Consumer Influence
Marketing organizations must facilitate the consumer to act on their purchase intentions. The organization can use a variety of techniques to achieve this. The provision of credit or payment terms may encourage purchase, or a sales promotion such as the opportunity to receive a premium or enter a competition may provide an incentive to buy now. The relevant internal psychological process that is associated with purchase decision is integration. Once the integration is achieved, the organization can influence the purchase decisions much more easily.
Increasingly, marketers are finding that consumers are influenced by the purchasing decisions of other consumers. A recent study found that 10% of consumers are influencing the buying decisions of a large chunk of other consumers, making them top influencers. Much of this influence is through online means such as social media. As a result, marketers usually find and target these 'top influences' and ensure that they do their bit in influencing the behavior of other consumers.
There are 5 stages of a consumer buying process. It shows the complete process that a consumer will most likely, consciously or unconsciously, go through when they go to buy a product. These stages are:
- The problem recognition stage, meaning the identification of something a consumer needs.
- The search for information stage, which means searching one's knowledge bases or external knowledge sources for information on the product.
- The possibility of alternative options stage, which means checking whether better or cheaper products are available.
- The choice to purchase the product stage
- The actual purchase of the product stage
The Hierarchy of Effects Model - Effective advertising will aim to influence consumer behavior at each and every stage of the consumer buying process. There are many different types of advertising that firms can employ to do this:
- Commercial advertisers often seek to generate increased consumption of their products or services through branding, which involves the repetition of an image or product name in an effort to associate certain qualities with the brand in the minds of consumers. The annual Super Bowl football game in the United States is known as the most prominent advertising event on television. The average cost of a single thirty-second TV spot during this game has reached US$3.5 million (as of 2012). Some television commercials feature a song or jingle that listeners soon relate to the product. The Budweiser Frogs are three life-like puppet frogs named "Bud", "Weis", and "Er", who began appearing in American television commercials for U.S. Budweiser Beer ( ) during Super Bowl XXIX in 1995. The commercial is one of the most popular international beer and alcoholic beverage advertising campaigns.
- Radio advertising is a form of advertising via the medium of radio. Airtime is purchased from a station or network in exchange for airing the commercials. While radio has the limitation of being restricted to sound, proponents of radio advertising often cite this as an advantage. Radio is an expanding medium that can be found not only on air, but also online. According to Arbitron, radio has approximately 241.6 million weekly listeners, or more than 93 percent of the U.S. population.
- An infomercial is a long-format television commercial, typically five minutes or longer. The main objective of an infomercial is to create an impulse purchase, so that the consumer sees the presentation and then immediately buys the product through the advertised toll-free telephone number or website. Infomercials describe, display, and often demonstrate products and their features, and commonly have testimonials from consumers and industry professionals.