CONSUMER BEHAVIOR AND

MARKETING CONCEPT
Consumer behaviour and the marketing
concept

 The relationship between the marketing

concept and consumer behaviour is that
marketers have to understand markets
before marketing strategies can be
developed.

 Buyer behaviour is the decision making

process and acts of individuals or
organisations involved in buying and using
products or services
Need for consumer behavior in Marketing

 The heterogeneity among people makes

understanding consumer behavior a
challenging task to marketers. Hence
marketers felt the need to obtain an in-depth
knowledge of consumers buying behavior.
 Marketers tries to forecast the future buying
behavior of customers and devise marketing
strategies in order to create long term
customer relationship
Customers versus Consumers

 Who is a customer ?
 Who is a consumer?
Consumer Motives

 Consumer has a motive for purchasing a

particular product. Motive is a strong feeling,
urge, instinct, desire or emotion that makes
the buyer to make a decision to buy.
 These motives are generally controlled by
 economic, social, psychological influences etc
Motives which Influence Purchase Decision

 The buying motives may be classified into two:

 i. Product Motives ii. Patronage Motives
 Product motives:
 Product motives may be defined as those
impulses, desires and considerations which
make the buyer purchase a product. These may
still be classified on the basis of nature of
satisfaction:
 a) Emotional Product Motives b) Rational
Product Motives
 Emotional Product Motives are those impulses
which persuade the consumer on the basis of his
emotion. The buyer does not try to reason out or
logically analyze the need for purchase. He makes a
buying to satisfy pride, sense of ego, urge to initiate
others, and his desire to be unique.
 Rational Product Motives are defined as those
impulses which arise on the basis of logical analysis
and proper evaluation. The buyer makes rational
decision after chief evaluation of the purpose,
alternatives available, cost benefit, and such valid
reasons.
 Patronage Motives :Patronage motives may be defined
as consideration or impulses which persuade the buyer
to patronage specific shops. Just like product motives
patronage can also be grouped as emotional and
rational.
 Emotional Patronage Motives those that persuade a
customer to buy from specific shops, without any
logical reason behind this action. He may be subjective
for shopping in his favorite place.
 Rational Patronage Motives are those which arise when
selecting a place depending on the buyer satisfaction
that it offers a wide selection, it has latest models,
offers good after-sales service etc.
Consumer Behavior and Marketing
Implications

 Customer is the Hub of business functions.

 Marketing strategies are made for customers.
 Changing market environment gives a call for
consumer awareness.
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR AND MARKETING
STRATEGIES
 Understanding the consumer behavior is the
basic for marketing strategy formulation.
 Consumers reaction to this strategy
determines the organization success or
failure.
 Organizations can survive only by offering
more customer value.
 What is customer value?
 How to attain customer value?
 Providing superior customer value requires the
organization to do a better job of anticipating and
reacting to the customer needs than the competitor.
 How will company provide superior customer value to
its target market?
 The answer to this question requires formulation of
marketing-mix.
 The right combination of marketing mix meets
customer expectation and provides customer value.
 For example: marketer of a bike must know the
customers performance expectations, desired service,
Price willing to pay, information he seeks and after
sales service
 CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR AND MARKET
SEGMENTATION
 The most important marketing decision a firm makes is the
selection of one or more segments to focus their marketing
effort.
 Do they create segment?
 Market segmentation is the study of market place in order
to discover viable group of consumers who are
homogeneous in their approach in selecting and using
goods or services.
 A firm that develops a product focusing solely on the needs
of that segment will be able to meet the target group desire
and provides more customer value .
 For example right segment for ̳Femina‘ magazine
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR AND PRODUCT
POSITIONING

 Product positioning is placing the product, service,

company, or shop in the mind of consumer or target
group.
 The right positioning means understanding the
consumer perception process in general and
perception of company‘s product in particular.
 For example, Samsung brand is perceived as
premium brand by few customers and value driven
brand by others in the market, but marketer must
find out what makes their target market to perceive
differently and position it accordingly.
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR AND MARKETING RESEARCH

 Studying consumer behavior enables

marketing researchers to predict how
consumers will react to promotional
messages and to understand why they make
the purchase decision they do.
 Marketers realized that if they know more
about the consumer decision making criteria,
they can design marketing strategies and
promotional messages that will influence
consumers more effectively.
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR AND NON PROFIT AND
SOCIETAL MARKETING

 A sound knowledge of consumer behaviour

can help the organisations that sell ideas and
concepts of social relevance.
 Institutions that promote family planning,
AIDS free society, etc appeal to the public for
their support in order to satisfy some want or
need in society.
CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR AND GOVERNMENTAL
DECISION MAKING

 To major areas where consumer behaviour

study helps government is in policy making
on various services, and in designing
consumer protection legislation.
 The knowledge of people‘s attitudes, beliefs,
perceptions and habits provides adequate
understanding of consumers
Development of the Marketing Concept

 The field of consumer behavior is rooted in the

marketing concept.
 Several alternative approaches the production
concept, the product concept and the selling
concept.
 The production concept assumes that
consumers are mostly interested in product
availability at low prices. Suitable for
developing economies with expanding market.
 The product concept assumes that consumers will buy the
product that offers them the highest quality, the best
performance and the most features.
 A product orientation leads the company to strive constantly
to improve the quality of its product and to add new features
that are technically feasible without finding out first whether
or not consumers really want these features.
 A natural evolution from both the production concept and the
product concept is the selling concept in which a marketer’s
primary focus is selling the product. The assumption of the
selling concept is that consumers are unlikely to buy the
product unless they are aggressively persuaded to do so –
mostly through the ‘hard sell’ approach.