In the context of marketing, there are six stages through which the customer passes while purchasing or adapting any good or service. These are considered as the psychological stages through which a person passes to decide for a product to either purchase it or not. The six stages faced by the buyers are awareness about the product, knowledge regarding the benefits, factor of interest in the product, preference given to the product over its competition, conviction of the product at the level of suitability and purchasing power. By the understanding of these stages, it helps in determining what promotional activities are going to be used and what medium would be better for a marketing campaign (Shapiro and Bonoma, 1984). A large area is covered with the marketing campaign to target the respective customers through the buyer readiness stages. Following are the stages through which the customers can passes in order to reach the actual product.
Stages of Buyer Readiness
Awareness
Awareness is the stage where the consumer have a rough idea that what re the factors of the product and services. If the customers are less aware about the product then it is the responsibility of the marketer to develop the strategies so that awareness is created advertisements and promotional strategies are used in order to attract the maximum number of customers who are potential buyers (Sirgy, 1982)
Knowledge
The second stage of the buyer readiness is knowledge where the consumer has some awareness about the product but they do not have knowledge about the offerings of the product. If in the market target group lies in this stage where they are aware about a product, so then the purpose is to spread greater knowledge. Once the client knows the name then the process of attaining knowledge starts. So an effort of advertising develops you as an expert and possibly even a specialist in one or more than one niche areas.
Liking
[large]Liking is a stage where the consumer is aware and have complete knowledge about the product and then the consumer start relating itself with the product and establish a connection. The marketer knows about his job that at which level consumer feel its product and then they drafts campaign as accordingly. At this stage evaluation is made with the base of the consumer that whether the consumer is offering a company’s product over its competitors(Smith, 1956)
Conviction
This is the stage where the consumer is given with the very strong impact and reason to believe to purchase the product over the others, in this way conviction is built in the minds of the customers. It provides a level to the target customers to have a business with specific company. The advertising should be in a way that customer feel that this is the only comp any to be preferred.
Purchase
Purchase is following the steps of the conviction stages in which confidence about the product is built in customers and the aim of the marketer is to lead the consumer to purchase the product.
All these stages are important before implementing any marketing plan because it helps to focus on what is actually required to be done.
Referenc
• Shapiro, B. P. and Bonoma, T. V. (1984), How to Segment Industrial Markets, Harvard Business Review, May – June, pp 65-70.
• Sirgy, M.J., 1982, Self-Concept in Consumer Behaviour: A Critical Review, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 9, December, pp. 287-300.
• Smith, W. R., 1956, Product Differentiation and Market Segmentation as Alternative Marketing Strategies, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 21, July, pp. 3-8.