CHAPTER 2

1. Factors influencing consumer behaviour

1. Psychological Factors
Human psychology is a major determinant of consumer behavior. These
factors are difficult to measure but are powerful enough to influence a
buying decision.
Some of the important psychological factors are:
i. Motivation: when a person is motivated enough, it influences the buying
behaviour of the person.
ii. Perception: customer perception is a process where a customer collects
information about a product and interprets the information to make a
meaningful image about a particular product.
When a customer sees advertisements, promotions, customer reviews, social
media feedback, etc. relating to a product, they develop an impression about
the product. Hence consumer perception becomes a great influence on the
buying decision of consumers.
iii. Attitudes and Beliefs: consumers have certain attitude and beliefs which
influence the buying decisions of a consumer. This attitude plays a
significant role in defining the brand image of a product. Hence, the
marketers try hard to understand the attitude of a consumer to design their
marketing campaigns.
2. Social Factors
Humans are social beings and they live around many people who influence
their buying behavior. Human try to imitate other humans and also wish to
be socially accepted in the society. Hence their buying behavior is
influenced by other people around them. These factors are considered as
social factors. Some of the social factors are:
i. Family: family plays a significant role in shaping the buying behavior of a
person. A person develops preferences from his childhood by watching
family buy products and continues to buy the same products even when they
grow up.
ii. Reference Groups: reference group is a group of people with whom a
person associates himself. Generally, all the people in the reference group
have common buying behavior and influence each other.
iii. Roles and status: a person is influenced by the role that he holds in the
society. If a person is in a high position, his buying behavior will be
influenced largely by his status.
3. Cultural factors
A group of people are associated with a set of values and ideologies that
belong to a particular community. When a person comes from a particular
community, his/her behavior is highly influenced by the culture relating to
that particular community. Some of the cultural factors are:
i. Culture: cultural factors have strong influence on consumer buyer
behavior. Cultural Factors include the basic values, needs, wants,
preferences, perceptions, and behaviors that are observed and learned by a
consumer from their near family members and other important people
around them.
ii. Subculture: within a cultural group, there exists many subcultures. These
subcultural groups share the same set of beliefs and values. Subcultures can
consist of people from different religion, caste, geographies and
nationalities. These subcultures by itself form a customer segment.
iii. Social Class: each and every society across the globe has form of social
class. The social class is not just determined by the income, but also other
factors such as the occupation, family background, education and residence
location. Social class is important to predict the consumer behavior.
4. Personal Factors
Factors that are personal to the consumers influence their buying behavior.
These personal factors differ from person to person, thereby producing
different perceptions and consumer behavior. Some of the personal factors
are:
i. Age: age is a major factor that influences buying behavior. The buying
choices of youth differ from that of middle-aged people. Elderly people have
a totally different buying behavior. Teenagers will be more interested in
buying colorful clothes and beauty products. Middle-aged are focused on
house, property and vehicle for the family.
ii. Income: income has the ability to influence the buying behavior of a
person. When a consumer has higher disposable income, it gives more
opportunity for the consumer to spend on luxurious products. Whereas low-
income or middle-income group consumers spend most of their income on
basic needs such as groceries and clothes.
iii. Occupation: occupation of a consumer influences the buying behavior.
 iv. Lifestyle: lifestyle is an attitude, and a way in which an individual stay in
the society. The buying behavior is highly influenced by the lifestyle of a
consumer. For example when a consumer leads a healthy lifestyle, then the
products he buys will relate to healthy alternatives to junk food.
2. Contents of a marketing plan
There are six components to developing a complete marketing plan-business
objectives, marketing priorities, marketing goals, marketing strategy, key
actions, and dependencies and risks.
• Business Objectives
Simply put, business objectives are the quantifiable targets that the company
wants to hit in the coming year. For example, the goal may be to double
revenue by the next fiscal year, or to maintain growth in the Mid-Market
segment. These objectives relate to the company as a whole and are targets
that marketing must keep in mind during all stages of planning and
execution. If Marketing actions are not aligned to business objectives, then
the team creates a lot of activity, with minimal impact.
• Marketing Priorities
Once the business objectives are established, Marketing has to decide where
and how it can make an impact. In this section of planning, the marketing
leadership team will outline which efforts to prioritize and which it cannot
support. The team must be in tune with its capabilities and not take on more
than it can reliably handle. If too many projects are taken on at once,
resources will spread too thin and leave the team unable to make a
measurable impact on any of the business objectives.
• Marketing Goals
Marketing goals are an expansion of marketing priorities that quantifiably
define what marketing will do to support the greater business objectives.
Goal Metrics, that should connect to business targets, will fall into four
categories: Impact, Output, Activity and Readiness. Impact is the effect on
business goals, output is the result of actions, activity is the number of
actions taken, and readiness is how prepared the team is to perform.
• Marketing Strategy
Marketing strategy is the approach and continued efforts the marketing team
will take to achieve its goals. The strategy revolves around how the team is
planning to hit its goals, while keeping marketing priorities in mind and
remaining aligned to the business objectives. Innovate, grow, retain, harvest,
pause, and exit; ranging on a scale from high, to low, risk and investment.
 Strategy is an important part of the marketing planning process that often
gets overlooked by marketers who are eager to take action. However, actions
without strategy creates an atmosphere where marketers are all working
independently, segmented from each other and the greater business
objectives.
• Key Actions
Key actions refers to the specific efforts marketers will take to execute on
strategy. However, it cannot simply be a list of tactics, it must provide
details on how each execution will impact the greater business objectives.
Additionally, marketing efforts from the past may no longer benefit the new
strategy so in this section of planning, marketers must decide which actions
to stop doing, which actions to expand on, and which new actions it should
add to the plan.
• Dependencies and Risks
Dependencies and risks are a part of every marketing plan. However,
outlining potential risks from the start allows marketers to better plan and
adapt to changes or shortcomings that could happen throughout the year. In
every marketing planning strategy, dependencies and risks must be taken
into account. Obviously, marketing actions depend on receiving the funding
to execute, so budget tends to be the biggest dependency, but there are many
other risks and dependencies that need to be acknowledged within this
section of planning.
3. Digital branding online
Digital branding is a brand management technique that uses a combination
of internet branding and digital marketing, online marketing to develop a
brand over a range of digital venues, including internet-based relationships,
device-based applications or media content. It has emerged strongly over the
last decade along with its roots from direct marketing.
As opposed to digital marketing, digital branding aims to create connections
between consumers and the products or service being delivered so that brand
recognition is established in the digital world. In short, the goal of digital
branding is not necessarily driving sales, but enhancing the awareness,
image, and style of the brand. Digital branding in turn drives long-term
customer loyalty.
Brand establishment involves four key points:

 Building a digital brand story

  Creativity in digital media and marketing
 Digital channels and content distributed to channels based on
consumer data and habits
 Creating digital relationships.

CHAPTER 3
1. Segmentation process:
Market segmentation is the process of dividing a target market into smaller, more
defined categories. It segments customers and audiences into groups that share
similar characteristics such as demographics, interests, needs, or location. Market
should not be segmented on the basis of guesses or hunch estimation. A proper
basis and process should be followed for it. The main task are information
collection, survey, analysis of information, profile preparation and selection of
market segments. Here are steps for market segmentation:
a. Survey
Collecting information through survey is the first stage of market segmentation.
While collecting information, special attention should be paid to customers’ need,
interest, characters, features of product, brand awareness, product using style,
customers’ tendency towards classification of goods, geographical and
psychological features of customers etc. Besides this, information about education,
age, fashion, practice and custom, religion, purchasing power, purchasing
behavior, buying motives, purpose etc. should be collected.
b. Analyse:
After the information has been collected through survey, it should be carefully
studied and analyzed. Proper statistical tools should be used to analyze the
information. The demand affecting variables should be classified into special and
general categories. Such variables should be analyzed in context of customers’
need and their characters.
c. Profiling:
In the third stage, market segmentation profile should be prepared by identifying
the basis of market segmentation. Profiles of each segment should be prepared on
the basis of customers’ need and their character. Character and need of the
customers of each segment can be identified by studying the profiles. Preparing
profiles of each market segment in several alternatives of market segments can be
found from which better alternative can be selected.
d. Selection of the market segment:
Selection of market segmentation is the final stage of market segmentation process.
In this stage, the profile of market segmentation is evaluated carefully and one or
more market segments are selected. The selected market segments are the targeted
market of business organizations.
2. Modes of marketing communications:
Marketing communications are ways that organisation inform their customers
about their newest product directly or indirectly. There are eight forms of
marketing communication:
 Advertising: It is an indirect, paid method used by the firms to inform the
customers about their goods and services, for example: TV and radio ads,
social media( Facebook ads), online website ( Google ads, Youtube ads)…
 Sales promotion: The sales promotion includes the several short-term
incentives to persuade the customers to initiate the purchase of the goods
and services. This promotion technique not only helps in retaining the
existing customers but also attract the new ones with the additional
benefits.Rebates, discounts, paybacks, Buy- one –get- one free scheme,
coupons, etc. are some of the sales promotion tools.
 Events and experiences
 Public relation and publicity
 Direct marketing
 Interactive marketing
 Word-of-mouth marketing
 Personal selling
MARKETING PLAN
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