Week 4 EOC: B2B vs Consumer Marketing

The consumer market is made up of many things that influence consumer buyer behavior. Four of these items are culture, social, personal, and psychological influences. These four things can even be broken down into sub categories. There are also 5 different stages that take place in the consumer decision process. These stages are: need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision, and purchase behavior. There are two processes companies use for new products. They are called adoption and diffusion. “The mental process through which an individual passes from first hearing about an innovation to final adoption.” Consumers go through five stages in the process of adopting a new product: Awareness: The consumer becomes aware of the new product, but lacks information about it. Interest: The consumer seeks information about the new product. Evaluation: The consumer considers whether trying the new product makes sense. Trial: The consumer tries the new product on a small scale to improve his or her estimate of its value. Adoption: The consumer decides to make full and regular use of the new product.” In the buying decision, locomotive performance plays an important role. In such big-ticket purchases, buyers carefully scrutinize factors such as cost, fuel efficiency, and reliability. By most measures, GE’s locomotives outperform competing engines on most of these dimensions.” The three most common ways for analyzing the buyer’s decision are: Economic models, psychological models and consumer behavior models. Economic models - These models are largely quantitative and are based on the assumptions of rationality and near perfect knowledge. The consumer is seen to maximize their utility. This can also be used in some circumstances. Psychological models - These models concentrate on psychological and cognitive processes such as motivation and need recognition. They are qualitative rather than quantitative and build on sociological factors like cultural influences and family influences. Consumer behavior models -These are practical models used by marketers. They typically blend both economic and psychological models.