Consumer Behavior And Marketing Mix Strategies

Factors influencing consumer behavior

1. Consumer Personality Affecting the Buying Behavior.

2. Consumer Behavior and Marketing Mix Strategies.

1. The buyer behavior of consumer gets affected with many factors present in the environment. One of them is the personality of person that influences them from purchasing certain products in the environment. The personality of a person might restrict them or convince them for buying a particular product in the market. Certain aspects related to personality and how they affect the buying behavior is discussed below:

Age: It should be noted that people have their personality changing with their age. For instance, in childhood all people used to like chocolate and candies but gradually after getting elder they start not liking the sweet taste of these chocolates. This is a change in the buying behavior of an individual due to change in their age. Thus, it should be noted that age of a person is an important aspect influence their behavior to purchase that product. In addition, the organizations selling their products in the market also targets a particular segment in the market whom their believe are the actual buyers and will surely initiate sales for the company (Lu, Chang, and Chang 2015). Like, a chocolate manufacturing company never targets people of elder age limit as 45-55 as they know that these people do not prefer buying their products. Instead, they target people of age group 5-20 years and 25-35 years whom they know will actually initiate sales in the market. Further, it should be noted that which the change in life cycle the personality of people also changes which instigate their choice and preference and make them purchase products that they never liked before (Randhawa, Calantone, and Voorhees 2015).

Lifestyle: The lifestyle of a person is merely the reflection of their personalities and self-concept. It is also said that if you want to know about the personality of a person then look for their lifestyle, you can easily get to know about them. Lifestyle is basically a person’s model of living as identified by their activities, opinions and interests. There is a way that determines the lifestyle of a person and their preference towards certain products. The organization uses the segmentation process to identify the choice of customers present in the environment (Olsen, Tudoran, Honkanen, and Verplanken 2016). Taking an example of the customer lifestyle, it should be noted that people having high class lifestyle prefer products that have high prices and are luxurious. They do not buy products that are present at nominal rates in retail market. They always purchase products that depicts the type of their lifestyle and give a way in which people can show off their lifestyle. Like, Audi, Mercedes Benz is some of the products that are offered to people of high class lifestyle as they will take interest in these products and purchase them. If, these products are offered to low or middle class people then the organization will not gain any output as these people do not have a luxurious lifestyle nor they want to show off it to any other person (Bock, Eastman, and Eastman 2016).

Importance of aligning marketing strategies with consumer preferences

Personality: The preference of a person depends upon their taste and personality. The preference of a person to purchase certain products depends on their taste and their personality traits. Personality is the sum total of an individual’s enduring internal psychological traits that makes then unique. Autonomy, shy, dominance, self-confidence, defensive etc. are some of the personality traits present in people. These characteristic present in a person affect them from taking any buying decision present in the environment. For instance, there is person who has a personality of getting influence with the opinion of other people (Hudson, Huang, Roth, and Madden 2016). Once, he saw an advertisement on television about certain product, knowing the fact that product was not good for their health that person purchased that product. So, it should be noted that the personality of a person strongly influence their buying behavior like in the above case, if that person didn’t had the personality of getting influenced with other people then they might not purchase that product as well. This is one of the biggest reason due to which companies hire famous personalities to promote their product in the market because they know that people will get influenced with them and purchase the products (Fagerstrøm, et. al., 2017).

Occupation and income: occupation and income is one strong reason that influence people from purchasing certain products. Based on the income and occupation only people purchase the products in the market. Like, a person with low income in hand will not go on purchasing high range products in the market but they will purchase products lying in their income level (Banerjee 2016). Further, talking about occupation, it should be noted that all people like maintain their status in the environment. Based on their status level they purchase products in the market. Taking an example of an architect, this person is having high status in the market. Assuming their nature it should be noted that this person will buy products that make their home look different from others because they want to maintain their status and do things that reflect their occupation as well (Tomczak, Reinecke, and Kuss 2018).

2. As discussed above, the marketers segment the market and target the customers with the use of customer behavior information attained with them. Thu, it should be noted that the consumer behavior strongly helps marketers to design the marketing strategy. The ultimate goal of making all these marketing strategies is to attract the target customers present in the market and initiate sales as well, so sales can be only initiated when the company the right type of customer and provide right specification to them in the market as well. Study of consumer behavior will adequately help to implement and amend strategies that help the company to succeed in their objectives as well. The marketing mix strategies gives information about 4P’s of the company that are product, price, place and promotion (Shank, and Lyberger 2014).

Further, it should be noted that the study of consumer behavior would help the marketers to analyze the market demand on the basis of which shall initiate the marketing strategies to influence sales. The strategic decisions get influenced with the changing behavior of consumers present in the environment. Furthermore, it should be noted that this study would not help the marketer to analyze attributes and increase sales but also create goodwill of the company in the target market as well. Relating to single aspect of marketing mix that is ‘product’, it should be noted that the product is something that is the face of the company that is being offered in the market (Babin, and Zikmund 2015). On the basis of satisfaction received from the products and services, the customer creates an image about the company in market. It is an important aspect that should be aligned with the interest of consumers so as to initiate sales in the market. The organizations present in the environment should create their products and services in such a way that maximum level of satisfaction is attained to customers in the target market. Now this satisfaction can only be increased if the expectation and results of products and services are same in the market. If the customer will expect something and get something else then the will not initiate repeated sales of product in the market (Davari, and Strutton 2014).

Case study: NIKE’s marketing strategies

Relating it to consumer behavior, it should be noted that if the company finds in their analysis that customer for shoes present in the market are of age group 20-35 years, then they will provide specifications in the product accordingly. The looking at the personality aspect, if the target customers likes hiking, trekking etc. activities then the company should use  thick sole so that it becomes easy for them to run and perform other outdoor activities (Schivinski, and Dabrowski 2016).

For instance, taking an example of the company ‘NIKE’, the marketers of the company found out that the maximum customers present in the market are athletes or loves running. Therefore, they innovated their products and services accordingly, they designed the products is such a way that they assist the runners in speeding up their performance and running without feeling burden of shoes. NIKE also included outer specifications in their product that attracted the customers who wish to buy sports shoes. Further, the company developed products differently according to the demand of customers present in the market (Funk, Alexandris, and McDonald 2016). They created thick as well as thin sole shoes according to their preference. The preference, lifestyle and occupation of the customer took a major role in determining the type and quality product served in the market NIKE. The company identified the taste of the customers and lifestyle through which they got to know about their athletic taste on the basis of which they added specifications in their products and exceled in the target market (Aguirre, et. al., 2015). Thus, in this way consumer behavior helps marketers in initiating the marketing mix strategies to increase sales of the products in the market.

References

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Babin, B.J. and Zikmund, W.G., 2015. Exploring marketing research. Cengage Learning.

Banerjee, S., 2016. Influence of consumer personality, brand personality, and corporate personality on brand preference: An empirical investigation of interaction effect. Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, 28(2), pp.198-216.

Bock, D.E., Eastman, J.K. and Eastman, K.L., 2016. Encouraging consumer charitable behavior: The impact of charitable motivations, gratitude, and materialism. Journal of Business Ethics, pp.1-16.

Davari, A. and Strutton, D., 2014. Marketing mix strategies for closing the gap between green consumers’ pro-environmental beliefs and behaviors. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 22(7), pp.563-586.

Fagerstrøm, A., Pawar, S., Sigurdsson, V., Foxall, G.R. and Yani-de-Soriano, M., 2017. That personal profile image might jeopardize your rental opportunity! On the relative impact of the seller’s facial expressions upon buying behavior on Airbnb™. Computers in Human Behavior, 72, pp.123-131.

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Hudson, S., Huang, L., Roth, M.S. and Madden, T.J., 2016. The influence of social media interactions on consumer–brand relationships: A three-country study of brand perceptions and marketing behaviors. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 33(1), pp.27-41.

Lu, L.C., Chang, H.H. and Chang, A., 2015. Consumer personality and green buying intention: The mediate role of consumer ethical beliefs. Journal of Business Ethics, 127(1), pp.205-219.

Olsen, S.O., Tudoran, A.A., Honkanen, P. and Verplanken, B., 2016. Differences and Similarities between Impulse Buying and Variety Seeking: A Personality?based Perspective. Psychology & Marketing, 33(1), pp.36-47.

Randhawa, P., Calantone, R.J. and Voorhees, C.M., 2015. The pursuit of counterfeited luxury: An examination of the negative side effects of close consumer–brand connections. Journal of Business Research, 68(11), pp.2395-2403.

Schivinski, B. and Dabrowski, D., 2016. The effect of social media communication on consumer perceptions of brands. Journal of Marketing Communications, 22(2), pp.189-214.

Shank, M.D. and Lyberger, M.R., 2014. Sports marketing: A strategic perspective. Routledge.

Tomczak, T., Reinecke, S. and Kuss, A., 2018. Introduction. In Strategic Marketing (pp. 1-18). Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden.