Buyer behaviour
Understanding customers, making them happy, and increasing their willingness to buy is vital. I have talked about this in previous articles, but today, we will get to know the buyer more closely and examine consumer behavior. Consumer behavior, in its simplest sense, is the fulfillment of desires and needs by individuals or groups. A consumer chooses a product, purchases it, uses it, and finally throws it away. This is simply the process by which a consumer uses a product or service and varies according to age, habits, and many other factors. Thus, they can market and sell the product or service they want in accordance with their own customer base and potential customers. So what are the factors affecting buyer behavior? Let’s list them.
1) Cultural: Which culture and subculture does the Buyer come from? What is the Buyer’s social class? What are the traditions in his/her culture?
2) Social: What is its role in social groups? What is their role in the family? What are their buying habits in smaller groups, and how do they perceive different brands?
3) Personal: What is his/her age, occupation, monthly income, economic situation, and lifestyle? What are his/her savings, if any? How does he/she manage his/her own money?
4) Psychological: What are his/her motivations for buying? What are his/her spending habits? How does spending more/less money affect a person psychologically?
These four items are questions that will help you understand the buyer better.
In fact, all the work and action are based on convincing the buyer. As a company, you are trying to influence the buyer to buy your product/service. As a result, the company earns. Therefore, you should be one of the first strong brands that the buyer thinks of when buying product “x” or service. Let’s create a small case, and let me try to explain the subject through this case. Jack is 27 years old and works in the HR department of a company. Jack wants to subscribe to a streaming service and watch TV series/movies online. (Which company came to your mind first? — → Probably Netflix, then Amazon Prime, and others.) Now, Netflix’s whole marketing campaign may not be to actively sell subscriptions to everyone all the time. But whenever any user wants to subscribe to a streaming service, Netflix will be one of the first apps that comes to mind. This is because Jack has already seen and heard about Netflix on social media, heard at least one of the Netflix shows in conversation with friends, and at least one person is surprised that Jack doesn’t have a Netflix account. This shows that whenever a buyer is going to make a purchase decision, the brand that comes to mind in the first 2 seconds has to do intense PR work beforehand. So that the buyer gets into that market and makes a purchase. This is a little bit from Netflix’s perspective. Now let’s look at it from Jack’s perspective:
a) Need recognition: The customer first feels the lack of a product or service, and there is a need to buy “something”.
b) Information search: The customer creates a pool of options to find more information. At its simplest, it searches Google and sees the same products produced by different brands.
c) Evaluation of alternatives: In this stage, the customer starts to eliminate the alternative products. This is the stage where a few different brands are now the last ones left for purchase. In the table below, you can see how the consumer eliminates brands from his/her mind when choosing a sports brand.
d) Purchase decision: There are 4 different situations in the purchase decision here. Let’s explain this through a table.
Area 1: Buying behavior is complex if the differences between preferred brands are very significant and the buyer’s involvement is high. For example, if a buyer is torn between Windows and Mac, and if this choice is very important to this person, the buying behavior is indeed complex and the buyer has a hard time making a decision. Because buyer has to evaluate so many parameters in head and make a decision.
Area 2: If the differences between the preferred brands are very significant and the buyer’s involvement is low, this can be explained as follows: It means that the buyer does not have to make a very difficult and crucial decision. Therefore, it may consider different alternatives for different reasons. For example, if the buyer is going to buy a product and finds a cheaper product, the buyer may prefer cheaper product since its involvement is not high. The product or service the buyer considers to buy may not be a very essential one.
Area 3: In this buying behaviour, the buyer is highly involved and there are few differences between brands. Purchasing a diamond ring can be given as an example.
Area 4: Both differences between brands and involvement rate is few and low. So, purchasing a toilet paper can be given as an example. It does not matter so much which brand a buyer chooses in terms of toilet papers.
e) Postpurchase behavior: Postpurchase behavior is as important as the purchasing decision. At this stage, it will be seen whether the buyer will buy the same product or service from the same company in the next purchase. If the buyer is satisfied,he or she is likely to prefer the same company for the next purchase. Moreover, if a buyer likes the product, his or her thoughts will be known in his or her environment, so awareness of the brand will increase. Thus, the WOMM effect will work.
The final picture we need to look at is a diagrammatic representation of a customer’s journey to purchase a product or service, inside their own brain. This is the Hierarchy of Efects model.
According to the hierarchy of effects model, a consumer’s purchase of a product or service consists of seven stages in total. At first (for a customer who has never heard of the brand or product before), the customer is not aware of the product and does not know it. When they hear the name of this product from their environment, they move to the “Awareness” step, and the name of the product is now known. Afterwards, the consumer gets detailed information about the product by doing some research about the product and getting more detailed information from his or her environment. It would not be wrong to say that the steps taken so far are valid for all consumers. As consumers, each of us hears, does research, and recognizes certain brands. After the “Knowledge” step, if the product is really liked, the “Liking” step begins.
Companies have to leave a good impression in the customer’s mind until the “Liking” step. Customers should believe that the brand value of the relevant brand is high and that its products or services are purchasable. Otherwise, it will be difficult to move on to the next step, “Preference”. If you research which steps your customers and potential customers are more hesitant and unsure about and focus on these areas, it will be easier to convince them and get them to buy. If you can finally “persuade” customers and get them to buy, you have achieved the transaction. As can be seen in the table, all steps up to the “Purchase” step are more abstract. There is only one step where the customer can take action, and that is “Purchase”. However, as I said before, every strategic decision you take before the “Purchase” step will evaluate your brand in the eyes of the customer and make your company well perceived. Thus, more people are likely to buy your product or service.
