Consumer Purchase Behavior is the actions and the decision by consumers prior to purchasing a product or service for consumption. It is the study of customers and what drives their behavior while buying a certain product for personal consumption. Having a sound knowledge of Consumer Purchase Behavior is useful for business owners to ensure the boom of their businesses. Understanding the process will help them tailor their marketing strategies to successfully influence consumers to purchase the products or services they are offering.
Exactly what causes are driving a customer’s choices, and how different are they from yours?
Many different factors influence consumer purchase behavior. As a marketer, you should try to understand the different factors that influence consumer behavior and ensure you can reach your target customer to sell your product or service to them. There are some major factors, and the psychological factor is one.
But first, we need to know what really is the psychological factor.
The Psychological Factors talk about the psychology of a potential customer that influences their actions to seek satisfaction through purchasing a product or a service.
The psychological factors that drive a consumer’s decision to buy refer to the complex workings of the human mind or psyche.
Before we dive into the details of the human psyche’s factors, we first need to discuss what type of consumer your target customer is. Do customers conduct much research before buying a product, or are they just impulse buyers? If they are impulse buyers, what exactly drives them to make the quick decision?
First, you need to know the details of the group of the population that you are targeting as your potential customer. Through this, you can connect with them emotionally through your marketing strategy and impact their purchase decision. Over a period of time, this group of individuals may transform into loyal customers and suggest your products to peer groups.
There are four psychological factors-
- Motivation
- Perception
- Learning
- Attitude or belief system
Now we will discuss these four psychological factors at length and reflect on how they are important to marketing and critical in steering the wheels for consumer behavior.
MOTIVATION
A motive is an innate drive to satisfy an unmet need. An individual got to have his need raised to a certain level in order to be influenced or be highly motivated with a specific goal that concerns the product or service your business is offering. They are goal-oriented individuals with a motivation to act, which influences their buying behavior. Individuals tend to display different levels of motivation during different stages of their lives. The low-level or basic needs need to be met first, and then gradually, the more complex or high-level needs can be satisfied.
A sense of urgency is useful in marketing practice. Marketing managers should understand what triggers a specific purchasing situation.
- H. Maslow focused on this psychological factor in his works and developed the hierarchy of needs. He presented five levels of human needs, a “need hierarchy.” The hierarchy consists of some stages, which are- basic psychological needs, security needs, social needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs.
The lower levels are basic survival-oriented, and the higher levels are emotional needs.
Now we will discuss the levels and what they actually mean, and how they affect the behavior of an individual and convince them to buy a product.
Physiological needs are the first level of Maslow’s hierarchy: hunger, thirst, and other basic needs are included in this stage. All living beings, whether they possess the maturity or not, have their own physiological needs. Physiological needs are recurring factors throughout nature.
The second level in Maslow’s hierarchy is about the safety and security factors. This stage refers to the continuous fulfillment of an individual’s physiological needs. The stage of Safety and security include both physical and financial security. Health and physical well-being are also a crucial part of this stage.
Love and belonging are parts of the third stage in the hierarchy. This hierarchy level involves an individual’s daily interaction with others and the desire for intimacy and acceptance by social groups.
Self-actualization is the fifth and the highest level in the hierarchy presented by Maslow. This level is all about self-fulfillment. The urge of an individual to reach their full potential and succeed in their endeavors with their talents and abilities.
PERCEPTION
Consumer perception has the ability to create a significant impact on consumer behavior. It is a process through which an individual who is a potential customer gathers knowledge and necessary information by witnessing promotions, advertisements, customer reviews and feedback, and social media posts about a product or a service. Then, that individual interprets the gathered information in order to reach a conclusion and develop an impression that results in a meaningful image of the product.
A consumer’s long-standing perception of a particular service, product, business, or brand also influences their purchasing decision. Through this process, a perception gets built, which motivates a consumer to get a hold of that product. If it is a premium brand, then individuals may want to associate themselves with the group of the society who are owners of that brand’s products and engage with them. For marketing professionals, it is challenging to fully grasp the perception of target customers, as each person may perceive a product differently, in their own unique way, which is influenced by their prior experiences.
Three processes lead to differences in perception: Selective Attention, Selective Distortion, and Selective Retention.
LEARNING
Learning is an essential stage of the psychological factors that ultimately lead to buying a product. When a consumer buys a product, they learn something useful about the product in question and decide whether or not to buy it. This process of learning can come over a period of time and through different relevant experiences and practices. What the consumers learn depends on their skills and associated knowledge and intention. And the decision to buy results from how the consumer responds to that knowledge. Learning could be either conditional or cognitive. In conditional learning, the consumer learns from exposure to a particular stimulus or a similar and repeated situation, which develops that consumer’s response.
In the case of cognitive learning, the individual applies his skill, attitudes, values, and beliefs to receive satisfaction and a relevant solution from his purchase.
Attitude or belief system
An individual or a potential consumer must have certain attitudes and beliefs that influence their decisions before purchasing a product. These psychological factors affect the decision-making process of an individual. Based on the pre-conceived attitudes of target customers, marketing professionals design and modify their marketing campaigns. These attitudes and beliefs can build up the image of a brand. Attitudes and belief system consists of established long-standing views and emotional feelings and concerns.
These attitudes or beliefs may vary because of a number of factors such as—personality, place, age, politics, religion, brand image, etc. A positive attitude towards a brand can significantly raise its profitability, and a negative attitude can work as an obstacle and can be detrimental to the image of that brand.
Experienced and successful marketing professionals are very much aware that these psychological factors shape the engagement between a potential customer and a particular brand. Marketing campaigns need to target consumer needs. Much effective research needs to go into the process while considering the relevant psychological factors. Crafting a business marketing campaign that addresses all the factors will for sure end up being highly beneficial for the business. Connecting and building long-standing relationships with the customers is the main goal of this aspect of marketing.
– Tahia Afra Jannati
