When marketing your business, its essential to understand your potential customers. In this blog post I’ll be discussing buyer decision making and how understanding the process can lead to effective marketing strategies.
Understanding your customers’ needs isn’t always simple. Depending on your product or service, this can vary within the phycological steps that consumers take before making a purchase.
To break it down, Philip Kotler suggests his theory of the ‘five stages of decision making’;
- Problem recognition
- Information search
- Evaluation of alternatives
- Purchase decision
- Post purchase behaviour
Each of these steps offer a chance for marketers to influence the customer and successfully reach and serve our clients as a business. For example, in relation to my place of work (a life insurance broker), the evaluation stage is when we’ll showcase all life insurance options available, what’s suitable for them personally and compare pricing to not only help the customer but invite them in to exploring their options.
When the customer is making an important decision, in this case the product of life insurance can be a very sensitive subject, it’s important to have a big level of involvement and support from the selling end. Offering information and options can stop the customer from wanting to look elsewhere.
The theory of cognitive dissonance by Festinger, L, is a critical element that is thought about after purchase. Customers may second thought their decision or find alternatives. In life insurance this is common, therefore by making sure you have follow up interactions or reach out via email/ customer support, it shows you care for the customer and not just trying to make a sale. This can result in an outcome of customer loyalty and good reviews (to entice other future customers).
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