Question

Hi Colleagues,

Answer the two questions below

1. Describe some of the personal and psychological factors that may influence what consumers buy and when they buy it. Ch. 3

2. Identify the ways in which business-to-business (B2B) markets differ from business-to-consumer (B2C) markets. Ch. 4

Answer 1

Ans 1

1. Personal factors

It includes such variables as age and lifecycle stage, occupation, economic circumstances, lifestyle (activities, interests, opinions and demographics), personality and self concept. These may explain why our preferences often change as our `situation' changes. Decisions and buying behavior are obviously also influenced by the characteristics of each consumer.

1. Age and way of life

A consumer does not buy the same products or services at 20 or 70 years. His lifestyle, values, environment, activities, hobbies and 57 consumer habits evolve throughout his life. Age and life-cycle have potential impact on the consumer buying behavior. It is obvious that the consumers change the purchase of goods and services with the passage of time. Family life-cycle consists of different stages such young singles, married couples, unmarried couples etc which help marketers to develop appropriate products for each stage. For example, during his life, a consumer could change his diet from unhealthy products (fast food, ready meals, etc.) to a healthier diet, during mid-life with family before needing to follow a little later a low cholesterol diet to avoid health problems. The factors influencing the buying decision process may also change. For example, the social value of a brand generally plays a more important role in the decision for a consumer at 25 than at 65 years. The family life cycle of the individual will also have an influence on his values, lifestyles and buying behavior depending whether he s single, in a relationship, in a relationship with kids, etc. as well as the region of the country and the kind of city where he lives (large city, small town, country side, etc.) For a brand or a retailer, it may be interesting to identify, understand, measure and analyze what are the criteria and personal factors that influence the shopping behavior of their customers in order to adapt. For example, it is more than possible that consumers living in New York do not have the same behavior and purchasing habits than the ones in Nebraska. For a retailer, have a deep understanding and adapt to these differences will be a real asset to increase sales.

2. Lifestyle

The lifestyle of an individual includes all of its activities, interests, values and opinions. The lifestyle of a consumer will influence on his behavior and purchasing decisions. For example, a consumer with a healthy and balanced lifestyle will prefer to eat organic products and go to specific grocery stores, will do some jogging regularly (and therefore will buy shoes, clothes and specific products), etc.

3. Personality and self-concept

Personality is the set of traits and specific characteristics of each individual. It is the product of the interaction of psychological and physiological characteristics of the individual and results in constant behaviors. It materializes into some traits such as confidence, sociability, autonomy, charisma, ambition, openness to others, shyness, curiosity, adaptability, etc. While the self- concept is the image that the individual has or would like to have of him and he conveys to his entourage. For example, since its launch, Apple cultivates an image of innovation, creativity, boldness and singularity which is able to attract consumers who identify to these values and who feel valued in their self-concept by buying a product from Apple.

4. Occupation

The occupation of a person has significant impact on his buying behavior. For example a marketing manager of an organization will try to purchase business suits, whereas a low level worker in the same organization will purchase rugged work clothes.

5. Economic Situation

Consumer economic situation has great influence on his buying behavior. If the income and savings of a customer is high then he will purchase more expensive products. On the other hand, a person with low income and savings will purchase inexpensive products.

2. Pschological factors

It affecting our purchase decision includes motivation (Maslow's hierarchy of needs), perception, learning, beliefs and attitudes. Other people often influence a consumer s purchase decision. The marketer needs to know which people are involved in the buying decision and what role each person plays, so that marketing strategies can also be aimed at these people. Among the factors influencing consumer behavior, psychological factors can be divided into 4 categories: motivation, perception, learning as well as beliefs and attitudes.

1. Motivation Motivation is what will drive consumers to develop a purchasing behavior. It is the expression of a need is which became pressing enough to lead the consumer to want to satisfy it. It is usually working at a subconscious level and is often difficult to measure. The level of motivation also affects the buying behavior of customers. Every person has different needs such as physiological needs, biological needs, social needs etc. The nature of the needs is that, some of them are most pressing while others are least pressing. Therefore a need becomes a motive when it is more pressing to direct the person to seek satisfaction. Motivation is directly related to the need and is expressed in the same type of classification as defined in the stages of the consumer buying decision process. To increase sales and encourage consumers to purchase, brands should try to create, make conscious or reinforce a need in the consumer s mind so that he develops a purchase motivation. He will be much more interested in considering and buy their products. They must also, according to research, the type of product they sell and the consumers they target, pick out the motivation and the need to which their product respond in order to make them appear as the solution to the consumers need.
2. Perception

Perception is the process through which an individual selects, organizes and interprets the information he receives in order to do something that makes sense. The perception of a situation at a given time may decide if and how the person will act. Selecting, organizing and interpreting information in a way to produce a meaningful experience of the world is called perception. There are three different perceptual processes which are selective attention, selective distortion and selective retention. In case of selective attention, marketers try to attract the customer attention. Whereas, in case of selective distortion, customers try to 59 interpret the information in a way that will support what the customers already believe.

3. Selective Attention:

The individual focuses only on a few details or stimulus to which he is subjected. The type of information or stimuli to which an individual is more sensitive depends on the person. For brands and advertisers successfully capture and retain the attention of consumers is increasingly difficult. For example, many users no longer pay any attention, unconsciously, to banner ads on the Internet. This kind of process is called Banner Blindness. The attention level also varies depending on the activity of the individual and the number of other stimuli in the environment. For example, an individual who is bored during a subway trip will be much more attentive to a new ad displayed in the tube. It is a new stimuli that breaks the trip routine for him. Consumers will also be much more attentive to stimuli related to a need. For example, a consumer who wishes to buy a new car will pay more attention to car manufacturers ads. While neglecting those for computers. Lastly, people are more likely to be attentive to stimuli that are new or out of the ordinary. For example, an innovative advertising or a marketing message widely different from its competitors is more likely to be remembered by consumers.

4. Selective Distortion: In many situations, two people are not going to interpret an information or a stimulus in the same way. Each individual will have a different perception based on his experience, state of mind, beliefs and attitudes. Selective distortion leads people to interpret situations in order to make them consistent with their beliefs and values. For brands, it means that the message they communicate will never be perceived exactly in the same way by consumers. And that everyone may have a different perception of it. That s why it s important to regularly ask consumers in order to know their actual brand perception. Selective distortion often benefits to strong and popular brands. Studies have shown that the perception and brand image plays a key role in the way consumers perceived and judged the product. Several experiments have shown that even if we give them the same product, consumers find that the product is or tastes better when they ve been told that it s from a brand they like than when they ve been told it s a generic brand.
5. Selective Retention: People do not retain all the information and stimuli they have been exposed to. Selective retention means what the individual will store and retain from a given situation or a particular stimulus. As for selective distortion, individuals tend to memorize information that will fit with their existing beliefs and perceptions. For example, consumers will remember especially the benefits of a brand or product they like and will forget the drawbacks or competing products advantages.
6. Learning

Learning is through action. When we act, we learn. It implies a change in the behavior resulting from the experience. The learning changes the behavior of an individual as he acquires information and experience. For example, if you are sick after drinking milk, you had a negative experience, you associate the milk with this state of discomfort and you learn that you should not drink milk. Therefore, you don t buy milk anymore. Rather, if you had a good experience with the product, you will have much more desire to buy it again next time. The learning theories can be used in marketing by brands.

7. Beliefs and attitudes

A belief is a conviction that an individual has on something. Through the experience he acquires, his learning and his external influences (family, friends, etc..), he will develop beliefs that will influence his buying behavior. Customer possesses specific belief and attitude towards various products. Since such beliefs and attitudes make up brand image and affect consumer buying behavior therefore marketers are interested in them. Marketers can change the beliefs and attitudes of customers by launching special campaigns in this regard. To change the brand s marketing message or adjust its positioning in order to get consumers to change their brand perception

Ans 2

The Difference between B2B and B2C Marketing

When you get down to it, the main difference between B2B and B2C marketing has to do with the third letter in the acronym, i.e. “B” for business and “C” for consumer.

For instance, in a B2C eCommerce model—the type of marketing most people are familiar with—the goal is to market to consumers, which are the end-users of whatever’s being marketed. B2B marketing, on the other hand, targets other businesses, which means that they can’t be approached as if they were individual people, as they themselves won’t be the ones to use the product/service.

For example, consider a marketing agency. Being what they are, they’re a B2B business because they market to other businesses who need help with their marketing efforts. As such, when they publish content, such as a post on how to choose the right eCommerce agency, they’re targeting decision makers who have a say in who their organisation goes to for marketing help.

If that business is a fashion brand, they themselves will then be B2C, and will target individual consumers in their own marketing efforts. For example, by posting a guide for their audience on choosing how to dress for a certain season.

To sum it up, the main difference between B2B and B2C marketing is a difference in whose attention you’re trying to capture. And while there are definitely similarities between both, the very fact that one ends with “B” and the other with “C” means that the there will be differences as well.

To illuminate, let’s take a look at the following 5 key differences between B2B and B2C marketing.

1. The Audience

Like we just touched on, the main difference between B2B and B2C marketing is who you’re targeting, i.e. an individual consumer or a business who may themselves target other businesses or consumers alike.

As such, the target audience for B2C is a single decision maker who’s most likely going to buy a product for their own use, and will focus on features and benefits that suit their needs.

B2B, on the other hand, can be targeting anything from a single C-level executive, to an entire committee who oversees any and all decisions a business makes, which equates to a larger audience that’s more focused on how the organisation as a whole can benefit; an audience that wants products or services that can help the business improve.

As this quote from Marketing Insider Group explains,

[t]he B2B customer journey involves multiple decision-makers and stakeholders to manage, including managers, product users, technical staff, executives and many more…B2B marketing content needs to…appeal to and meet the different pain points and needs of various stakeholders involved in the purchase process.

2. The Language

Derived from the audience being targeted, a second difference between B2B and B2C marketing is the language.

Language in B2B marketing tends to be heavily influenced by industry jargon and related terms that speak more about the brand’s knowledge than the products or services themselves, as the goal is to target another business.

B2C, alternatively, caters toward individual consumers, leading to language that’s more relatable and simple enough for a broad audience to comprehend.

Like language, another differentiating factor between B2B and B2C marketing is the tone.

As B2B caters to other businesses, the tone here will be more formal and will lend an authoritative air that’s meant to convey trust and value. B2C, while still striving for authority, will often have a more informal—and even humorous—tone that’s meant to be conversational.

3. The Channels

With an audience and language in mind, marketing efforts can truly begin. In this regard, both B2B and B2C brands have to consider the best place they can reach their audience, i.e. the channels used to disseminate content.

Because a B2C audience will be made up of consumers that can literally be found everywhere, pretty much all channels can be used, with an emphasis on specific channels that are best for businesses in specific industries. For example, Instagram and Pinterest for fashion brands that are especially visual.

B2B audiences, being comprised of fellow businesses, are more selective in the channels they frequent. While you can still connect with them through channels like Facebook and Twitter, you’ll have more luck with LinkedIn, which is more business-focused than other social channels.

4. The Motivation

Our next difference between B2B and B2C marketing comes in the motivation you’ll have to tap into in order to convert your audience.

Even though emotion plays an important part in all marketing endeavors, you’ll have to place it in the backseat for B2B and replace it with logic and efficiency that works better with an audience that’s looking for expertise.

Likewise, because this audience is used to pitches and other marketing efforts aimed at them, you want detailed content that focuses on the product’s main features and clearly explains how their organisation can benefit from your products or services.

B2C is different in the sense that, unlike B2B, B2C marketing actually leans into emotions because, more often than not, that’s why they’ll go to you in the first place (e.g. an emotional trigger based on a desire they have). They’ll also place more weight on fellow consumers’ testaments, as seen in their desire to see ratings and reviews from those who were previously in their shoes.

5. The Timeframe

Finally, because businesses and consumers require very different products and services than the other one, the final key difference between B2B and B2C marketing is the timeframe in which marketing efforts for each will last.

To explain this, think of why a business would need a service from another business. More often than not, they’ll need a service for a set period of time, such as a certain software that streamlines processes within the organisation.

In this case, the purchase will be contract-based and can extend for months, even years.

For B2C, even though consumers can also make contract-based purchases that last a long time, the timeframe is usually much shorter and reserved for the duration of the initial purchase and the product’s delivery, which can actually be minutes for some.

As such, the timeframe is much shorter.

Additionally, B2C is more in the moment in the sense that consumers not likely to get a product based on an ad or post they saw months in the past. B2B, on the other hand, places more focus on the long-term and will try to cultivate relationships in case the target business will need their services in the future.