What aspects of Consumer Decision Making Process should a

promotional planner consider in developing Integrated Marketing

Communication Programme?

For the marketing communication planner, at any point in time, their market will be surrounded
by the usual macro and micro environmental forces.
The marketing group will be accountable –
either to the strategic business unit or corporate management in terms of performance, and
in relation to budget requirements. Thus, though progression through various levels of IMC may
be seen as advantageous and beneficial, the argument that proves its efficacy and bottom-,
middle-, and top-line contribution may be difficult to marshal, and even more difficult to
generate resource to truly implement IMC.

Thus, it may be necessary to settle for IMC at a lesser level for the time being.

Now let us focus on Consumer Behavior from the Macro as well as Micro Environment:-
Consumer Behavior is basically the process of influencing the behavior of the consumer towards
the purchase of the product. The good knowledge of the behavior of the consumer makes the
product sell.

“Consumer Behavior is basically the process and activities that people do in order to search,
select, purchase, use, and dispose a product to satisfy their needs.

A successful marketer needs to know the following things:

1. What steps a consumer goes through before buying a product?

2. What type of decisions he/she likes to make to buy product?
3. What factors make the need of the product in market?
4. What factors can affect the purchase decision of the customer?
5. What are the needs of the consumer?
6. How the consumers gather the information about a product to fulfill the need?
7. How consumer selects a specific product among alternatives?
8. How consumer makes purchase decision?
9. How the needs of different consumers vary?
Stages in Consumer Decision
Making Process

Consumer Decision Making Process:

The following are the stages that consumer passes through in purchasing a product
1. Problem Recognition (Problem is identified by the consumer)
2. Information Search (Consumer searches how to solve the problem)
3. Evaluation and Selection of Alternatives. (Consumer comes across different
alternatives)
4. Decision Implementation. (Consumer decides to select one product)
5. After Purchase Product Evaluation (Consumer evaluates the product)
There are some concurrent psychological decision processes running in the consumer’s
mind when doing decision making process for a product.
These Psychological Processes are as follow:

1. Motivation
2. Perception
3. Attitude Formation
4. Integration
5. Learning
Problem Recognition:
In problem recognition the consumer realizes the need for some product and get motivated to
buy the new product due to the following reasons:

a) Need of the product because the old one is out of the stock
b) because consumer was not satisfied by old product
c) because consumer has new needs
d) because consumer is innovative and want innovative products
e) Because of marketers influence consumer want to buy new productHow to Examine
Consumer Motivation:
In order to market the product well the marketer must know that what factors motivate the
consumer to buy a product like when buying a watch:

a) One sees functional perspectives of a watch

b) One sees the price factor (low priced etc.)
c) One sees the brand name and image

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs:

One of the best ways to learn the consumer motivation is through the Maslow’s Hierarchy of
Needs.

Maslow says that a person first fulfills its Physiological needs (basic needs) like Hunger, thrust.

After the successful fulfillment of these needs a person goes to the Safety needs like security and
protection.

After fulfilling Security needs a person fulfills his/her social needs like love, affections, and
emotions.

Then a person wants to fulfill Self Esteem needs like self recognition. Here the person becomes
the status conscious.

Next comes the Self Actualization needs where the person is confident on himself.
The wrong point in Maslow’s Theory is that he says that the lower level needs like basic needs,
safety needs should be fulfill first before fulfilling the higher level needs like self esteem and self
actualization. Now we can see that especially in progressed countries people don’t actually move
though the needs hierarchy. But the basic needs are the key to motivation for the higher needs.
Therefore in the Cooking Oil (that is basic need) advertisement the love and affection of the
mother is shown. Milk advertisement (basic need) the self confidence (higher level) of a person
is shown.

Psychoanalytical Theory:
Psychoanalytic theory is also one of the tools to identify the consumer behavior. It was presented
by Freud and the main ingredients of psychoanalytic theory are Human Personality and
Motivation. Therefore the consumer's behavior can be related to the psychoanalytic theory. But
people those have done research on the consumer's behavior with Psychoanalytic theory, has
realized that the consumer's behavior about buying a product is sometimes very unusual and
brought many interesting results like:

 A man buys a car as a substitute of mistress

 A woman loves to bake cake because she thinks that its same like giving birth to baby

Information Search
The second stage in the consumer decision-making process is information search.
Once consumers perceive a problem or need that can be satisfied by the purchase of a
product or service, they begin to search for information needed to make a purchase
decision. There are two sources of Information
a) Internal Sources.
b) External Sources.
Knowledge of how consumers acquire and use information from external sources is important to
marketers in formulating communication strategies. Marketers are particularly interested in
(1) how consumers sense external information, (2) how they select and attend to various sources
of information, and (3) how this information is interpreted and given meaning.
These processes are all part of perception, the process by which an individual receives, selects,
organizes, and interprets information to create a meaningful picture of the world.
Perception involves three distinct processes.
1) Sensation.2) Selecting Information 3) Interpreting the Information
Selectivity occurs throughout the various stages of the consumer’s perceptual process
Selective exposure occurs as consumers choose whether or not to make themselves available
to information.
Selective attention occurs when the consumer chooses to focus attention on certain stimuli while
excluding others.
Selective comprehension, interpreting information on the basis of their own attitudes, beliefs,
motives, and experiences. They often interpret information in a manner that supports their own
position.
Selective retention, which means consumers do not remember all the information they see, hear,
or read even after attending to and comprehending it.
Alternative Evaluation
After acquiring information during the information search stage of the decision process, the
consumer moves to alternative evaluation. In this stage, the consumer compares the various
brands or products and services he or she has identified as being capable of solving the
consumption problem and satisfying the needs or motives that initiated the decision process.
The various brands identified as purchase options to be considered during the
alternative evaluation process are referred to as the consumer’s evoked set.
The goal of most advertising and promotional strategies is to increase the likelihood that a brand
will be included in the consumer’s evoked set and considered during alternative evaluation.
Marketers use advertising to create top-of-mind awareness.
Popular brands with large advertising budgets use reminder advertising to maintain high
awareness levels and increase the likelihood they will be considered by consumers in the market
for the product.
Evaluative Criteria and Consequences
Evaluative criteria are the dimensions or attributes of a product or service that are usedto
compare different alternatives. Evaluative criteria are usually viewed as product or service
attributes. Many marketers view their products or services as bundles of attributes, but
consumers tend to think about products or services in terms of their consequence
Product/service attributes and the consequences or outcomes consumers think they will
experience from a particular brand are very important, for they are often the basis on which
consumers form attitudes and purchase intentions and decide among various choice alternatives.
Two sub processes are very important during the alternative evaluation stage:
(1) the process by which consumer attitudes are created, reinforced, and changed and
(2) the decision rules or integration strategies consumers use to compare brands and make
purchase decisions
Attitudes
Attitudes are one of the most heavily studied concepts in consumer behavior More recent
perspectives view attitudes as a summary construct that represents an individual’s overall
feelings toward or evaluation of an object Attitudes are important to marketers because they
theoretically summarize a consumer’s evaluation of an object (or brand or company) and
represent positive or negative feelings and behavioral tendencies.
Marketers’ keen interest in attitudes is based on the assumption that they are related to
consumers’purchase behavior.
Advertising and promotion are used to create favorable attitudes toward new
products/services or brands, reinforce existing favorable attitudes, and/or change negative
attitudes.
Purchase Decision
At some point in the buying process, the consumer must stop searching for and evaluating
information about alternative brands in the evoked set and makes a purchase decision.
As an outcome of the alternative evaluation stage, the consumer may develop a purchase
intention or predisposition to buy a certain brand.
Purchase intentions are generally based on a matching of purchase motives with attributes or
characteristics of brands under consideration.
Their formation involves many of the personal subprocesses including motivation, perception,
attitude formation, and integration.
A purchase decision is not the same as an actual purchase. Once a consumer
chooses which brand to buy, he or she must still implement the decision and make the
actual purchase.
Marketers’ strive to develop and maintain brand loyalty among consumers. They use reminder
advertising to keep their brand names in front of consumers, maintain prominent shelf
positions and displays in stores, and run periodic promotions to deter consumers from
switching brands.
Purchase decisions for nondurable, convenience items sometimes take place in the store, almost
simultaneous with the purchase. Marketers must ensure that consumer shave top-of-mind
awareness of their brands so that they are quickly recognized and considered. These types of
decisions are influenced at the actual point of purchase.
Packaging, shelf displays, point-of-purchase materials, and promotional tools such as
on-package coupons or premium offers can influence decisions made through constructive
processes at the time of purchase.

Post purchase Evaluation

The consumer decision process does not end with the purchase. After using the product or
service, the consumer compares the level of performance with expectations and is either satisfied
or dissatisfied. Satisfaction occurs when the consumer’s expectations are either met or exceeded;
dissatisfaction results when performance is below expectations. The post purchase evaluation
process is important because the feedback acquired from actual use of a product will influence
the likelihood of future purchases
Marketers must recognize the importance of the pos t purchase evaluation stage. Dissatisfied
consumers who experience dissonance not only are unlikely to repurchase the marketer’s
product but may also spread negative word-of-mouth information that deters others from
purchasing the product or service. The best guarantee of favorable post purchase evaluations is
to provide consumers with a quality product or service that always meets their expectations.
Marketers must be sure their advertising and other forms of promotion do not create
unreasonable expectations their products cannot meet.
Marketers have come to realize that post purchase communication is also important. Some
companies send follow-up letters and brochures to reassure buyers and reinforce the wisdom
of their decision. Many companies have set up toll-free numbers or e-mail addresses for
consumers to call if they need information or have a question or complaint regard-
ing a product. Marketers also offer liberalized return and refund policies and extended
warranties and guarantees to ensure customer satisfaction