Consumer Buying Secrets Revealed by Paul Tunde Raji - HTML preview

Introduction

"Learning about a human being is a lifetime's task"

Paul Tunde Raji (Bsc. Accounting) http://www.webneur.com

Dear Friend, the first step is what counts

Welcome and congratulations!

You have just taken a huge, first step towards boosting your sales-potential.

You’ve made it farther than 90% of businessmen ever do. You’ve been

exploring your options and we’ve connected through the power of the

Internet.

To support your informed decision, I have spent countless hours and

hundreds of dollars on research and developing this information product.

And, I simply want to make sure you know that I really appreciate your

purchase.

Thank You!

Sincerely, you are one of life’s few decision-makers and action takers. I admire those qualities greatly. And, you should know that I intend to do

everything within my power to see that your decision will prove to be the

right decision.

I’ll even go as far as to say: Your decision to purchase this ebook – as far as

having a tremendous increase in sales performance is concerned – is

probably going to be the wisest decision you will EVER make!

Here’s why:

You are about to learn the real secrets to consumers’ “buying behavior” using

this ebook with virtually no additional cost. I will also reveal to you the most viable place where you could sell any product or service for “hungry and

thirsty” consumers.

Copyright © 2007 by Paul Tunde Raji

- 8 -

http://www.webneur.com/

"Consumers Buying Secrets REVEALED!"

Page 9 of 76

And, you should know right off the bat that the information you are about to

read totally delivers on every promise made on my web site. What’s more,

everything you are about to read is not just mere theory. It is hard-won,

tested and proven solution/discovery and theory.

Copyright © 2007 by Paul Tunde Raji

- 9 -

http://www.webneur.com/

"Consumers Buying Secrets REVEALED!"

Page 10 of 76

Consumer Behavior

Consumers consist of individuals, households, and corporate bodies that buy

products or services. They are widely varied in the way they react to

products and other stimuli. Each consumer is a decision-making unit who

collects information and uses many dimensions to analyze it. The resulting

decision is the purchase or rejection of a product or service.

The difference in consumers and factors that they consider to make a

purchase decision are important to marketers. Marketers need to understand

the type of stimuli that can yield a favorable response from consumers and

also to identify the factors and interactions that go into decision-making.

The careful study and understanding of consumers requires the marketer to

design an effective marketing plan.

Marketers’ success anchors on the extent to which they understand and

respond perfectly to the behavior of consumers. They are compelled to

search for new ideas, theories and principles from behavioral sciences such

as Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology and Economics.

It has been discovered that consumers involve considerations from these

perspectives when making their purchase decisions. Consumer behavior is

known to be an element of human behavior that deals with how people

interact with his or her environment, particularly in order to purchase and

after purchasing a product or service.

For a marketer to penetrate the hearts of many consumers and to let them

react positively to his products or service, understanding the behavior of a

consumer is inevitable. The reason is because the knowledge acquired about

the consumers has an important role to play for the marketers’ success.

In modern business, every organization needs to learn buyer’s behavior. The

outcome of the study helps the company to know WHO the consumers are,

Copyright © 2007 by Paul Tunde Raji

- 10 -

http://www.webneur.com/

"Consumers Buying Secrets REVEALED!"

Page 11 of 76

WHAT, WHERE, WHEN and WHY they prefer a particular product to other

competing products.

The theme of marketing philosophy is “consumer sovereignty” which states

that consumer is king and all the activities performed by an organization

should be channeled towards satisfying the needs and wants of the

consumers while at the same time trying to achieve organizational objectives

which is to make profit.

Cundiff, Still and Govoni (1973) supports this analogy by saying what the

result management is looking for in managing their departments. This is not

only to satisfy consumers’ needs, wants and desires, but to also facilitate

achievement of company goals.

In an economy with freedom of choice, the principle of “consumer

Sovereignty” dictates that the consumer ultimately determines a firm’s

continued existence and performance. Consumer behavior will determine the

fate of the enterprise because for an efficient and effective allocation of

resources to be achieved, those who produce products and services cannot

passively place their wares before the public. There is an additional and

dynamic function to be performed which is their reason for seeking to satisfy

the needs and desires of those who purchases and consumes these products

and services.

The essence of marketing therefore is to analyze the process through which a

group of people make and carry out buying decisions, identify the buyers and

buying decision process.

Although many buying decisions involve only one decision maker other

decisions may involve several participants who play such role as initiator,

influencer, decider, buyer and user. The marketer’s job is to identify the

other buying participant, their buying criteria, and their level of influence on the buyer.

Copyright © 2007 by Paul Tunde Raji

- 11 -

http://www.webneur.com/

"Consumers Buying Secrets REVEALED!"

Page 12 of 76

A consumer's experience has been widened by his or her exposure to

competing products, rapid changes in technology which result in regular

availability of innovative products, socio- economic and other environmental

changes, all these conditions in which consumer are subjected to, make them

to be complex and more unpredictable to deal with.

Copyright © 2007 by Paul Tunde Raji

- 12 -

http://www.webneur.com/

"Consumers Buying Secrets REVEALED!"

Page 13 of 76

The Buying Decision Process

When making a decision to buy a product from many competing products, a

consumer unknowingly passes through a few stages of the decision process.

There are five stages and each stage motivates the buyer to purchase. Only

one stage is concerned with actual purchasing. Sometimes, the consumer

does not pass through all the five stages before purchasing a product.

Need Arousal is the first stage of a buying decision process. The need for a given product is activated by internal and external stimuli. The marketer

creates awareness for his product through sales promotion and advertising.

The external stimuli helps to arouse the consumer’s need for the product

while internally, physiological imbalance such as hunger, thirst, warmth, etc.

which are primarily unlearned makes a person recognize a need. The

consumer recognizes a significant difference in his perceived desire and

actual position. He thereafter responds by searching for a product that can

satisfy the identified need.

The consumer having sufficiently been motivated to satisfy a need searches

for information about every product brand that can perfectly match the need.

If a suitable product is available for an urgently felt need, the consumer

quickly purchases the product. However, in most cases, consumers do not

purchase products immediately the products are brought to their awareness.

At this stage, consumers look for further information, and the intensity and

duration of this depends on their past experience together with the

importance of the product.

Different products are identified through intensive and passive searches.

Passive search involves the consumer reading information about the product

on the Internet or in newspapers, magazines and other published materials.

Intensive, or heightened search is where the consumer actively searches for

information from many sources, while moving from one place to another.

These sources include personal sources such as family, friends, neighbors,

Copyright © 2007 by Paul Tunde Raji

- 13 -

http://www.webneur.com/

"Consumers Buying Secrets REVEALED!"

Page 14 of 76

acquaintances, associates and members of his social group whose opinions

he trusts and respects.

Commercial Sources

The consumer pays close attention to commercial messages through

advertising, packaging, talking to salespeople, sales promotion and point of

purchase displays.

Public Sources

These provide messages from mass media publicity, government reports,

news and product-testing companies.

These messages are objective, reliable and factual. The motivated consumer

tries to get a feel for the product through his senses. He tastes a sample,

tests the product during a demonstration by the salesperson; this can be

achieved by having a trial or testing period, where he can handle the product

to judge its suitability. All these sources present the consumer with a large

number of alternative products and information on the features of the

product, like packaging, operating manual, pricing, warranty, etc. The

product has features or characteristics that attracts consumers/customers to

buying or using it.

Empirical research confirmed that consumers use their cognition

consciousness and rational judgment to examine products before making

their purchases.

They evaluate by comparing products in order to make a choice. Evaluation

takes the following dimensions or guiding rules: Those features of interest to

the consumers are listed for further analysis. These consist of performance,

taste, color, physical appearance, packaging, range, price etc. Consumers are

asked to list what they prefer in the product. The preferred attributes of

competing products is used to attach weight or priority or rank the attributes

to facilitate ranking, the consumer uses brand belief or image of each brand

Copyright © 2007 by Paul Tunde Raji

- 14 -

http://www.webneur.com/

"Consumers Buying Secrets REVEALED!"

Page 15 of 76

(if any) to compare one product with other products. This evaluation

establishes the position of each product in relation to the important

attributes.

Other evaluation criteria and techniques use quantitative and qualitative

models to apply objectivity. They consist of dominance, conjunctive,

disjunctive, lexicographic, expectancy and ideal-product, compensatory and

determinant models.

In the Dominance model, the customer lists all his preferred attributes and

rates all available alternative products with the attribute; the product with

superiority in many attributes over others is retained while the inferior

quality brands are dropped.

In the Conjunctive model, all products are classified into two groups

(acceptable and unacceptable) based on the minimum attributes that a

product must meet. Unacceptable products are those that fall short of

minimum specification and are eliminated from further consideration.

The disjunctive model only sets in if the consumer only has to pick from

products whose attributes exceed the specified minimum attributes.

In the Lexicographic model, a single dominant attribute which is common to

all products is used to rank them.

The product with the highest score becomes the consumer's choice. If two or

more products have the same score, the consumer uses the next best

attribute to compare each product with others. This process is repeated until

a surviving product that has the highest total score is identified while the rest are eliminated.

The Expectancy model is when the consumer identifies attributes of

importance and assigns a weight that represents degrees of preference to

each attribute. The resultant score is obtained by the aggregate of weights of

each attribute, multiplied by the performance level of the product for each

attribute.

Copyright © 2007 by Paul Tunde Raji

- 15 -

http://www.webneur.com/

"Consumers Buying Secrets REVEALED!"

Page 16 of 76

In the Ideal product model, the consumer forms an image of his ideal

product. He lists many attributes that the product must possess. If the

current products do not have the attributes he desires, he selects the one

whose attribute is closer to the ideal product. To capitalize on the opportunity offered by this model, a marketer can interview consumers to find two or

more ideal attributes of interest and build these into his product.

Under the Compensatory model, also known as Multi-attribute model, the

product chosen is the one that has the overall balance of favored features

across all attributes.

There is also the Determinant Attribute Model, which states that attributes of

importance sometimes do not significantly influence consumers choices

among competitive products whose attributes are similar.

The choice of product may be made because of a less important attribute

that differentiates the product.

Copyright © 2007 by Paul Tunde Raji

- 16 -

http://www.webneur.com/

"Consumers Buying Secrets REVEALED!"

Page 17 of 76

Nicosia Flow Chart Model of Consumer Behavior

Using a computer flow-chart system, this model shows the input, processor

and output variables together with their relationships towards reaching a

decision that will solve current and future problems of the consumer. It

assumes that the consumer does not have direct experience with a particular

product.

In addition, there are four main stages of decision present in this model.

Stage One: An advertising message about a firm and its products is

presented to the consumer who is not familiar with the product. The

consumer uses psychological, personality and environmental attributes to

examine it.

He then forms an attitude towards the product.

Stage Two: To avoid making mistakes, the consumer searches for more

information about the advertised product and its competitors. He conducts

product/service comparison, to form a more favorable attitude to a few of the

product/service options offered out of the various available alternatives.

The result of the analysis may or may not be a motivation to the advertised

product.

Stage Three: If the consumer is motivated to prefer one product to all the others, he makes the final decision to purchase.

Stage Four: The post-purchase experience gathered in the course of using

the product is stored in his memory. This data bank is used to decide

whether or not to buy the same product /service in future. This completes

the circular decision process of the consumer.

By buying the product or not, the result of the decision stage is known

(through the Feedback System) by the firm and the firm’s knowledge about

its consumer’s behavior is also completed.

Copyright © 2007 by Paul Tunde Raji

- 17 -

http://www.webneur.com/

"Consumers Buying Secrets REVEALED!"

Page 18 of 76

Marketing Implications

This model is scientific enough to help marketers gain an insight into the

consumer behavior process. By stating what happen at each stage, the firm

can apply the right marketing decision to improve the probability that the

consumer purchases the product/service.

Criticism

The research leading to construction of the model was based on a narrow

scope of advertising and how consumers accept the new product. The

research limitations and variables considered were not stated.

This makes it difficult for other interested researchers to find where they can

support and improve the model through further research. The relationship

between the stages is not as direct as the explanation states. In addition, the

descriptions and explanation accompanying the model are too brief.

How consumers form and sustain attitudes to a new product requires further

research and explanation.

Copyright © 2007 by Paul Tunde Raji

- 18 -

http://www.webneur.com/

"Consumers Buying Secrets REVEALED!"

Page 19 of 76

Engel, Kollat and Blackwell

Complete Model of Buying Behavior

This model is an improvement on the Black box model. It contains such

elements as Information input and the Processing unit (which has product

evaluation, general motivation and personal inputs). All these elements

interact and move the consumer across five decision-making stages.

It explains what happen to the inputs in the evaluation process and the type

of outputs. The black box model that contains the invisible intervening

variable, becomes the CENTRAL CONTROL UNIT (CCU). It serves as the

consumer’s psychological structure. It contains memory and manner of

thinking and behavioral pattern, personality variables, past information of

direct experience and current information.

Personality features are the stable behavior pattern of an individual that he

perceives as helpful in satisfying his needs. They are called MOTIVES.

The means of reacting to situation are called RESPONSE TRAITS. They vary

among individuals.

Both motives and traits combine in function to form a general psychological

reaction of a person. They resist change from outside influences.

Experience or past information is, consciously or unconsciously, retained in

the central control unit to make the person respond consistently to stimuli.

The consumer develops product-related values and attitudes from personality

and experience.

This gives shape to their behavior and makes the consumer form a habit for

evaluating products by choosing one product out of many alternatives.

Copyright © 2007 by Paul Tunde Raji

- 19 -

http://www.webneur.com/

"Consumers Buying Secrets REVEALED!"

Page 20 of 76

Detailed Analysis of the Model

Messages relating to the firm and a product/service are transferred to

consumers through their sense organs and are stored in the central control.

After processing it, the required response to the message is passed to the

awareness level of the consumer.

He becomes alert due to feelings of discomfort that he suffers through the

sensory receptors. The need is strengthened by a drive to find the best

solution to his need.

In his effort to satisfy the needs with the right product/service, he is exposed to many stimuli about other products.

Through a process of product/service comparison, the consumer restricts his

attention to the product that is not misleadingly promoted.

Information about the selected product is used in the next stage.

If the consumer has the financial means, he recognizes the need. He knows

that his desired condition is not yet reached. This feeling arouses a response

to satisfy the drive caused by motives and needs.

Where the consumer is unaware of his needs, the firm uses sales promotions,

advertisements, a salesperson, packaging, etc., to trigger or create

awareness. This stage is the starting point for a lengthy buying process.

Where they have little or no information on competing product/service, the

consumer may have to identify many products/services and research their

prices, suppliers, features, operating instruments (manual), packaging,

product or services etc.

He uses internal or passive methods, such as reading, review and recalling

information stored in memory that relates to the specific type of

product/service.

Copyright © 2007 by Paul Tunde Raji

- 20 -

http://www.webneur.com/

"Consumers Buying Secrets REVEALED!"

Page 21 of 76

Externally, he looks for information from his reference group, marketing

firms and salespersons connected with the product/service.

The search will present him with many possible products/services from which

he locates a group of products from which choices can be made.

The products/services are examined and compared with one another in order

to choose the best one.

The consumer compares each product on a set of criteria used for evaluating

all the product/services. The criteria may include price, features,

performance, color and packaging.

Each product/service is also rated from the reference group and

psychological viewpoints. As products have many attributes, only those

falling within the consumer’s specifications are considered.

At the end, he forms product/service image (or preference, judgment) for

some alternatives (choice set). He can buy any product or service from the

set.

At this stage, the consumer selects the best or preferred product from the

choice set. The decision may be influenced again by the positive/negative

attitudes of other people and the consumer’s willingness to comply with the

group.

Other situational factors, such as unanticipated occurrence like sickness, loss

of job, perceived risks etc., may force the consumer to modify, postpone or

avoid purchase of the product.

If these obstructions are not present, the consumers purchase the product

immediately the decision is made.

Copyright © 2007 by Paul Tunde Raji

- 21 -

http://www.webneur.com/

"Consumers Buying Secrets REVEALED!" <