understanding the process an individual consumer goes through when purchasing a product is essential for developing marketing strategy

Understanding the Process of Consumer Decision-Making

Understanding the process an individual consumer goes through when choosing a product is vital for building marketing strategy, write Pride and Ferrell (2010). Rogers' five adopter categories, which include innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards, are extremely useful in assisting marketers in developing diverse tactics for new and old products. This is due to the fact that when a marketing plan is implemented through communication channels, it may take some time before the results are felt. This is due to the fact that the innovation-decision process contains stages such as the knowledge stage, persuasion stage, choice stage, implementation stage, and confirmation stage (Sahin, 2006). With this information, the marketers understand what makes a consumer buy a particular brand of product so that the marketing strategy can be able to inform, persuade, and convince them to buy their products (Goodwin et al, 2009).

The Impact of Origin on Consumer Preferences in the Global Market

In the global market, most of the consumers are concerned with the origin. This makes the information by Rodgers differ in the global market. This is because products from countries, like the United States and Japan, are more trusted than those from China. This explains that "at the macro level, the essence of global brands—quality, reliability, higher status, greater esteem, and trust—remain important" (Rosenbloom, & Haefner, 2009). When the products from a country are of high quality, the brands from that country tend to be trusted, and this is what can influence the consumers despite the marketing strategies used.

Personal Decision-Making Process as an Early Majority Consumer

As for me, when I hear of an advertisement of a new product or old product I have not had an experience in, I first take time to make a decision on whether to buy or not. In this case, I fall into the early majority category. I first evaluate the benefits and cons of the product over the ones available in the market to know whether to go for the product or not.

References

Goodwin, N., Nelson, J. A., Ackerman, F., & Weisskopf, T. (2008). Consumption and the consumer society. Retrieved December, 15, 2008.

Pride, W., & Ferrell, O. (2010). Marketing. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

Rosenbloom, A., & Haefner, J. E. (2009). Country-of-origin effects and global brand trust: A first look. Journal of Global Marketing, 22(4), 267-278.

Sahin, I. (2006). Detailed review of Rogers' diffusion of innovations theory and educational technology-related studies based on Rogers' theory. TOJET: The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, 5(2).