Importance of Consumer Behavior to Marketers

Importance of Consumer Behavior to Marketers Previously marketers had only limited tools that allow them to affect customers, to make them do the purchasing process only. They were focusing on the product itself and how to change it to make more convincing to the customer, they were also modifying the prices to make it acceptable by the customers, they were looking for the best places to offer their products to make sure they have enough demand, and they were doing some promotion activities to motivate customers to buy their products. Importance of consumer behavior Consumer behavior is very important to marketers because it gives them a lot of extraordinary tools that allows them to manipulate and persuade customers. But with consumer behavior now, they can design and manufacture their products and services based on the needs and wants of consumers, they take into their considerations what the customer like or dislike, then they produces their products and services according to that. They can also understand the consumer purchase decision making process when a customer start asking himself what to buy and how to buy it, and when he start meeting with other people and friends who likes other types of products or services, that might change or affect his purchase decision also. Marketers now can understand how the consumer think and behave, and what are the reasons behind his actions, that allows them to make more marketing efforts based on their understanding to the consumer way of thinking, and even more, with in depth understanding to consumer behavior, they are able now to change the way the customer think and behave, to make him fit with their marketing goals and objectives. Importance of perception With consumer behavior, Marketers now can make consumers think that they want their products, even though they might not really want. This goal can be achieved using the fantastic consumer behavior theories and concepts. Starting with the perception concept in consumer behavior, which is the process by which consumers use and interpret their sensory system. Perception explains how consumers see the products and services of the company, and how they feel and think about it. The image is considered as the basic factor that affects the purchase decision for most customers. Customer now don ¿Ã‚ ½t only want to make the right choices, customers now wants to be perceived by other people and friends as being able to make the right choices and choose the right products. Marketers can successfully use senses as sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste to stimulate and motivate customers to try to examine their products and services. Marketers can do the marketing for their products in a totall y different way to create a distinct perception for their product to make it received by the customers more favorably. Marketers can also differentiate their message from other competitor ¿Ã‚ ½s messages to get more attention from the consumer. They can also make their products more expensive than other identical competitors ¿Ã‚ ½ products, and can make customers buy it just because they think that it is better because it is more expensive. Marketers can change the way consumers perceive their products and services. They are a lot of ways marketers can do that, they can successfully use the human sensory system to affect and manipulate consumers. They can use the vision sensory to change the way the customer think, for example they can change the design and shape of a container of product like perfume or juice to make it look bigger while actually it is still having the same volume or size, they can use some colors that can give a specific emotions to consumers, like giving pink colors to most female products like cloths, or even making mobiles and laptops with pink colors to attract female customers, or using black color to send a message of mystery or power about the product. They can also change the packaging by using an expensive finishing or packaging to give the impression that this packaging contains inside a luxury product or an expensive product, or they can change the packaging to make it look like other famou s products. Marketers also can change the touch of a product to make it different to give you a special implication, we can see that in manufacturing mobile phones for example, some mobile phones are being manufactured now with aluminum or glass from outside instead of plastic, this will result in giving the image of quality and power to the product and it will be accepted to be a high priced mobile phone. Marketers can also now choose the correct stimulus level that they want to expose to consumer sensory, they will make the stimulus level above the consumers awareness if they want the consumer to notice the change they made in the product if the consumer will like or accept this change, and they can make the stimulus level below the consumer awareness if they were afraid that the consumer will reject or resist the change. Importance of learning and memory Learning is the permanent change in behavior caused by experience, where memory is the process of gathering information and storing it over time to be available whenever we need it. Marketers can start using the learning and memory concept of consumer behavior to make the consumers learn about their products and their brand as well in the way they want. After choosing the correct stimulus to make the desired perception by consumers, marketers can start learning consumers about what their brand means, some companies try to attach their brand name to the meaning of quality, while some others try to make their brand name means variety, or any other meaning they want. If we look at apple, we can directly say that it means high quality and luxury computers, if we say Mercedes it means luxury cars and BMW means sport cars. That what marketers learned us about their brand names by successfully using the sensory system and stimulus. Not only that, after learning the consumers about the brand image, marketers can get use of the learning in many ways, they can use their brand name image to offer other product line, depending on that consumer have already learned that this brand name means good products like LG, or they might use their established brand name to add more related products like Apple, after they succeeded in their luxury computers and laptops, they have introduced their iphone and ipod and Apple TV and other products. They can even offer their popular brand name for rent for other companies who don ¿Ã‚ ½t have a popular brand, or a brand with negative image. Importance of motivation Marketers can also use the motivation concept of consumer behavior. Motivation process is what stimulates all types of consumers. Motivation happened when consumer have an unsatisfied need which result in a tension, then the consumer will make all the required effort to reduce or eliminate this tension to satisfying his need. Marketers can the different needs a consumer can have to persuade and motivate him to purchase their products. Marketers for example can use the biological or physiological needs such as need for water to offer their products that can satisfy this need like juices, so the consumer will be motivated to go for these products to satisfy his thirsty. Marketers also can use other types of needs to motivate consumers, like need for power when consumer wants to feel that they have mastery over their surroundings, marketers can offer products like muscle cars, or they can offer luxury resorts. They can also use the need for affiliation to offer products like sports equi pment ¿Ã‚ ½s and cloths. Marketers can also use the purchase situation involvement in their motivational tools, like offering special products for Valentine ¿Ã‚ ½s Day or mother ¿Ã‚ ½s day where the consumer will be purchasing in a different situation, he will be looking for more extraordinary and expensive jewelry or other gifts, while in other normal conditions he might be looking for a normal and low price gift. Sometimes also consumer could have a motivational conflict between his needs, even in this case also marketers can get use of such a situation, they can offer a products that can give solution for these conflicts, like when consumer want to have a heavy food but he is afraid of the calories, so marketers try to offer him a good food with no calories, or when consumer want to purchase cloths with animal leather finishing but he don ¿Ã‚ ½t like animals being killed for that, then marketers could offer him cloths with fake leather that looks exactly like real one. Conclusion As we can see, all these consumer behavior concepts can help marketers persuade the consumer behavior in many ways, they can change the way he sees the product, they can change the way he think or feel about a product, they can even motivate the consumer to make him willing to buy a product or service, they can also reach a point where finally they can make consumers buying products not for what they do, but for what they