Principle of Marketing

Introduction

The behaviour of consumers, individuals and households determines their decision to consume goods and services and is affected by many internal influences. There are two categories of internal influences; psychological influences and personal influences. The psychological influences are the characteristics of an individual’s psychology, which consumers are largely unaware of but still have a significant effect on the buying process and overall buying decisions. Personal influences however, refer to the buyers’ characteristics and include an individual’s age and life-cycle, occupation, education, economic situation, personality and self-concept and the consumers’ lifestyle. Companies understand that both of these influences have a major affect on consumer buying decisions. They can implement marketing strategies which take advantage of these influences (Kotler, Adams, Denize & Armstrong 2009).

Psychological influences

Levens (2010) explains that motivation, learning, perception and beliefs and attitudes influence consumer behaviour and their decision to make their buying choice. Motivation is described as a need, which influences a person to satisfy this need. Learning is where individuals’ experiences change their behaviour. Perception is the process in which incoming stimuli, such as visual, verbal, audio and physical stimulants are interpreted. Finally, beliefs and attitudes is where an individual has a conviction and holds an opinion on something, or has a tendency towards certain feelings concerning objects or ideas (Kotler, et al 2009)

There are two popular psychological theories, which can be applied to motivation, that show how consumer behaviour is influenced. Sigmund Freud stated that people are generally unaware of the psychological reasons behind their behaviour, meaning that buyers aren’t always aware of what compels them to purchase a particular item (Levens, Michael 2010)

Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, (Appendix1) states...