Marketing and Consumer Behaviour

What do you understand from the Study of Consumer Behaviour?

Consumer behaviour refers to people's actions and decision process while purchasing goods and services for consumption or purpose. It is the study of consumers and factors that play a pivotal role in purchasing by them. These factors drive them to buy certain products or use certain services. In other words, it is the psychological study of how a person makes decisions, what factors urge to purchase goods or services, what to buy and what not to buy, when to buy, etc.

Multiple factors are responsible for determining a person's buying behaviour, like social factors, psychological factors, and personal factors. While studying consumer marketing behaviour, a few questions generally considered are:

·????????What is the perception of consumers about a particular brand, product or service?

·????????What comes to the mind of a person when he chooses one product over other?

·????????What is the effect of the external environment on Consumer buying patterns?

·????????What is the effect of inflation on buying patterns?

There is a long list of factors that should be considered while studying consumers' buying patterns. It helps us to know what do consumers buy, why do they buy, when do they buy, how often do consumers buy, for what reason do they buy, and much more.

Studying consumer behaviour helps the business to grow more rapidly. Suppose the company has an idea about the target customers are for its product or services and their likes and dislikes about the product or services. In that case, it will be much easier to direct the efforts towards meeting the exact requirement of those customers. It will give a competitive edge to the business because the product or services delivered by such a business will build a greater value in the Customer's mind than its competitor.

Whenever the business talks about maintaining a long-term stability in the sales pattern, it keeps the great products in a store. Still, it is equally important about what value such a product creates for the customers'? If the product can meet the Customer's exact need, then it will always be in demand.

To study the Customer's buying pattern, the most critical aspect is to check the Consumer's behaviour. So we need to do many surveys and reporting to get complete information about consumer behaviour. However, we should always keep in mind that every Consumer is different and behave differently under other circumstances. So this study should be done diligently to generate good results.

A business Organization should study consumer behaviour to know how to create, market, and sell its products or services effectively. The more data it gathers, the better would be its decisions making.

Major factors that impact consumer behaviour patterns?

Consumer behaviour is not static, and it changes over a while. There are several factors responsible for the change in Consumer buying patterns. A marketer must understand these factors so that the marketing efforts can be aligned accordingly with an Organizational goal. Let look at some factors which create an impact on Consumer buying patterns. These factors are as follows:

Marketing factors like product design, pricing, promotion, packaging, and distribution

Personal factors like (age, gender, education, health, etc.)

Psychological factors: such as (buying motives, perceptions and attitudes).

Situational factors such as physical surroundings, the time factor, etc

Social factors like social status, reference groups, social group and family

Cultural factors such as religion and ethnicity

Lifestyle factors such as status, income and identity

Geographical factors such as region, country and urban or rural.

How is the study of consumer behaviour and Marketing Strategy interlinked?

Studying consumer behaviour is an important activity because it helps marketers understand what influences consumers' behavioural patterns.?Those marketers, who leverage the power of consumer behaviour, automatically take giant steps forward against competitors to reach their audience. It helps marketers to decide how to present their products in a way so to creates a maximum impact on the consumers. It is the secret to reaching and engaging your clients and converting them to purchase from you.

Understanding how consumers decide on a product helps to identify the products that are needed and the obsolete products.

A different set of factors often influences consumer behaviour. Therefore, marketers should study consumer purchase patterns in depth to figure out buyer trends. A consumer behaviour analysis is a handy tool in this stage, and it helps to disclose the following:

·????????What consumers think and feel about various alternatives available in the market;

·????????What influences consumers to choose between various alternatives available;

·????????Consumers' attitude, and impact of latest trends;

·????????Impact of external environment on Consumer's behaviour.

According to a Salesforce report, around 76% of consumers expect companies to understand their needs and expectations. This means that if you don't know your customers' expectations before telling you, it will negatively impact your business.

Every successful organization builds their marketing strategies aligned with consumer behaviour analysis to build up a strong foundation.

?Never Base your activities and Marketing Incentives on your Ideas only. Instead, use the data you gather and put them into use; Data is your gold mine

extract what customers want and how they want it, then interact with them accordingly to generate a profitable marketing strategy. This helps bring a positive customer experience, ultimately leading to a loyal customer base.

Benefits of studying Consumer behaviour patterns from a Marketing perspective?

Understanding consumer behaviour is essential for every organization that wants to survive in this competitive business world. A business must know that every Consumer has a different thought process and buying pattern due to the impact of various internal and external factors.?

For studying consumer behaviour patterns, the following factors are generally considered the below.

1. Consumer Differentiation:

In marketing, consumer differentiation is defined as a technique to distinguish a consumer from other consumers. It helps the organization to build a target group of consumers with the same or similar behaviour pattern. Consumer differentiation is helpful to tailor marketing strategies according to the needs of varying customer groups.

2. Long term Customer loyalty:

"Consumer behaviour is important to marketers in business as the main aim is to create and retain customers,

" according to Professor Theodore Levitt.

Consumer behaviour not only helps in attracting new customers but also very useful to retain existing customers. For example, when customers are happy about a particular product or a service, they will repeat the purchase. Therefore, marketing for your offering may convince the present and prospective Customers to urge them to buy the product repeatedly.

Thus, it is evident that Getting and retaining them both are important and can be more made only by understanding and paying attention to buyer behaviour.

3. Designing an effective Marketing Campaign:

Understanding consumer behaviour helps to create effective marketing campaigns. It enables the Organisation to design each campaign specifically to meet a different consumer group based on their behaviour.

A study of consumer behaviour patterns enables marketers to know about what motivates the consumers to make purchases. Further, the same motive can be utilized in advertising media to stir the desire to purchase.

4. Estimation of Market Trend:

Estimating a market trend is helpful to know about the Customer behaviour pattern. A company may save a lot of money if correctly predicting the changes in customer behaviour due to changes in market trends. For instance, the recent trend of consumers is towards healthy food. Many top brands observe this changing pattern, and based on this pattern, they have brought healthy food options to their menu.

By predicting change in the market trend, a company can save many resources that might otherwise be allocated to produce a product that will not be sold in the market. For example, a business will not waste its resources to create a product that will not sell in summer. Hence, the company may alter its production strategies which results in saving of warehousing and marketing costs.

5. Nature of Competition:

Competition in the market is an essential factor that causes an impact on the behaviour of the Consumer. If the competition is high, then the Customer has a more significant number of options to move quickly to the competitor's product. Hence, the business is required to do something to obtain a competitive advantage over the competitor. One of the best ways to achieve this is to bring innovation to your products or services. If your product or services are innovative, then it will attract more customers.

6. Improve Customer Service

Consumer behaviour study helps the business to know about the needs and expectations of the Consumer. This study will satisfy the customers by providing them better support and after-sales services to bring trust and loyalty among customers. This helps in the better growth of the business.

Conclusion

Consumer behaviour analysis has emerged as an essential tool to understand your customers. By looking into consumer psychology and the forces behind customer buying behaviour, companies can craft the appropriate marketing strategy, build effective marketing campaigns and increase profitability.?

Suppose an Organization aligns its marketing strategy with Consumer behaviour Patterns. In that case, it may rarely miss out on marketing opportunities in front of it. So this study is the essence of the effective marketing strategy of any business.

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