and consumption of goods and services.
Includes the study of why, the where, how often and in what conditions consume different goods or services. This area aims to understand, explain, and predict human actions related to consumption.
The study of consumer behavior poses multiple challenges:
A subculture is a distinct cultural group that exists as an identifiable sector within a large and complex society. Its members possess beliefs, values and customs that set aside them from other members of the same society. The main subcultural categories are: nationality, race, religion, geographical location, age, sex and education.
Ethnic subculture: attends the origins. Descendants of common ancestors: they tend to Vizier in the vicinity, they tend to marry people of the same group, they share a sense of belonging.
Youth subculture. The market of teens not only spends much of their own money, they do spend their families also. Children much influence family consumption decisions. Corporations take advantage of the persistent tendency of children in search of a new product.
When messages are designed for the youth market must take into account the following guidelines:
It is necessary to recognize certain unfavorable features:
A strategy of promotion that gives good results is the so-called "transgeneracion" in which adults, children and the elderly are all together. It has also to obtain the message:
Occupation usually provides a good indication of social class, as well as housing.
The structure of social classes can cover a range that goes from two to nine classes. A commonly used classification divides them into five groups: high, medium high, average, low, low average. Profiles of each of these classes indicate that socio-economic differences are reflected in differences in attitudes, leisure activities and consumption habits.
The research revealed unlike among the class in terms of habits of clothing, decor home, using your phone, use of leisure time, preference of the places of purchase and habits of saving, spending and use of credits. This can be used strategically in marketing. Studies of consumer dissatisfaction, reveal a relationship between the type of problems posed by the consumer and social class.
Contributions of psychology
The field of Psychology includes multitude of theoretical approaches to study human behavior. Making it easy to marketing, to understand the behavior of people as seen in the following theories:
The October theorists tend to be more practical and eclectic in their methods. None of the approaches have generated psychological tools with practical marketing applications.
In the practical applications of marketing for this observation appreciated in repetitive advertising, designed to strengthen the purchasing habits.
EJ. Consumer attitudes influence the purchasing behavior, point where the cognitive theory into action. Although a conductualista would seek relations relations of stimulus and response in the location of shopping, the cognitivist attributed the buying habits to the use of past experience and to a set of specific attitudes. The firmly-held attitudes tend to avoid that people pay attention to conflicting stimuli. In a marketing situation, such stimuli are competitors sales and advertising efforts.
Ordinarily a very persuasive sales advertising is required to change the attitude of a person with respect to a product or service provided by prior satisfaction. For example, it is very difficult to change the preference for food brands. There will be no changes in the preferences of brands, but even after customers potential have tried other products, so food retailers working hard to mislead potential customers to try other products. The techniques of reducing prices and give discount coupons have been effective, but once the potential customer purchases a competitive product, it should be better than he had been using or not, shall not be registered a lasting change in the purchasing behavior.
EJ. If a tooth brushes announcer want to imply that the dentists approved the product, the use of a person dressed as a dentist, is enough to convey this message. The implication is clear, even without stating that the person is a dentist or provide a dental office setting.
One of the main benefits derived from psychoanalytic theory is the work done in the investigation of the motivations, the researchers are able to increase the chances of success of a product or service, before making a substantial investment, resorting to the analytic theory, as well as some practical methods to discover the appropriate motivations.
Elements that contribute mostly to the process to the process of perception are past experiences, attitudes, characteristics of the stimulus and the characteristics of the personality of the individual.
For example; to select the appropriate stimulus, the merchant must know as much as possible about the target market. It should be remembered that the perception is selective and that each individual ride characteristics that determine the level and the amount of this selectivity. On a general scale, a new sports car, means fun, joy and/or position to its new owner; but it also means a Commission for the seller who made the sale. So it is important that marketing employees are aware of the way in which each market will respond
Secondary: here are all those groups that are not primary, such as political groupings, associations help, neighborhood committees, etc. In these groups the individual is not interested in them as people but how officers that play a role. Contrary to primary groups, the control that is applied is formal is to say there are regulations that establish rules and sanctions.
Reference groups: is the group to which you want to belong, it can be defined as a group of people who influence activities, values, behaviors, and can influence in the purchase of a product or the choice of the brand.
The marketing professional must identify a leader of opinion within the reference group to sell a product or brand. They can be classified as aspirational groups positive and aspirational negatives (disruptive groups). The most used in the mkt reference groups are: the personalities, experts and the "common man".
Celebrities are used to give testimony or props or as spokespersons for the company. Experts can really be or be actors playing such a role. The approach of the common man is designed to show that individuals as possible to customer are satisfied with the advertised product.
Appeals to reference groups are strategies promote effective because they serve to increase the product recall and to reduce the risk perceived among potential customers.
The self-concept: it is the perception of himself by the subject, and at the same time is the image that we think that others have about ourselves. The importance of studying the self-concept in mkt is given because the person through consumption describes itself.
Motivation: to understand that consumers observe certain conduct, it is necessary to first ask you is what drives a person to act. All behavior begins with motivation, the reason (or impulse) is a stimulated need dealing with the subject meet. One or more reasons a person inside trigger behavior toward a goal that supposedly will seek satisfaction.
It is important that the need has to be stimulated so that it becomes reason. Sometimes the man has needs that are latent, therefore, do not trigger the behavior because they are not sufficiently intense, i.e. have not been awakened. The source can be internal (give us hunger) or environmental (we see an ad for food). It is also possible that the mere fact of thinking of a need (food) wake up (hunger) need.
Family: small group to which belong for years, there is one that normally exerts influence more profound and long-lasting in our perceptions and behavior, this group is the family. This directly plays the role of final consumption operating as economic unit, earning and spending money. By doing this the members of the family are forced to set priorities individual and collective consumption, select which products and brands will buy and how will be used to meet the goals of the members of the family.
Most of the studies of the consumer are classified in family consumption decisions: dominant male (husband) female predominant (wife) joint automatic
Perception: is the process by which the individual selects, organizes and interprets stimulus to build a coherent and significant painting in the world. The consumer makes decisions based on that perceived rather than objective reality.
People usually perceive the things you need or want and block the perception of stimuli unfavorable or ungrateful.
The way in which products are perceived is the most important to your success than actual characteristics that possess. Products that are perceived favorably, obviously, are best likely to be purchased.
The handling of the time in the learning process, influences the duration of the retention of learned. The massive learning causes greater initial uptake, instead gradual learning gets greater temporal persistence. The most typical way of human learning is through the resolution of problems, which involves a mental process.
A very simple process of the structure and operation of memory suggests the existence of three storage units:
At the level of the macrosegmentacion, only the General characteristics are taken into account when future buyers are organizations; that is related to variables influences the behavior of consumption by cultural factors and within this subculture and social class.
But when it comes to consumers (people), it is necessary to refine the definition of the characteristics of buyers: ages, lifestyles, behavior purchase, sought benefits, what is characteristic of the micro-segmentation and is closely related to social and personal factors on the behavior of consumption.
Cognitive response: refers to the area of knowledge, i.e. the set of information and beliefs that may be an individual, a group of people "process by which an individual selects or interpret the information that this exposed"
Affective response: is essentially evaluation. It refers to the field not only knowledge, but the feeling of the preferences of intentions, favorable or unfavorable judgments of a brand or organization.
Response behavioral: the simplest and most direct behavioral response measure is given by product or brand sale statistics, supplemented by an analysis of market within each covered segment share. Other types of information are the set of habits, the conditions and the circumstances of field information and information on the post behavior - purchase (loyalty, share of market, satisfaction, etc.)
For this reason is said to be the behavior of the consumed an applied discipline. Such applications may occur at two levels of analysis: the MICRO and the SOCIAL.
Micro perspective: this perspective should inform consumers in order to help the company or organization to achieve its objectives. Advertising managers, product designers and many others who work Jan lucrative companies want to know consumers, in order to perform their tasks more efficiently.
Social perspective: applies to the aggregate levels of problems facing large groups or by society in general. On the macro level or global, we know that consumers collectively influence the socio-economic conditions of a society as a whole. In market systems is based on free will, the public deeply influences which will produce and the resources to be used for this purpose. Here the so important that the behaviour of consumers influence exerts on the quality and the standard of living.
As warns, the knowledge of the behaviour of the consumer from a macro perspective, it allows us to better understand the social or economic Megatrends and, perhaps, help us to predict them. In addition, it will indicate some ways to improve the efficiency of the market system and enhance the wellbeing of members of the society.
It is also defined as the final buyer or buy to eat. It follows that a buyer is a consumer when you purchase to consume. This definition can have meaning only if it is generally agreed that consumption means the Act of purchase made without the intention of reselling it purchased, under this definition, brokers, manufacturers and others are excluded from consumers. However, when this manufacturer or intermediary buys, for example, capital goods, it is still a consumer, since your purchase is usually made without any purpose of resale.
The definition of consumer marketing depends in part on their conduct, that is, of the nature of their decision-making processes.
Currently the conduct is considered as a set of activities elementary, both mental and physical, as it may be preparing a shopping list, search for information, discussion on the distribution of the family budget, etc. that somehow influence each other and induce the Act of purchase, to the choice of a product or brand, or service.
The study of the behavior of the consumer is focused on all acts of individuals that are directly related to the production, use and consumption of goods and services.
Includes the study of why, the where, how often and in what conditions consume different goods or services. This area aims to understand, explain, and predict human actions related to consumption.
The study of consumer behavior poses multiple challenges:
- Consumers do not tend to be fully aware of why they buy a product or a particular brand.
- Consumers often do not want to reveal the truth.
- Consumers do not tell the truth.
- Often we try to communicate much more than what we actually know.
- Consumers are complex.
- Internal emotions, our affection often impels us towards reactions not thought-out, impulsive, reckless and even incoherent.
Subcultural aspects in the behavior of the consumer
The subculture analysis allows the mkt segmenting the market to reach the needs, motivations, perceptions and attitudes that are shared by the Member a specific subcultural group.A subculture is a distinct cultural group that exists as an identifiable sector within a large and complex society. Its members possess beliefs, values and customs that set aside them from other members of the same society. The main subcultural categories are: nationality, race, religion, geographical location, age, sex and education.
Ethnic subculture: attends the origins. Descendants of common ancestors: they tend to Vizier in the vicinity, they tend to marry people of the same group, they share a sense of belonging.
Youth subculture. The market of teens not only spends much of their own money, they do spend their families also. Children much influence family consumption decisions. Corporations take advantage of the persistent tendency of children in search of a new product.
When messages are designed for the youth market must take into account the following guidelines:
- Never underestimate young people
- Be total, absolutely and unconditionally honest
- Young people to recognize the merit of being motivated by rational values
- Be more personal
It is necessary to recognize certain unfavorable features:
- Are conservatives
- They have less than half of the income of the entire population
- His mental faculties may be altered
- They have poor health
- They tend to isolate themselves from the people
A strategy of promotion that gives good results is the so-called "transgeneracion" in which adults, children and the elderly are all together. It has also to obtain the message:
- Make it simple
- Containing familiar elements
- Step by step
- Give preference to printed media
- Take advantage of the context by appealing to the evocation
Social class.
Social classes are Deoleo since they were founded in many components: are not equivalent to the entry; or some other isolated criterion are not result certain by any of them. Income tends to be a misleading indicator of social class position.Occupation usually provides a good indication of social class, as well as housing.
The structure of social classes can cover a range that goes from two to nine classes. A commonly used classification divides them into five groups: high, medium high, average, low, low average. Profiles of each of these classes indicate that socio-economic differences are reflected in differences in attitudes, leisure activities and consumption habits.
The research revealed unlike among the class in terms of habits of clothing, decor home, using your phone, use of leisure time, preference of the places of purchase and habits of saving, spending and use of credits. This can be used strategically in marketing. Studies of consumer dissatisfaction, reveal a relationship between the type of problems posed by the consumer and social class.
Contributions of psychology
The field of Psychology includes multitude of theoretical approaches to study human behavior. Making it easy to marketing, to understand the behavior of people as seen in the following theories:
• Learning theories about behavior
Theoretical psychology and applied differ in many points; but the main difference between that holds that the behavioral theories are the key to understanding human behavior, and those who defend the psychoanalytic theories proposed by Sigmund Freud.The October theorists tend to be more practical and eclectic in their methods. None of the approaches have generated psychological tools with practical marketing applications.
• Theories on the stimulus and the response
This type of theory, holds that learning occurs when a person responds to a stimulus and is rewarded for responding correctly or punished for giving a wrong answer. The first theories of this type of stimulus - response (e-r) were proposed by Pavlov, a Russian scientist who demonstrated that it was possible to make a dog to generate saliva when a stimulus that is conditioned, as, for example, meat powder, and not conditioned stimulus, were presented in the proper sequence i.e., anyone who does not normally cause response, contemporary psychologists have perfected and later modified the theories.In the practical applications of marketing for this observation appreciated in repetitive advertising, designed to strengthen the purchasing habits.
• Cognitive learning theories
Cognitive theorists believe that some aspects such as attitudes, beliefs, and experiences of persons, mentally combine to generate certain knowledge of a situation. According to the cognitivists, brain or central nervous system is the dominant element. In the majority of cases, cognitive learning theories reject the theories advocated by the conductualistas of stimuli of stimuli and responses of stimuli and responses, strict, tarring them as too mechanical. On the other hand the conductualistas reject the "mentality" of cognitive things. They insist that the behavior is visible and measurable, and believe that his theory is the practical approach to study Psychology.EJ. Consumer attitudes influence the purchasing behavior, point where the cognitive theory into action. Although a conductualista would seek relations relations of stimulus and response in the location of shopping, the cognitivist attributed the buying habits to the use of past experience and to a set of specific attitudes. The firmly-held attitudes tend to avoid that people pay attention to conflicting stimuli. In a marketing situation, such stimuli are competitors sales and advertising efforts.
Ordinarily a very persuasive sales advertising is required to change the attitude of a person with respect to a product or service provided by prior satisfaction. For example, it is very difficult to change the preference for food brands. There will be no changes in the preferences of brands, but even after customers potential have tried other products, so food retailers working hard to mislead potential customers to try other products. The techniques of reducing prices and give discount coupons have been effective, but once the potential customer purchases a competitive product, it should be better than he had been using or not, shall not be registered a lasting change in the purchasing behavior.
• Theory learning Gestalt
This theory is based on the perception, experience and an orientation towards specific goals. Psychologists who defend this theory believe that individual perceives a complete situation rather than assimilate particular elements of it. Therefore the whole, is something else that the simple sum of the elements that compose it, because people tend to organize the elements of a situation and then add others from past experience, making them experience it greater than the sum of individual perceptions, i.e., if a certain significant keys may be involved something more than what occurs in a situation.EJ. If a tooth brushes announcer want to imply that the dentists approved the product, the use of a person dressed as a dentist, is enough to convey this message. The implication is clear, even without stating that the person is a dentist or provide a dental office setting.
• Psychoanalytic theories of learning
Based on the original work done by Sigmund Freud, psychoanalytic theories holds that people are born with instinctive biological needs that rarely are socially acceptable. As the person matures and learns that those wishes cannot be satisfied in a direct way, looking for other means of satisfaction, therefore, Freud spoke of sublimation, substitution and other aspects to explain why people behave as it does.One of the main benefits derived from psychoanalytic theory is the work done in the investigation of the motivations, the researchers are able to increase the chances of success of a product or service, before making a substantial investment, resorting to the analytic theory, as well as some practical methods to discover the appropriate motivations.
• Motivation
The concept of motivation is an aspect that is hotly debated since many theoretical perspectives. However if it is considered as a necessity stimulated, becomes a concept accessible and useful for marketing personnel. Wake up a need creates a situation of motivation with inherent tensions that need to be resolved. Needs do not become motivators but until the individual is aware of the situation. For example, if a person does not feel hunger will not it feel motivated to eat. and on the other hand if you are hungry you will eat practically anything, if you have enough hunger; but in the absence of a biogenic need, the appeal of psychologically-derived motives determines that brands will be chosen, that products will be used, etc. This is known as learned or culturally induced reasons.• Perception
The perception is the interpretation of the feeling that are the raw data received by a subject, through their senses (spur), based on their physical attributes, its relationship with the surrounding environment and the conditions prevailing in the individual at a given time.Elements that contribute mostly to the process to the process of perception are past experiences, attitudes, characteristics of the stimulus and the characteristics of the personality of the individual.
For example; to select the appropriate stimulus, the merchant must know as much as possible about the target market. It should be remembered that the perception is selective and that each individual ride characteristics that determine the level and the amount of this selectivity. On a general scale, a new sports car, means fun, joy and/or position to its new owner; but it also means a Commission for the seller who made the sale. So it is important that marketing employees are aware of the way in which each market will respond
Social factors on the behavior of the consumer
Group primary: is the one in which personal relations are face to face with some frequency and even intimate and emotional level. These groups develop standards and roles. Family, work, friends, groups are examples of such groups. The primary group exerts informal control over its members, non-institutionalized control but no less effective.Secondary: here are all those groups that are not primary, such as political groupings, associations help, neighborhood committees, etc. In these groups the individual is not interested in them as people but how officers that play a role. Contrary to primary groups, the control that is applied is formal is to say there are regulations that establish rules and sanctions.
Reference groups: is the group to which you want to belong, it can be defined as a group of people who influence activities, values, behaviors, and can influence in the purchase of a product or the choice of the brand.
The marketing professional must identify a leader of opinion within the reference group to sell a product or brand. They can be classified as aspirational groups positive and aspirational negatives (disruptive groups). The most used in the mkt reference groups are: the personalities, experts and the "common man".
Celebrities are used to give testimony or props or as spokespersons for the company. Experts can really be or be actors playing such a role. The approach of the common man is designed to show that individuals as possible to customer are satisfied with the advertised product.
Appeals to reference groups are strategies promote effective because they serve to increase the product recall and to reduce the risk perceived among potential customers.
Personal factors of influence on consumer behavior.
Psychological
Personality: personality is defined as the pattern of an individual features which depend on behavioural responses. These have been used to study the behavior of the consumer and to explain organized all of his conduct. We know that the personality of a person is often reflected in clothes wearing, the brand and the type of car driving, the restaurants where we eat, etc. but we do not quantify the individual features of each individual.The self-concept: it is the perception of himself by the subject, and at the same time is the image that we think that others have about ourselves. The importance of studying the self-concept in mkt is given because the person through consumption describes itself.
Motivation: to understand that consumers observe certain conduct, it is necessary to first ask you is what drives a person to act. All behavior begins with motivation, the reason (or impulse) is a stimulated need dealing with the subject meet. One or more reasons a person inside trigger behavior toward a goal that supposedly will seek satisfaction.
It is important that the need has to be stimulated so that it becomes reason. Sometimes the man has needs that are latent, therefore, do not trigger the behavior because they are not sufficiently intense, i.e. have not been awakened. The source can be internal (give us hunger) or environmental (we see an ad for food). It is also possible that the mere fact of thinking of a need (food) wake up (hunger) need.
Family: small group to which belong for years, there is one that normally exerts influence more profound and long-lasting in our perceptions and behavior, this group is the family. This directly plays the role of final consumption operating as economic unit, earning and spending money. By doing this the members of the family are forced to set priorities individual and collective consumption, select which products and brands will buy and how will be used to meet the goals of the members of the family.
Most of the studies of the consumer are classified in family consumption decisions: dominant male (husband) female predominant (wife) joint automatic
Perception: is the process by which the individual selects, organizes and interprets stimulus to build a coherent and significant painting in the world. The consumer makes decisions based on that perceived rather than objective reality.
People usually perceive the things you need or want and block the perception of stimuli unfavorable or ungrateful.
The way in which products are perceived is the most important to your success than actual characteristics that possess. Products that are perceived favorably, obviously, are best likely to be purchased.
Learning, retention, and storage.
The first is the process by which the individual acquires the knowledge and experience of purchase and consumption that will apply in their future behavior. Part of the learning is intentional but good part is casual.The handling of the time in the learning process, influences the duration of the retention of learned. The massive learning causes greater initial uptake, instead gradual learning gets greater temporal persistence. The most typical way of human learning is through the resolution of problems, which involves a mental process.
A very simple process of the structure and operation of memory suggests the existence of three storage units:
- Sensory
- Short-term
- Long-term
At the level of the macrosegmentacion, only the General characteristics are taken into account when future buyers are organizations; that is related to variables influences the behavior of consumption by cultural factors and within this subculture and social class.
But when it comes to consumers (people), it is necessary to refine the definition of the characteristics of buyers: ages, lifestyles, behavior purchase, sought benefits, what is characteristic of the micro-segmentation and is closely related to social and personal factors on the behavior of consumption.
Cognitive response: refers to the area of knowledge, i.e. the set of information and beliefs that may be an individual, a group of people "process by which an individual selects or interpret the information that this exposed"
Affective response: is essentially evaluation. It refers to the field not only knowledge, but the feeling of the preferences of intentions, favorable or unfavorable judgments of a brand or organization.
Response behavioral: the simplest and most direct behavioral response measure is given by product or brand sale statistics, supplemented by an analysis of market within each covered segment share. Other types of information are the set of habits, the conditions and the circumstances of field information and information on the post behavior - purchase (loyalty, share of market, satisfaction, etc.)
Importance of the consumer behavior
The most important reason why examines consumer behavior, is the central role that plays in our lives. We spent much of the time in the market, buying or carrying out other related activities. We also devote much time to think about products and services, to talk with friends about them and to see or hear announcements related to them, in addition, the goods we acquire and the way in which we use them affect deeply in how we live our daily lives. These observations would be sufficient to justify the study of the subject. However some try to understand the topic for other reasons due to the behavior that has these and influence decision-making.For this reason is said to be the behavior of the consumed an applied discipline. Such applications may occur at two levels of analysis: the MICRO and the SOCIAL.
Micro perspective: this perspective should inform consumers in order to help the company or organization to achieve its objectives. Advertising managers, product designers and many others who work Jan lucrative companies want to know consumers, in order to perform their tasks more efficiently.
Social perspective: applies to the aggregate levels of problems facing large groups or by society in general. On the macro level or global, we know that consumers collectively influence the socio-economic conditions of a society as a whole. In market systems is based on free will, the public deeply influences which will produce and the resources to be used for this purpose. Here the so important that the behaviour of consumers influence exerts on the quality and the standard of living.
As warns, the knowledge of the behaviour of the consumer from a macro perspective, it allows us to better understand the social or economic Megatrends and, perhaps, help us to predict them. In addition, it will indicate some ways to improve the efficiency of the market system and enhance the wellbeing of members of the society.
Published for educational purposes