- Developing new products,
- Product features,
- Prices,
- Channels,
- Messages, and
Studying customer provides clues for
Understanding consumer behavior and “knowing customers” is never simple
Understanding consumer behavior and “knowing customers” is never simple
Understanding consumer behavior and “knowing customers” is never simple.
- Customers may say one thing but do another.
- They may not be in touch with their deeper motivations.
- They may respond to influences that change their minds at the last minute.
e.g. Impulse purchase because the product has an excellent display.Garments put on mannequins attract window shoppers to make purchase.
Small companies, such as a corner grocery store, and huge corporations, such as whirlpool, stand to profit from understanding how and why their customers buy:
Whirlpool corporation In the appliance industry, consumer brand loyalties are built up over decades and passed from generation to generation. To shake up entrenched market shares and tap into consumers’ often expressed needs, appliance giant whirlpool corporation hired an anthropologist. The anthropologist went to people’s homes, observed how they used their appliances, and talked with all the household members. Whirlpool found that in busy families, women are not the only one doing the laundry. Armed with this knowledge, company engineers came up with color-coded washer and dryer controls to make it easier for kids and men to pitch in. |
ANALYZING CONSUMER MARKETS AND BUYER BEHAVIOUR
The aim of marketing is to meet and satisfy target customer’ needs and wants. The field of consumer behavior studies how individuals , groups and organizations select, buy, use and dispose of goods, services, ideas or experiences to satisfy their needs and desires.Even understanding how consumers dispose goods can lead to sales growth:
Maruti Udyog, Customers in India want to extract the maximum salvage value from old goods which have even outlived their utility instead of trashing it.Let’s discuss this insight with an example of old clothes.After a garment gets old,a younger member in the family wears it & is even preserved for the next generation.Many a times it is used as a duster or a mopper till it is torn to pieces.Pantaloons used this insight to run exchange schemes to swap their old jeans stacked in trunks for new ones. |
What exactly is marketing and why is it important to you as an entrepreneur?
Simply stated, marketing is everything you do to place your product or service in the hands of potential customers.
It includes diverse disciplines like sales, public relations, pricing, packaging, and distribution. In order to distinguish marketing from other related professional services, S.H. Simmons, author and humorist, relates this anecdote.
"If a young man tells his date she's intelligent, looks lovely, and is a great conversationalist, he's saying the right things to the right person and that's marketing. If the young man tells his date how handsome, smart and successful he is -- that's advertising. If someone else tells the young woman how handsome, smart and successful her date is -- that's public relations."
You might think of marketing this way. If business is all about people and money and the art of persuading one to part from the other, then marketing is all about finding the right people to persuade.
Marketing is your strategy for allocating resources (time and money) in order to achieve your objectives (a fair profit for supplying a good product or service).
Yet the most brilliant strategy won't help you earn a profit or achieve your wildest dreams if it isn't built around your potential customers. A strategy that isn't based on customers is rather like a man who knows a thousand ways to make love to a woman, but doesn't know any women. Great in theory but unrewarding in practice.
If you fit the classic definition of an entrepreneur (someone with a great idea who's under-capitalized), you may think marketing is something you do later -- after the product is developed, manufactured, or ready to sell.
Though it may feel counter-intuitive, marketing doesn't begin with a great idea or a unique product. It begins with customers -- those people who want or need your product and will actually buy it.
Entrepreneurs are in love with their ideas, and they should be. After all, why would anyone commit their energy, life savings, and no small part of their sanity to anything less than a consuming passion. Because entrepreneurs are passionate about their idea, product, or service, they innocently assume other people will feel the same. Here's the bad news -- it just doesn't work that way!
People have their own unique perceptions of the world based on their belief system. The most innovative ideas, the greatest products, or a superior service succeed only when you market within the context of people's perceptions.
Context can be many things, singly or simultaneously. To name a few, you may market to your customers within the context of their wants, needs, problems solved, or situation improved. Entrepreneurs need to be aware of many other contexts, such as social and economic trends or governmental regulations, which we'll discuss another time.
People don't just "buy" a product. They "buy" the concept of what that product will do for them, or help them do for themselves. People who are overweight don't join a franchise diet center to eat pre-packaged micro-meals. They "buy" the concept of a new, thin, happy and successful self.
Before you become consumed with entrepreneurial zeal and invest your life savings in a new venture, become a smart marketer. Take time at the beginning to discover who your potential customers are, and how to effectively reach them.
Without a plan, your entrepreneurial dream is really wishful thinking. While a marketing plan can be a map for success, remember that the map is not the territory. A strategy that ignores the customer isn't an accurate reflection of the landscape.
A good marketing plan can help you focus your energy and resources. But a plan created in a vacuum, based solely on your perceptions, does not advance the agenda. That's why market research, however simple or sophisticated, is important.
Just keep in mind that research attempts to predict the future by studying the past. It reveals what people have done, and extrapolates what people might do -- not what people will do.
Planning is imperative, research is important, but there's no substitute for entrepreneurial insight. After all, as Mark Twain wrote, "You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus".
The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) Definition marketing
Marketing is the management process that identifies, anticipates and satisfies customer requirements profitably.
Kotler define marketing as Marketing is the social process
Marketing is the social process by which individuals and groups obtain what they need and want through creating and exchanging products and value with others.
Definition
Definition
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