One of my primary motivations to get into marketing or sales is my own fierce resistance to purchasing nearly anything. As a consumer I have a very utilitarian attitude that leads me to want to pay as little as possible for something that will provide massive use , some would say that this makes undertaking purchasing activities with me quite annoying. Much of this conservative decision making in regards to buying items relates directly to perceived value, many items that people think are cool and decide to purchase typically strike me as frivolous and I always equate how many hours of my life I had to work to purchase something. For the most part I would say that the three main components that affect my decision to buy are price, quality and utility, though if a product far exceeds expectation resulting in customer delight I am not opposed to repeating the transaction later despite a higher price (Kardes, 2015 pg.13).
For the vast majority of purchases I tend to react more to informational ads and am more open to things that generate a cognitive response. Because of this the purchase and use stages of a cycle tend to hold the most weight and are more likely to convince me of a sale or second transaction (Kardes, 2015 pg.10). You could say that my buying habits are constructed similarly to the marketing research process where I identify a problem, research available product to solve the problem by analyzing and collecting secondary data before making a purchase (Kardes, 2015 pg.21). This also applies to the typical design around a campaign when I consider a product. When being pitched a product I typically want quantitative data that reflects the utility of the product and how it will add value to my life. Often times I find campaigns designed around sentiment to be short lasting in their effect or unauthentic in the worst scenarios. This is not to say that presenting the data in an engaging, humorous or fun manner isn’t appealing, but in my case it works to grab attention before presenting data as opposed to developing interest via entertainment.
Typically after purchasing a product I take very little action unless extremely satisfied/dissatisfied with the outcome. Another scenario that typically gets me involved with a company post purchase is a rewards program or incentives towards my next purchase. One example of this was last summer’s purchase of sunglasses from Shady Rays. After buying my first pair I was given the opportunity to take surveys, share promotions and perform other tasks that would provide a significant discount for my next purchase.
My interest in marketing and planed strategy for future products reflects my buying habits. In the future I would like to provide the public with valuable and meaningful products that I would buy myself. These products would target frugal people who look for deals but are loyal to products that have a history of positive performance. To accomplish this we will rely heavily on a deep insight into our target demographic and the behaviors that drive their purchasing decisions by forming research groups and collecting primary and secondary data (Kardes, 2015 Chapter 1).
Kardes. F(2015). Consumer Behavior, 2nd Edition. [Chapter 1] . Retrieved from https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/#/books/undefined/
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MKT 345 