Week 03 · Introduction to Marketing
Davood Wadi, PhD
Welcome to Week 3 of Introduction to Marketing.
Today we will explore Consumer Behavior.
We will cover the consumer decision-making process, influences on buying behavior, and B2B vs B2C purchasing.
Consumer buyer behavior refers to the buying behavior of final consumers.
The consumer market consists of all the individuals and households that buy or acquire goods and services for personal consumption.
Understanding this process is key to predicting how consumers will respond to marketing strategies.
The buying process starts with need recognition.
The buyer recognizes a problem or need triggered by internal or external stimuli.
Marketers must research to find out
Each moment starts a buying process. Sort it by where the trigger comes from.
Tap a card, then tap the group it belongs to.
Once a need is triggered, consumers may or may not search for more information.
Information sources include personal sources, commercial sources, public sources, and experiential sources.
The most effective sources tend to be personal, as they legitimize or evaluate products for the buyer.
Sam is buying a stroller and gathers information from four places. Match each source type to what Sam uses.
Source type
What Sam uses
Tap a term, then the example it goes with.
Consumers use information to evaluate alternative brands in the choice set.
The process varies significantly depending on the individual consumer and the specific buying situation.
Marketers should study buyers to find out how they actually evaluate brand alternatives.
In the evaluation stage, the consumer ranks brands and forms purchase intentions.
Generally, the consumer's purchase decision will be to buy the most preferred brand.
However, attitudes of others and unexpected situational factors can come between the purchase intention and the purchase decision.
The marketer's job does not end when the product is bought.
Postpurchase behavior focuses on whether the consumer is satisfied or dissatisfied with the purchase.
Cognitive dissonance, or buyer discomfort caused by postpurchase conflict, is a common occurrence.
Right after paying for an expensive laptop, Karim keeps wondering if he should have bought the other brand. What is he experiencing?
Discussion: Think about a time you experienced "buyer's remorse" after a major purchase. How could the brand have communicated with you to reduce that cognitive dissonance?
Consumer purchases are influenced strongly by cultural, social, personal, and psychological characteristics.
Marketers cannot control such factors, but they must take them into account.
These factors help us understand why consumers act the way they do.
Culture is the most basic cause of a person's wants and behavior.
It includes basic values, perceptions, wants, and behaviors learned from society.
Subcultures are groups of people with shared value systems based on common life experiences and situations.
A person's buying choices are further influenced by four major psychological factors.
These are
Perception is the process by which people select, organize, and interpret information to form a meaningful picture of the world.
Perception is the process by which people select, organize, and interpret information. Which part of perception is each shopper doing?
Lina picks out a few pieces of information and ignores the rest, so she is selecting.
Omar arranges what he sees into groups, so he is organizing.
Julie gives the price a meaning, so she is interpreting.
Theo lets one post through and skips the others, so he is selecting.
Aisha puts the information into a structure, so she is organizing.
Marc reads a meaning into the package, so he is interpreting.
Which concept does this case show?
Discussion: How has a specific social media influencer affected your perception of a brand, and do you think their influence was based more on their expertise or their lifestyle?
While B2C (Business-to-Consumer) marketing focuses on the final consumer, B2B (Business-to-Business) focuses on organizations.
Business buyer behavior refers to the buying behavior of organizations that buy goods and services for use in the production of other products.
The business market is huge and differs from the consumer market in several key ways.
The business marketer normally deals with far fewer but far larger buyers than the consumer marketer does.
Business demand is derived demand; it ultimately derives from the demand for consumer goods.
B2B demand is also more inelastic and fluctuating compared to B2C.
A maker of aluminum cans sees its orders drop after people start buying fewer soft drinks. Which idea explains this?
B2B purchases are rarely made by a single individual.
The buying center consists of all the individuals and units that play a role in the purchase decision-making process.
It includes users, influencers, buyers, deciders, and gatekeepers.
A hospital is buying new patient monitors. Match each buying-center role to the person who plays it.
Role
Who plays it
Tap a term, then the example it goes with.
Compared with consumer purchases, a business purchase usually involves more decision participants and a more professional purchasing effort.
Business buying is done by trained purchasing agents who spend their professional lives learning how to buy better.
Therefore, B2B marketers must have well-trained salespeople to deal with well-trained buyers.
Discussion: Why might a B2B software company need to create entirely different marketing materials for the "user" (e.g., an IT employee) versus the "decider" (e.g., the CFO) within the same buying center?
Understanding the consumer decision-making process is foundational to effective marketing.
Cultural, social, and psychological factors continuously shape consumer preferences.
While B2B and B2C markets share some similarities, B2B purchasing is generally more complex, professional, and relationship-driven.
Social Factors
A consumer's behavior is influenced by social factors such as the consumer's small groups, social networks, family, and social roles.
Reference groups serve as direct or indirect points of comparison or reference in forming a person's attitudes or behavior.
Word-of-mouth influence and influencer marketing play a massive role here.