Buyer Behaviors

Consumer Buyer Behavior

Persuading people to purchase
goods and services
 The primary goal of an IMC program is
to persuade people to buy goods and
services. To do that we need to
understand how people make decisions
to buy them.
 Consumer buyer behaviors and B2B
buyer behaviors
Looking for a house
A typical family in the buying process
 Consumer Purchasing Process
 Marketing communications help to influence
consumer purchasing decisions.
 Messages that will entice customers to
buy products should be developed.
 Consumer decision-making process
goes through several stages. Two of the
most important components of this
process are:
 Information Search
 Evaluation of Alternatives
 Consumer Decision Making
Process

Problem
Recognition

Information
Search
Evaluation of
Alternatives

Purchase
Decision

Post-purchase
Evaluation
Information Search
 Consumer recognizes a need
 Searches for information
 Internal search – mentally recalls products
that meet the need and may make a decision
 If the previous experience does not help, a
more complete internal search will have to
follow. This includes memories of past
experiences as well as the examination of
other brands.
 The consumer may remove brands that did
not satisfy him on earlier occasions and also
eliminate brands which he did not know
about.
 The brand managers and creatives should
hence make sure that the company’s brands
would become part of the consumer’s set of
potential alternatives.
External Search
 Should the consumer is uncertain about the
right brand to buy based on the internal
search, the external search follows.
 External information comes from friends,
relatives, peers, experts, books, magazines,
newspapers, advertisements, PR activities,
store displays, sales people, and the Internet.
 The amount of time a consumer spends on
the external search depends upon:
 Ability to search
 Level of motivation determined by:
Level of involvement- might depend on how
important is the product for him
Need for cognition – is a personality
characteristic an individual displays when
he/she engages in and enjoys mental
activities
Level of shopping enthusiasm
 Final factors that influence an information
search are:
the perceived costs
and the perceived benefits
 Higher perceived benefits increase the
tendency to search
 Consumers do look for reducing the purchase
risk – by collecting more information the risk
of making a wrong decision can be reduced
Search costs
 The actual cost of the good or service
 Subjective costs associated with the search, such as
time spent, anxiety experienced while deciding
 Opportunity cost of forgoing other activities to search
for information (going shopping instead of attending
a marriage or watching a cricket match on TV)
 Greater the perceived subjective cost of the external
search, the less likely the consumer will conduct a
search
 From the IMC perspective, the search process is an
important time to reach the customer with
information about a particular brand
Major Influences in Consumer
Decision-making Process
 The right time for the marketers to influence
the decision-making process is when the
customer has not made his/her mind. The
key is to provide the right information at the
right time in the right manner.
 We may examine three important concepts at
this point of time: (1) Attitude, (2) Values,
and (3) Cognitive Mapping
Consumer Attitude
 Is a mental position taken toward a topic,
person, or event that influences the holder’s
feelings, perceptions, learning process, and
subsequent decisions.
 From the IMC point of view, attitudes can
drive purchase decisions.
 Attitude consists of three components:
Affective, Cognitive, and Conative
 Affective component- contains the feelings or
emotions of a person in regard to an object,
topic, or idea
 Cognitive (behavioral) component – refers to
a person’s mental images, understandings,
and interpretations of the person, object, or
issue.
 Conative component – is an individual’s
intentions, actions, or behavior.
Cognitive Affective Conative

Most of the time, a person develops an understanding about an

idea or object. These thoughts emerge from watching TV or
newspaper, Internet ads. or word of mouth. Eventually these
ideas become beliefs the consumer will have about a product or
service. The affective part of the attitude is the general feeling or
emotion a person attaches to the idea. In the case of goods and
services the product, its name, and other features all generate
emotions. Decision and action tendencies are the conative parts of
attitudes.
Attitudes can develop in other ways too:

Affective Conative Cognitive

The goal here is to make the consumer “like” a product and

then make the purchase (the conative component). Conitive
mechanism follows.

Conative Cognitive Affective

Purchase that require little thought, have a low price, or

those that do not require a great deal of emotional
involvement may follow this path.
Consumer Values
 Attitudes are partly shaped by one’s
values which are strongly held beliefs
about topics or concepts. Values tend to
be enduring and normally form during
childhood, although they can change as
a person ages and experiences life. If a
good service can be tied to a relatively
universal value, such as patriotism,
love, etc. it gain positive image.
Common Personal Values
 Comfortable life  Pleasure
 Equality  Salvation
 Excitement  Security
 Freedom  Self-fulfillment
 Fun, exciting life  Self-respect
 Happiness  Sense of belonging
 Inner peace  Social acceptance
 Mature love  Wisdom
 Personal
accomplishment
Cognitive Mapping
 Individuals store information in different
ways and it impacts the way in which
information is recalled. People store,
retrieve, and evaluate information and
hence marketing communication
managers should hence understand
how various processes and memories
work.
Cognitive maps
 These are simulations of the knowledge
structures and memories embedded in
individuals’ brains. These structures contain
assumptions, beliefs, interpretation of facts,
feelings, and attitudes about the larger world.
People use these thought processes to
interpret new information and to determine
an appropriate response to fresh information
or a novel situation.
Hamburger
Restaurants
Great Food
Dine-In

Fast Foods
Applebee’s
Ruby Tuesday

Little Caesar’s
Pizza Excellent
Service

Pizza Hut
Mel’s Diner
Slow

Cognitive Map for Ruby Tuesday

 This customer gets an image of Ruby
Tuesday as:
 One that gives dine-in service
 One that gives excellent service
 One that offers slow service like that of Mel’s
Diner
Cognitive structures contain many linkages
and exist on several spatial levels and conjure
images of the actual physical location of Ruby
Tuesday