At the center of marketing activities for any business is the consumer or the customer.
The consumer is the person who uses the product. The customer, on the other hand is the one who buys the product.
The customer and the consumer may be one and the same person. For example, when you buy a pen for your personal use, you are the customer and the consumer as well.
However, it is also possible that the customer is different from the consumer. This happens when somebody else uses the product that the customer is buying. Let’s say that you bought a pen not for yourself but for your friend. In this case, you are the customer but the person you bought the pen for is the consumer.
Let’s take another example: A mother who buys milk for her baby. Here, it is obvious the mother is the customer while her child is the consumer.
This is why it is important to understand both consumer and customer behavior.
An entrepreneur who wants to understand his market must first understand man’s motivation for buying a product or service.
A well-known psychologist, Abraham Maslow, postulated that human beings have different levels of needs and wants. The most basic of these are the needs for food, clothing and shelter, which he called survival or physiological needs. These are the needs that a person tries to satisfy first before any other need. When survival needs are satisfied, the person moves on to satisfy the next level of need which is the safety needs, or the need to be free from physical and other forms of danger. As the safety needs are satisfied, the next level to be satisfied is the need to socialize or to belong to a group for mutual benefit. This need explain why there are barkadas, clubs, cliques, etc. These groupings are usually bound by a common interest, purpose or goal.
The next level of need is the need for recognition and self-esteem or what is known as ego needs. This is the desire of man to be respected, admired and looked up to by his peers. This usually motivates one to do well or excel in a certain field or activity. This may be in the workplace, school, sports, the art, or a hobby like photography and mountain-climbing. Getting an award or a distinction in one’s field satisfies his ego needs.
The highest level of need is for self-fulfillment. this is achieved when a person is able to develop himself to the fullest. A successful actor may not be content with receiving acting awards but may also wish to develop his ability to direct movies and be recognized for it. In addition, he may wish to pursue his talent as an athlete, a writer,or so on.
How will the knowledge of the levels of needs help the entrepreneur or the marketing manager? He must realize that a product or service is bought not for itself but for what it can do to satisfy the varied needs and wants of the customer/consumer. Different types of customers have different levels of needs. Therefore, the product or service being offered must be suitable to each type of customers.
Institutions and offices, both government and private, are actually governed by different sets of motives for buying as compared to individuals. Products and services are bought by institutional buyers for any of the following reasons:
- Economical to use
- Convenient to use
- Promotes efficiency and productivity
- Service guarantee
- Creates goodwill to the customers and the general ublic
- Promotes safety for workers and customers
- Generates savings
- Environment-friendly
- Others
It must be pointed out that individual buyers also buy products for similar reasons given above, in addition to the needs and wants presented by Maslow.
The entrepreneur must therefore try to relate the features of the product to the buying motives of prospective buyers. For example, a soft drinks company encourages young people to buy its products because it is the “choice for the present generation” (motive: the need to belong). An appliance such as a washing machine or a computer may be sold because it is convenient to use and promotes productivity and efficiency. I-pads and smart phones and Galaxy phones may be bought not only for their practical uses but for the prestige associated with it (motive: need to be admired or looked up to).
(Watch out for Marketing basics 2: Understanding buying behavior.)