The Consumer Response Towards Sales Promotion with Regards to McDonalds, Dubai - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 8 Words: 2447 Downloads: 7 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Marketing Essay Type Analytical essay Level High school Did you like this example? A study to evaluate and understand the consumer response towards sales promotion with regards to McDonalds, Dubai Chapter 1- Introduction Consumer behavior describes how consumers make purchase decisions and how they use and dispose of the purchased goods or services. The study of consumer behavior also includes an analysis of factors that influence purchase decisions and product use.(McDaniel, Lamb .W Hair. F, 2008) Buying behavior of a consumer is a study that describes us about the tastes, preferences, attitudes, wants, culture and beliefs of individuals in a market when they purchase a product and consume it. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "The Consumer Response Towards Sales Promotion with Regards to McDonalds, Dubai" essay for you Create order Buying behavioral activities are vital for the overall development of any organization. Sales promotion are considered one of the most effective ways by which they are able to achieve their goals and objectives being set by the management. The reason behind studying buying behavior is that it helps the marketer of an organization to determine the various factors which are responsible for consumers to decide to buy a commodity or service. Consumer buying behavior concentrates on the money, effort on consumption and time. It helps in determining future purchases and helps in creating an evaluation on different questions such as why different individuals purchase a commodity, when they buy, what they buy or how often they use it. Studying the consumer behavior is important as it helps in creating a focus for any brand in order to increase their efforts and get the kind of results they want. With the understanding of consumer behavior, an organization will automatically be able to pro vide consumers with better commodities and services that will result them into making more sales and earn more profit, so the study of buying behavior is important as it results into improving the quality of goods and services and also helps in knowing what kind of products can be offered to their customers. It helps in establishing better marketing strategies that are focused on the different type of consumer groups which let an organization target the right market and be able to utilize their resources and not waste them by spending it on consumers outside their target market. Consumers have needs and wants and any brands main objective should be to identify their needs and create the desired want. They should focus on how they can influence an individuals buying behavior and make it profitable for the organization which will give them the ability to have a better edge over their rivals when it comes to predicting consumer behavior. With this knowledge of consumer behavior, a marketer is able to understand what an individual thinks or feels about a product or service being offered. This is effected greatly by the way an organization influences their customers through their ambience of the shop, sales person, reference groups and also what an individuals family thinks about them. Cultural, social, personal and psychological factors, all these influence a personà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s buying behavior and also on the contrary all these factors are beyond the control of any marketer but at the same time these factors are kept in mind in order to understand the complex behavior of consumers. There are different firms that spend billion dollars a year in order to be able to study what consumers like so that they can customize their advertising, atmosphere of their outlet or train their employees so that consumers favor their organization more. It is one of the most challenging and demanding concept in marketing as it tries to understand how buyers react or do wh at they do. According to an article in Rochmarketing: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Trust isà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦a prerequisite for consumers to even enter the purchase funnel,à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  said Laura Salant, director, research, About.com. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“By understanding how consumers view trust and what they value most, marketers can tailor their outreach to deliver meaningful information and tools to create authentic, long-lasting relationships.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  (Instyrochmarketing.com, 2014). This clearly explains that marketers have to make their strategies in such a way which will highly influence a consumers buying decision as they tend to look for value of for the product being offered. Every individual in the world is different from one another so it is more over impossible to have the same basic rules that explain how these buying decisions are made. Factors that influence consumer buying behavior The central focus of any marketing plan is the consumers so it is very important for an organization to devise a good marketing strategy which will help them in order to examine a customers behavioral attributes and needs. There are four main factors that influence the buying behavior of a customer. Cultural Factor- It is one of the most basic reason for a consumers want or behavior towards a product or service, as it requires a crucial focus to understand the needs of any individuals. For any organization it is vital for them to take in account the cultural factor in order to inherent themselves to adapt the different market situations, just like how a parent grows up their child with some basic morale, values, perception and also what the family as a whole would expect from the child, hence in the same way even the marketers are trying to understand what the consumers expect from them and introduce products that will be wanted by their customers or make changes to the existing product in order to increase their demand. McDonalds is one of the best examples when it comes to adapting their market and producing products according to their customers cultural needs around the world. They are aware of the importance to provide their customers with food that meets their taste and needs from different cultures. In UAE there is a mixture of veg and non-veg in their population but mostly every individual consumes meat, so McDonalds has to provide meat which is hygienic and at the same time since this is a Muslim country they cannot serve kosher meat here and as well as pork. Hence, in UAE and other Muslim countries they have to serve meat which is Halal (slaughtered according to the Islamic Shariah) and not follow any unethical ways in their production process. The dress code that McDonalds employees have to follow should be not revealing and covered properly in a decent manner. Social Factor- This is another factor which influences the consumer behavior and is divided into three different categories. Reference and membership group: The type of social group an individual belongs to will have their own influence on them. The membership groups are mostly made of people living in the same residential area, age, workplace etc, whereas the reference group are described as people who provide other individuals with some points and opinions of what they think regarding a particular brand. Family: The family can be one of the most influencing factors to an individuals opinion about a brand. The perception of a brand usually created by the family members can have a very strong influence on an individuals buying behavior. For examples, as a child your family did not allow you to consume Pepsi because your parents thought it was not good for your health as it contains a lot of sugar and destroys teeth. This makes a loss for a person like you to ever buy Pepsi as a grown up whoà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s never drunk it as a child. Social role and status: The role or the position of a person at his workplace, with family or friends can also define their social status or role and influence the buying decisions of an individual specially for those products which are visible to other people an can define them as a person. Personal Factor- An individuals age and the way of living his life will obviously influence his buying behavior because an individual does not purchase the same commodity or service which they did 15 or 30 years ago. The living lifestyle, hobbies, activities, personality everything changes with time. A persons financial revenue will also have an effect on his behavior and purchasing decisions. Psychological Factor- In order to explain how this factor can influence on the consumer buying behavior, we can divide it into four different categories. Motivation: This works at a subconscious level of mind and in order to increase the motivation level an organization needs to create a conscience or reinforce a need in the consumerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s mind pushing them to satisfy it. So in order for any organization to increase sales and motivate consumers to purchase they should try to create a need in the mind of individuals and carry out a lot of market research to be able to target the right market. Perception: This basically means the way a consumer selects, organizes and processes the information he receives in order to do something about it which will make sense to him. Learning: When we learn something, we try to demonstrate what we learn by putting it into action, learning is also known to change the way a consumer behaves or interprets information and experience. For example: When you become sick after drinking a mango milkshake, it will create a negative impression about that milkshake you had and fell sick which will demotivate you from purchasing it again. Hence these learning theories can be used by brands to market their product better by associating their products with a positive image in the minds of consumers. Beliefs and attitudes: With experience of life a person tends to develop its own beliefs that will influence his buying behavior. On the contrary, an attitude can be described as a feeling of the idea a person feels associated with the product. It is vital to understand that an individual should identify and analyze and positive and negative attitudes and beliefs they have on any brand. In order for an organization to change the way a consumer thinks about their product, they should adjust and customize their marketing strategies to be able to influence an individuals perception of their brand. Marketing Communication Marketing communication is a crucial and a critical element of marketing activities. It is way in which the right messages that an organization wants their consumers to know are being passed to the targeted market with the right channels. The concept of this is clearly to identify and understand the need of the targeted audience and differentiate themselves from the rivals. The tools of marketing communications are determined by an organization based on their capacity of finance, people, power and strategy which is used to target it to the audience and also the study the various factors which can influence the buying behavior of an individual in order to make them get attracted and consume the commodity or service being offered. Marketing communication is known as the promotion part of the marketing mix of four Pà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s Product, Price, Place and Promotion. It is known as a strategy which is being used by an organization to reach their targe ted market of consumers through different types of communication. It is a complex and a fundamental part of any firms marketing efforts. The different forms of marketing communication includes tools such as Advertising, Public Relations, Online media, Point-of-sale promotions and sales promotion. Advertising is one of the most powerful tools of marketing communication which is used by the businesses in order to help them reach a very large number of audiences with high frequency of message delivery. With this a firm is able to advertise the important information about their products and offers to the consumers but at the same time this is an expensive form of promotional tool, a business needs to have a proper advertising budget and consider the fact that whether they will be coming up with their own ideas for advertising which will not cost them much or hire an advertising company to plan an advert for them which will be costly but worth it. This is basically a non- personal communication which is transmitted through means of media, the marketing communication should be planned properly so that a business is able to make the brand or productà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s name more familiar in the market and also establish and create a favorable image and good will, provide information to the consumers about the product and services being offered and also attract more customers by making them keen in order to find out more about their product and service. Public Relation also helps in creating brand awareness to the consumers in a subtle way. The difference between advertising and public relation is that adverts promotes products in a more aggressive way whereas public relation promotes and communicates in a soft way. Also on the other hand, if PR is talking about your product then it becomes the only means of marketing communication which is free, they are planned and take place purposely by a company in order to communicate to different public categories that may have an interest in their organizational activities. This group of people can include employees, customers and investors. The entire purpose of Public Relation is to create a positive image based on possible mutual relations. They also use various forms of communication channels. The difference between advertising and public relation is that PR uses more informative messages which can include yearly reports and balance sheets, PR are also used to build a trust whereas advertising causes an immediate action. Advertisings are repeated whereas PR actions are quite unique and can also be accomplished through public dialogue. Online Media- In todayà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s the social networking sites too play an important role in marketing of a product as there are many businesses that tend to use the online social media as their means of marketing communication. The adverts are easily being posted on the social sites such as Facebook, twitter or personal blogs so that they can attract an even larger audience from around the different parts of world. Point of sale promotions mainly involves the display techniques which are being used by an organization through audio, video or displays that can influence the buying process of individuals visiting the sale point. It informs the consumers that they can purchase the commodity or service in that particular place. This form of promotion can be done through billboards, specific lighting, posters, product display shelves or by giving away free gifts. Sales Promotion Bibliography List Books McDaniel. C, Lamb C.W. Hair J.F. (2008). Principles Of Marketing, Indian Edition: Cenage Learning, India. Pg no. 152 Websites Instyrochmarketing.com, (2014).Great Article about todayà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s consumer buying behavior | Marketing Services. [online] Available at: https://www.instyrochmarketing.com/marketing/great-article-about-todays-consumer-buying-behavior/ [Accessed 9 May. 2014]. https://smallbusiness.chron.com/types-marketing-communication-concepts-20597.html marketing communications https://www.gb3group.com/promotional-techniques.php