Understanding Consumer and Business Buyer Behaviour in Marketing

Buzz Marketing and Consumer Behavior

• Buzz marketing involves enlisting opinion leaders to serve as "brand ambassadors" who spread the word about a company's products.
• Many companies create brand ambassador programs to turn influential customers into brand evangelists.

Characteristics Affecting Consumer Behavior

• Social Factors: Family is the most important consumer buying organization in society, and it has been researched extensively.
• Family strongly influences buying behavior, and changing roles in the family mean that marketers must now engage both men and women.
• Children may also have a strong influence on family buying decisions.
• Roles and status: A person's role and status in society affect their buying behavior.

Personal Factors

• Age and Life-cycle Stage: People change the goods and services they buy over their lifetimes, and marketers define their target markets in terms of life-cycle stage.
• Occupation: A person's occupation affects the goods and services they buy, and marketers identify occupational groups with an above-average interest in their products and services.
• Economic Situation: A person's economic situation will affect their store and product choices.

Consumer Buyer Behavior

• The buying behavior of final consumers, individuals, and households that buy goods and services for personal consumption.
• The consumer market consists of all individuals and households that buy or acquire goods and services for personal consumption.

Business Buyer Behavior

• Major Influences on Business Buyers:
  • Environmental Factors: Business buyers are heavily influenced by factors in the current and expected economic environment, supply of key materials, technological, political, and competitive developments, culture, and customs.
  • Organizational Factors: Each buying organization has its own objectives, strategies, structure, systems, and procedures.
  • Interpersonal Factors: The buying center usually includes many participants who influence each other.

Stages of the Business Buying Process

• Problem recognition: The first stage of the business buying process, in which someone in the company recognizes a problem or need that can be met by acquiring a good or a service.
• General need description: The stage in which a buyer describes the general characteristics and quantity of a needed item.
• Information search: The stage in which the buyer searches for more information.
• Evaluation of Alternatives: The stage in which the buyer evaluates alternative brands in the choice set.
• Purchase decision: The buyer's decision about which brand to purchase.
• Post-purchase behavior: The stage in which consumers take further action after purchase based on their satisfaction or dissatisfaction.

Adoption and Diffusion Process for New Products

• Stages in the Adoption Process:
  • Awareness: The consumer becomes aware of the new product but lacks information about it.
  • Interest: The consumer seeks information about the new product.
  • Evaluation: The consumer considers whether trying the new product makes sense.
  • Trial: The consumer tries the new product on a small scale.
  • Adoption: The consumer decides to make full and regular use of the new product.

Influence of Product Characteristics on Rate of Adoption

• Relative advantage: The degree to which the innovation appears superior to existing products.
• Compatibility: The degree to which the innovation fits the values and experiences of potential consumers.

E-Procurement

• E-procurement is purchasing through electronic connections between buyers and sellers, usually online.
• It gives buyers access to new suppliers, lowers purchasing costs, and hastens order processing and delivery.
• Business marketers can connect with customers online to share marketing information, sell products and services, provide customer support services, and maintain ongoing customer relationships.