Understanding Consumer Behavior: The Four Factors
Javier Ramirez
Liberty University
BUSI 520: Strategic Marketing Management
Muriel Wilson
January 11, 2022
Understanding Consumer Behavior: The Four Factors
What type of consumer is your target customer? Do they shop every day or only
occasionally? Do they do a lot of research or are they impulse buyers? Understanding what
type of consumer your business targets can help to understand their buying behaviour. The
more you understand what drives your customer to make a purchase, the more you
understand how to connect with them emotionally on your website or through your
storefront. Additionally, consumers that connect emotionally go beyond price when making
a purchase decision. These loyal customers don’t mind spending more for your product.
They also provide excellent referrals to friends and family. This is why it’s worth
understanding what makes your target customer checkmark. What drives their behaviour?
How can you use that knowledge to increase your profitability?
In general, there are four factors that influence consumer behaviour. These factors
impact whether or not your target customer buys your product. They are cultural, social,
personal and psychological.
How Do Cultural and Social Factors Play a Role in Consumer Behaviour?
Culture and social factors can play a major role in the popularity of a product. Industry
groups spend a lot of money trying to influence popular opinion because they know how
influential culture can be on industry sales. Be mindful of culture and social factors when
creating your marketing. You want to attract as many customers as possible without
offending anyone.
How Do Personal Factors Play a Role in Consumer Behaviour?
In addition to cultural and social factors, personal factors also influence consumer
behaviour. Tastes change over time. According to aging experts, senior consumer
behaviours are highly variable, meaning that as a group they have more reasons for buying
something than teenagers. If this is your target market, it’s important to know what those
reasons are. Lifestyle, personality, and economic class may also influence behaviour. Class
impacts education level, background, occupation, and health. As a result, the buying
behaviour of one economic class can be very different from another. You want to make sure
everyone in your target audience has access to your product regardless of age or economic
class. The more people that have access, the better. This is particularly the case for payment
methods.
How Do Psychological Factors Play a Role in Consumer Behaviour?
There are four psychological factors that influence consumer behaviour: Motivation,
perception, learning, and attitude or belief system. Motivation speaks to the internal needs
of the consumer. Understanding how to motivate your customer is a powerful tool. The way
your target customer perceives the world or learns about your product, whether online or in
person, can also influence behaviour. Finally, belief systems have the ability to influence all
of the above. For example, some people learn best visually. This explains why pictures and
images are so important for marketing.
Consumers make purchase decisions every day. When they make a decision about your
product, they’re thinking about solving a need. That need may be driven by a variety of
factors. Each of the factors listed above can be tied back to ways a small business can
leverage its storefront or website to increase the probability of a sale. Keep these factors in
mind when designing your marking materials. Types of consumer buying behavior are
determined by:
Level of Involvement in purchase decision. Importance and intensity of interest in a
product in a particular situation.
Buyers level of involvement determines why he/she is motivated to seek information
about a certain products and brands but virtually ignores others.
High involvement purchases--Honda Motorbike, high priced goods, products visible to
others, and the higher the risk the higher the involvement. Types of risk:
Personal risk
Social risk
Economic risk
The four type of consumer buying behavior are:
Routine Response/Programmed Behavior--buying low involvement frequently
purchased low cost items; need very little search and decision effort; purchased almost
automatically. Examples include soft drinks, snack foods, milk etc.
Limited Decision Making--buying product occasionally. When you need to obtain
information about unfamiliar brand in a familiar product category, perhaps. Requires a
moderate amount of time for information gathering. Examples include Clothes--know
product class but not the brand.
Extensive Decision Making/Complex high involvement, unfamiliar, expensive and/or
infrequently bought products. High degree of economic/performance/psychological risk.
Examples include cars, homes, computers, education. Spend alot of time seeking
information and deciding.
Information from the companies MM; friends and relatives, store personnel etc. Go through
all six stages of the buying process.
Impulse buying, no conscious planning.
The purchase of the same product does not always elicit the same Buying Behavior.
Product can shift from one category to the next.
For example:
Going out for dinner for one person may be extensive decision making (for someone that
does not go out often at all), but limited decision making for someone else. The reason for
the dinner, whether it is an anniversary celebration, or a meal with a couple of friends will
also determine the extent of the decision making.
Categories that Affect the Consumer Buying Decision Process
A consumer, making a purchase decision will be affected by the following three factors:
1. Personal
2. Psychological
3. Social
The marketer must be aware of these factors in order to develop an appropriate MM
for its target market.
Return to Contents List
Personal
Unique to a particular person. Demographic Factors. Sex, Race, Age etc.
Who in the family is responsible for the decision making.
Young people purchase things for different reasons than older people.
Highlights the differences between male and female shoppers in the supermarket.
Psychological factors
Psychological factors include:
Motives--
A motive is an internal energizing force that orients a person's activities toward
satisfying a need or achieving a goal.
Actions are effected by a set of motives, not just one. If marketers can identify motives then
they can better develop a marketing mix.
MASLOW hierarchy of needs!!
oPhysiological
oSafety
oLove and Belonging
oEsteem
oSelf Actualization
Need to determine what level of the hierarchy the consumers are at to determine what
motivates their purchases.
Nutrament, a product marketed by Bristol-Myers Squibb originally was targeted at
consumers that needed to receive additional energy from their drinks after exercise etc., a
fitness drink. It was therefore targeted at consumers whose needs were for either love and
Belonging or esteem. The product was not selling well, and was almost terminated. Upon
extensive research it was determined that the product did sell well in inner-city convenience
stores. It was determined that the consumers for the product were actually drug addicts
who couldn't not digest a regular meal. They would purchase Nutrament as a substitute for
a meal. Their motivation to purchase was completely different to the motivation that B-MS
had originally thought. These consumers were at the Physiological level of the hierarchy.
BM-S therefore had to redesign its MM to better meet the needs of this target market.
Motives often operate at a subconscious level therefore are difficult to measure.
Perception-
What do you see?? Perception is the process of selecting, organizing and interpreting
information inputs to produce meaning. IE we chose what info we pay attention to, organize
it and interpret it.
Information inputs are the sensations received through sight, taste, hearing, smell and
touch.
Selective Exposure-select inputs to be exposed to our awareness. More likely if it is
linked to an event, satisfies current needs, intensity of input changes (sharp price drop).
Selective Distortion-Changing/twisting current received information, inconsistent with
beliefs.
Advertisers that use comparative advertisements (pitching one product against
another), have to be very careful that consumers do not distort the facts and perceive that
the advertisement was for the competitor. A current example...MCI and AT&T...do you ever
get confused?
Selective Retention-Remember inputs that support beliefs, forgets those that don't.
Average supermarket shopper is exposed to 17,000 products in a shopping visit lasting 30
minutes-60% of purchases are unplanned. Exposed to 1,500 advertisement per day. Can't be
expected to be aware of all these inputs, and certainly will not retain many.
Interpreting information is based on what is already familiar, on knowledge that is
stored in the memory.
Problems marketing wine from South Africa. Consumers have strong perceptions of the
country, and hence its products.
Ability and Knowledge--
Need to understand individuals capacity to learn. Learning, changes in a person's
behavior caused by information and experience. Therefore to change consumers' behavior
about your product, need to give them new information re: product...free sample etc.
South Africa...open bottle of wine and pour it!! Also educate american consumers about
changes in SA. Need to sell a whole new country.
When making buying decisions, buyers must process information.
Knowledge is the familiarity with the product and expertise.
Inexperience buyers often use prices as an indicator of quality more than those who
have knowledge of a product.
Non-alcoholic Beer example: consumers chose the most expensive six-pack, because they
assume that the greater price indicates greater quality.
Learning is the process through which a relatively permanent change in behavior results
from the consequences of past behavior.
