In today's competitive business environment, the key to a company's survival lies in its ability to identify and influence unsatisfied consumer needs in a marketplace crowded with players. From the marketing/consumer behavior standpoint, there are differences and similarities between promoting goods and services. However, the common ground will be predicting and leveraging consumer needs and motivations in their decision-making process.
Therefore, the purpose of the essay is to define terms/variables, i.e., customer needs, motivations and goals and delve into the joint influences on consumer behavior from the three qualifiers by comparing and contrasting McDonald's and Apple Electronics as two examples illustrating service and product marketing strategies. All of the secondary data are quoted from websites, academic journals and industry research papers.
[...] In short, the mastery of consumers' need and purchase motivation is necessary before mapping out most goods marketing strategies. From the services marketing perspective, McDonalds put a lot of effort in addition to its product development. As mentioned earlier, building long- term customer relationship plays an influential role in services marketing. It is true that massive distribution of coupons can retain some customers. However, unlike other fast-food restaurants, McDonalds is better at keeping constant conversations with customers by engaging with kids. [...]
[...] Individual Influence on Consumer Behavior Last but not least, good knowledge of individual influences on consumer behavior such as psychographic, demographic and lifestyle can make marketers life much easier. Generally, goods marketers should pay particular attention to the study of target audience's demographic information, because these are the key indicators that determine consumer needs, purchase motivation and goals. For example, Apples Electronics have special product features for the disable, such as iPhone magnifier tool to serve the visionaraily-challenged users. This explains the necessity of aligning marketing product user-friendliness with a certain group of consumers' needs. [...]
[...] Therefore, in attempt to effectively create consumer needs and purchase motivation, it is necessary for goods marketers to get to the bottom of consumer behavior by leveraging these reference groups. Second of all, opinion leaders, defined as a “reference group member who provides relevant and influential advice about a specific topic of interest to group members” (Elliot, 2008) should grab attention of all marketers, particularly for services marketing. Because “information search” stage is an indispensable step before consumers make purchase decisions. [...]
[...] When it comes to McDonalds, despite the fact that meals still remain an importance part of what they sell on the menu, the fast-food restaurant better satisfies customers' needs via services delivery (e.g., in-store atmosphere and the mini kids playground) than any time before. Second of all, service marketing is about building relationships and collaborating with clients. With products, it is likely that customers will never meet the salesperson again. With services, however, it is vital to engage with the prospects in the entire services delivery process in attempt to establish both short-term and long-term relationship. In the meantime, there is a growing trend that marketers of both goods and services attach equal importance to customer relationship building. [...]
[...] As marketers, it is our job to identify and leverage customer needs, purchase motivation and goals to encourage more purchase. I'll explain the correlations by comparing selling Apple Electronics with McDonald restaurant services. Among all the stimuli such as consumers' social interaction, time available and shopping mood, marketers need to capitalize on the attitude and behavior factors to motivate customers' buying adoption. Gordon and Mirella (2005) pointed out that the external stimuli as a result of this intersection determine the scope of the consumer behavior atmosphere and its capacity to inhibit or facilitate consumer needs and purchase motivation. [...]
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