Strategic Marketing Basics
Marketing is the art of responding to needs, desires and requests but what does trigger these needs, desires and requests?
Besides, targeting is one of the focal points of a marketing process: at whom should we target our product, service and communication?
To identify potential target customers, we need first to understand what is driving buying behaviours.
To address this key issue, we need to distinguish consumer behaviour (in B to C marketing) from customer behaviour (in B to B marketing) but overall, human nature is such that behaviours will be at the crossroad reason-based factors and emotional factors.
Also, buying decisions may be quite complex when more than one person are part of the decision, which is quite frequent both in B 2 C and B 2 B.
Moreover, purchasing behaviour are often influenced by outside infleuncers, advisors, prescriptors and word of mouth.
Finally, buying decisions depend on the kind of purchase to be made. Routine purchases with little financial risk (day-to-day grocery shopping in a supermarket) will differ fundamentally from exceptional, financially risky purchases (new house, new car, etc.).
More generally, researchers in psychology have demonstrated that purchase decisions are based on:
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internal factors, often unconscious, unique to each individual (personal considerations),
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External incentives, reflecting people close or more distant environment
Internal factors
Personal considerations are unique to each individual and can be split into (1) deeply personal factors such as each person psychological profile, own private history... (personal blackbox) and (2) experience factors as life experience and also customer/user experience.
External incentives
In addition to the internal influences that determine the purchasing behaviour, external influences also play a role:
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personal, group or societal environment (contact groups, cultures, megatrends,...);
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other people opinions, behaviours and experiences (word of mouth,buzz,...);
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exposure to media (general and specialized);
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marketing pressure (advertising, brand activation, sales promotion,...)