The Consumers Perspective

As a marketer its important we understand and take into consideration how the consumer may feel and their perspective on purchasing a product. A metaphor to describe this thought process is, to catch fish you must know what the fish likes to eat. You cannot expect to appropriately fulfill your consumers needs without taking a step in their shoes and asking yourself the same questions that you would ask yourself when purchasing a product. A perfect representation that I can testify for as a consumer, is the tricomponent attitude model and the standard learning hierarchy.

The standard learning hierarchy explains the tricomponent attitude model, which consist of the consumers cognitive, behavioral and affective actions. The hierarchy states how a buyer approaches a product to solve a problem. In my own experience as a consumer, this is how I go about making all my purchases. For example, I am a car enthusiast who is a consumer in the car parts industry. What motivates me to purchase any of the parts for my car is based on that part being a solution to my problem. Recently, I had an issue with the car not being loud enough. The solution to that was a purchase of an exhaust for the car to make it louder. As simple as it sounds, if you are able to base your product on solving consumer issues in your industry you have a great potential on creating a good product.

Understanding the consumer is vital to being a good marketer. Solving a consumers problem is what drives individuals to completing the purchase. Once buyer has collected enough information about the products attributes and how it solves their problem, they then evaluate their own beliefs and feelings about the product. Driving them towards or away from a purchase. As marketers, the job is to persuade the consumer to feel a specific way about product to lead to purchase.