What are the Different Consumer Behavior Models?
What are the Different Consumer Behavior Models? There is a theory called a buyer behavior model that tries to explain why people act and buy the things they do. There are many models out there today, each with a different point of view. These models range from acting on pure impulse to following complex logical processes.
Model for Learning
This is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Have you heard of it? Ibrahim Maslow, a psychologist, put people’s wants into groups and ranked them in a pyramid. The most basic and important needs for the body are at the bottom. As you go up, they slowly change to psychological needs. Take a look at his rank order:
- Self-actualization (top) means reaching your full potential and trying new things that make you happy.
- Esteem needs are psychological wants that have to do with importance and feeling successful.
- Belongingness and love are a psychological need for close friends and family.
- Having safety needs means wanting to feel safe and comfortable on a deep level.
- Our body needs rest, warmth, water, and food to stay living. These are called physiological needs.
- The Learning Model of customer behavior says that this pyramid tells people what to buy. It says that people will usually meet their most basic needs first, which are at the base of the pyramid. Only then will they move on to their more complex learning needs. People will spend their money on things like food and making sure their home is safe before they buy new clothes, go on trips with friends, or buy a better car.
- You can better serve your people as a business owner if you know about these drives. Wal-Mart used to sell a lot of different things, but it didn’t have a full grocery area. Now, it does sell food and encourages people to buy their basic needs there. Taking this step will help sell more of other things.
Consumers Behavior Models
Here is a list of consumer behavior models and a description of how each one might work for a business development or marketing professional:
Typical Models of how people behave as Consumers
Economists came up with standard consumer behavior models to figure out how people’s wants and needs affect what they buy. The four classic models are shown below:
1. Sociological Model
An Example of a Customer Modeling Sociological According to the Sociological Model of market behavior, people’s choices are affected by the groups they are a part of, such as their family, friends, workgroups, and less clear-cut groups like Millennials or people who like yoga. People will mostly buy things based on what is acceptable or common for the groups they’re in.
For example, people in the C-Suite are supposed to be formal and professional. People with these jobs will buy things that fit in with the rules of the group, like work clothes.
Most businesses can use this plan, but it works best for ones that make products and services that specific groups want. To use the Sociological Model, you would need to make events that are similar to how these groups act in real life. Brands that sell workout gear are one example.
People who like to work out are the kind of people you sell to and try to attract. To make these people happy, you should sell them things that meet their needs, like tools that help them do their jobs better or a water bottle with insulation that stays cold and keeps them hydrated during breaks. You’re talking to the buyer in that group and showing them how your product will help them stay in that group by doing this.
2. An Economic Model of Consumer Behaviour
An Example of a Customer ModelThe most simple of the traditional models is the economic model of customer behavior. This model says that people try to get what they need while spending as little money or other resources as possible.
That means that companies can guess how many goods will sell by looking at how much money their customers make and how much their products cost. Companies might think that they can always make a profit if they sell the cheapest goods.
The business model helps you understand things the best, but it also has the fewest features. Price and personal resources aren’t the only reasons a person might buy something.
One example of this is pharmaceutical drugs in the U.S. healthcare system. The user may not be able to afford a prescription drug, but they would still have to find a way to get it and meet their needs. For the money to pay for the medicine, they could get a credit card or small loan. This means that need, not personal income or price, affects the choice to buy.
3. Model of Psychoanalysis
Sigmund Freud, who is known as the “father of psychoanalysis,” came up with the next plan. His ideas say that different people buy things for different reasons, some of which are aware and some of which are unconscious. For instance, reasons can come from repressed wants or fears that are kept hidden. Because some of these drives are unconscious, people may not know why something interests them but they think they need it.
As a business, you need to know why people buy what you’re selling. For instance, luxury bag names like Louis Vuitton and Coach appeal to people who want to look better by carrying expensive bags. Not usefulness, but reputation, is the main driver. Because of this, the ads and placement should make it clear how the bag will make people look and feel.
4. The EKB model stands for Engel-Kollat-Blackwell
It’s easy to see how the EKB plan breaks down the buying process into five steps that make sense. It says that the customer will begin in the stage of awareness and move on to the stage of outcome analysis when they make a purchase. To help you understand each step better, here they are:
- People become aware of a product or service they need or want (often through ads).
- People handle information by thinking about the product or service and how it might fit into their lives.
- People look for the best deal on a product or service by shopping around.
- Decision to buy: People look for the best deal and either buy it or decide not to.
- The customer thinks about their purchase to see if it meets their needs. They may buy from the company again, or they may start looking for another option.
- You can make material that meets your customers at every step of the way if you know what they’re going through. Like, if you want more people to join the buyer’s journey with your business, you need to make more people aware of it. Search engine optimization, ads, social media efforts, and email sequences are all parts of content marketing that can help you do that.
- Then, you can put out guides, comparison blogs, case studies, recommendations, and customer reviews to help prospects through the stages of gathering information and deciding what to do with it. As soon as a customer buys something, you should offer help to make sure they’re happy and encourage them to buy again.
5. Model in Black Box
The Black Box Model, which is also called the stimulus-response model, says that the thought of each consumer is like a “black box.” When they see something from your business outside of your business (like a marketing message), they think about what it means and then decide if they want to buy or not.
But what else is going on in the buyer’s mind (the “black box”) that affects their choice? a person’s beliefs, ideals, motivations, perceptions, and way of life, among other things. Know these things about your customers so you can talk to them in a way that helps the right people find your goods.
So, if you’re selling climbing boots, the “black box” of your audience will look very different from if you’re selling high-heeled shoes. The hiking shoe seller needs to reach people who love the woods and want a good product that will keep their feet comfortable and support them. The person selling high-end heels will need to talk to people who care about social rank and following the rules.
6. Hawkins Stern’s Model of Impulse Shopping
As the Learning and EKB Models say, the next buying model says that people don’t always make decisions with logic in mind. Instead, it says that people sometimes buy things without thinking about it. More specifically, it lists four types of impulses:
- An escape urge is when someone buys something that wasn’t on their list or something they normally do. Being away from the every day is nice to do something like this.
- Reminder impulse: A shopper makes a buy on the reminder impulse when they are reminded of a product at the right time. As an example, a chip bag clip is put in the chip area.
- Suggested impulse: When someone suggests something to them, they buy it. When you buy a new phone, the salesperson might suggest a phone case and screen protection.
- You can make a planned impulse purchase when someone has been meaning to buy something but then decides to do so because they see a great deal. These two words may seem to go against each other.
You can make your marketing more likely to get people to buy by keeping this buying model in mind. In the event that you run an online store, you could suggest things that are related to the ones they have in their shopping cart. You can also set up regular sales to get people to buy something without thinking about it.
7. A model of Howard Sheth
To put it simply, this buyer model says that buying things follows a certain process with certain factors that often change it. This model can be used by marketing and business development experts in most fields since customers can use it to buy any product or service. There are three steps to this decision-making process:
- A lot of problem-solving: At this level, customers don’t know anything about the product they want or the companies that make it. They use their ability to figure things out to find out more about the market and the tools they have access to.
- Limited problem-solving: At this level, people find out more about the product they want and compare the prices of goods from different companies.
- Responses that happen automatically: At this level, consumers know a lot about the thing they want to buy and the different ways they can buy it. These amounts are also affected by some factors. Most of the time, these four factors are used:
- It’s the ads for a product that a person sees and the thoughts they get from online reviews, family, and friends that input.
- Perceptual and learning constructs: These include the wants and beliefs of the consumer.
- Inputs and learning constructs are put together in outputs, which are the consumer’s final choices about a product or company.
- Outside factors: These variables include things like the weather that have nothing to do with the product but may still affect a consumer’s choice to buy.
8. Model of Nicosia
It says that the company and its marketing strategies are what make people decide to buy, which is what the Nicosia model works on more. Marketing methods do have an effect on customers, but other things also affect how they feel about a product and what they decide to buy. Because of this, some businesspeople may use this model along with another model. The Nicosia model is made up of four ideas:
- Business and consumer characteristics: This includes the message of the first ad and how the consumer feels about that message based on their own views and interests.
- Search and evaluation: This is when a customer uses ads to compare the products of two different types of businesses.
- Purchase decision: This is the final choice the buyer makes after looking at all of their options.
- Feedback: This is when a business changes its marketing message based on what customers say about it.
9. The Model of Webster and Wind
This business-to-business (B2B) plan talks about four factors that could affect a company’s choice to buy. These factors can help business development and marketing experts in any field figure out how customers usually buy things. These are the four variables:
- Environmental: Things like consumer needs, technology, and suppliers that are outside the company may have an effect on a buying choice.
- Organizational: These are the things that happen inside the company, like their buying choices, their business goals, and their culture.
- Buying center: This means thinking about who signs contracts and makes the final business choices.
- Individual: This group of variables includes things like the amount of education of a business member.
10. The Pavlovian Model
This model uses some of the same factors that Pavlov used in his famous study with dogs and a bell. In this experiment, Pavlov gave the dogs meatpaste and a bell that kept ringing. The dogs learned to associate the bell with the meat paste. The dogs started to drool when they heard the bell, even if the scientist wasn’t feeding them the meat paste.
In terms of how this study relates to consumer behavior, an unconditioned stimulus could be the logo of a well-known company and any beliefs that come with that brand (the unconditional reaction). People who work in marketing and business growth for well-known companies may use this model.
11. The black box or Stimulus-Response Model
When people buy things, this model takes into account that they are affected by both internal and external factors. A customer takes in something from the outside, like an ad for a business. Then, they think
about this information and see how it fits with what they’re interested in to make a buying choice.
For instance, most people buy things after learning how they can improve their lives. People who work in marketing and business development may use this model if they work for a company that makes products for certain lifestyles, like fitness goods or services that help people who need help getting around.
12. Customer Behavior Splitting Up
Segmentation sorts customers into groups based on the patterns of behavior they show when they use a product or brand or decide what to buy.
The goal of segmentation is to figure out how to meet the specific needs or wants of a group of customers, find ways to improve their customer paths and figure out how much value each customer could bring to your business.
Some popular ways to divide consumer behavior into groups are the following:
- Buying behavior includes how a person feels, what they want, how they plan to buy, and what they actually do when they buy something.
- Benefits sought: What the customer wants to get out of buying the product or service and why they want it in the first place.
- Stages of the customer journey: The customer journey has five main stages, starting with awareness (the first time they engage with your brand) and going through consideration, decision, retention, and advocacy.
Uses
How the customer uses the goods or service, such as how often, when, and where.
- Occasion or timing: Occasions can show buying habits that a customer has had for a while. Some examples are birthdays, anniversaries, trips, monthly purchases, and daily habits.
- Customer satisfaction is a way to find out how pleased customers are with a business’s goods, services, and skills.
- Customer loyalty: A brand has loyal customers when they buy from them again and again, picking them over other brands every time. Customers are more likely to stay faithful if they have good experiences with the product or service, are happy with it, and think it’s worth the money they spend on it.
Conclusion
If you really understand how people behave and how you can use that knowledge in your marketing, you will also be able to enjoy better sales growth, more money coming in, and marketing that gets you the results you want.
This detailed guide taught you everything you need to know to be successful. You learned about the different types of consumer behavior and the things that affect them. It also showed you how to do research and how to use these behavior techniques in a marketing strategy.
Professionals in this field can also help business owners come up with a marketing plan based on how customers act, so help is always available when it’s required.