The elements that play a role in the marketing process can be divided into three groups: customers, distributors, and facilitators. In addition to interacting with one another, these groups must interact within a business environment that is affected by a variety of forces, including governmental, economic, and social influences.

In order to understand target customers, certain questions must be answered: Who constitutes the market segment? What do they buy and why? And how, when, and where do they buy? Knowing who constitutes the market segment is not simply a matter of knowing who uses a product. Often, individuals other than the user may participate in or influence a purchasing decision. Several individuals may play various roles in the decision-making process. For instance, in the decision to purchase an automobile for a small family business, the son may be the initiator, the daughter may be an influencer, the wife may be the decider, the purchasing manager may be the buyer, and the husband may be the user. In other words, the son may read on a Web site that businesses can save money and decrease tax liability by owning or leasing company transportation. He may therefore initiate the product search process by raising this issue at a weekly business meeting. However, the son may not be the best-qualified person to gather and process information about automobiles, because the daughter worked for several years in the auto industry before joining the family business. Although the daughter’s expertise and research efforts may influence the process, she may not be the key decision maker. The mother, by virtue of her position in the business and in the family, may make the final decision about which car to purchase. However, the family uncle may have good negotiation skills, and he may be the purchasing agent. Thus, he will go to different car dealerships in order to buy the chosen car at the best possible price. Finally, despite the involvement of all these individuals in the purchase process, none of them may actually drive the car. It may be purchased so that the father may use it for his frequent sales calls. In other instances, an individual may handle more than one of these purchasing functions and may even be responsible for all of them. The key is that a marketer must recognize that different people have different influences on the purchase decision, and these factors must be taken into account in crafting a marketing strategy.

In addition to knowing to whom the marketing efforts are targeted, it is important to know which products target customers tend to purchase and why they do so. Customers do not purchase “things” as much as they purchase services or benefits to satisfy needs. For instance, a conventional oven allows users to cook and heat food. Microwave oven manufacturers recognized that this need could be fulfilled—and done so more quickly—with a technology other than conventional heating. By focusing on needs rather than on products, these companies were able to gain a significant share in the food cooking and heating market.

Knowledge of when, where, and how purchases are made is also useful. A furniture store whose target customers tend to make major purchases in the spring may send its mailings at the beginning of this season. A food vendor may set up a stand near the door of a busy office complex so that employees must pass the stand on their way to lunch. And a jeweler who knows that customers prefer to pay with credit cards may ensure that all major credit cards are accepted at the store. In other cases, marketers who understand specifics about buying habits and preferences also may try to alter them. Thus, a remotely situated wholesale store may use deeply discounted prices to lure customers away from local shopping malls or online stores.

Customers can be divided into two categories: consumer customers, who purchase goods and services for use by themselves and by those with whom they live; and business customers, who purchase goods and services for use by the organization for which they work. Although there are a number of similarities between the purchasing approaches of each type of customer, there are important differences as well.

Four major types of factors influence consumer buying behaviour: cultural, social, personal, and psychological.

Cultural factors have the broadest influence, because they constitute a stable set of values, perceptions, preferences, and behaviours that have been learned by the consumer throughout life. For example, in Western cultures consumption is often driven by a consumer’s need to express individuality, while in Eastern cultures consumers are more interested in conforming to group norms. In addition to the influence of a dominant culture, consumers may also be influenced by several subcultures. In Quebec the dominant culture is French-speaking, but one influential subculture is English-speaking. Social class is also a subcultural factor: members of any given social class tend to share similar values, interests, and behaviours.

A consumer may interact with several individuals on a daily basis, and the influence of these people constitutes the social factors that affect the buying process. Social factors include reference groups—that is, the formal or informal social groups against which consumers compare themselves. Consumers may be influenced not only by their own membership groups but also by reference groups of which they wish to be a part. Thus, a consumer who wishes to be considered a successful white-collar professional may buy a particular kind of clothing because the people in this reference group tend to wear that style. Typically, the most influential reference group is the family. In this case, family includes the people who raised the consumer (the “family of orientation”) as well as the consumer’s spouse and children (the “family of procreation”). Within each group, a consumer will be expected to play a specific role or set of roles dictated by the norms of the group. Roles in each group generally are tied closely to status.

Personal factors include individual characteristics that, when taken in aggregate, distinguish the individual from others of the same social group and culture. These include age, life-cycle stage, occupation, economic circumstances, and lifestyle. A consumer’s personality and self-conception will also influence his or her buying behaviour.

Finally, psychological factors are the ways in which human thinking and thought patterns influence buying decisions. Consumers are influenced, for example, by their motivation to fulfill a need. In addition, the ways in which an individual acquires and retains information will affect the buying process significantly. Consumers also make their decisions based on past experiences—both positive and negative.

A consumer’s buying task is affected significantly by the level of purchase involvement. The level of involvement describes how important the decision is to the consumer; high involvement is usually associated with purchases that are expensive, infrequent, or risky. Buying also is affected by the degree of difference between brands in the product category. The buying task can be grouped into four categories based on whether involvement is high or low and whether brand differences are great or small.

Complex buying behaviour occurs when the consumer is highly involved with the purchase and when there are significant differences between brands. This behaviour can be associated with the purchase of a new home or a personal computer. Such tasks are complex because the risk is high (significant financial commitment), and the large differences between brands or products require gathering a substantial amount of information prior to purchase. Marketers who wish to influence this buying task must help the consumer process the information as readily as possible. This may include informing the consumer about the product category and its important attributes, providing detailed information about product benefits, and motivating sales personnel to influence final brand choice. For instance, realtors’ Web sites typically offer extensive photographs and videos and full descriptions of each available home. And a computer sales representative is likely to spend time providing information to customers who have questions.

Dissonance-reducing buying behaviour occurs when the consumer is highly involved but sees little difference between brands. This is likely to be the case with the purchase of a lawn mower or a diamond ring. After making a purchase under such circumstances, a consumer is likely to experience the dissonance that comes from noticing that other brands would have been just as good, if not slightly better, in some dimensions. A consumer in such a buying situation will seek information or ideas that justify the original purchase.

There are two types of low-involvement purchases. Habitual buying behaviour occurs when involvement is low and differences between brands are small. Consumers in this case usually do not form a strong attitude toward a brand but select it because it is familiar. In these markets, promotions tend to be simple and repetitive so that the consumer can, without much effort, learn the association between a brand and a product class. Marketers may also try to make their product more involving. For instance, toothpaste was at one time purchased primarily out of habit, but Procter & Gamble introduced a brand, Crest toothpaste, that increased consumer involvement by raising awareness about the importance of good dental hygiene.

Variety-seeking buying behaviour occurs when the consumer is not involved with the purchase, yet there are significant brand differences. In this case, the cost of switching products is low, and so the consumer may, perhaps simply out of boredom, move from one brand to another. Such is often the case with frozen desserts, breakfast cereals, and soft drinks. Dominant firms in such a market situation will attempt to encourage habitual buying and will try to keep other brands from being considered by the consumer. These strategies reduce customer switching behaviour. Challenger firms, on the other hand, want consumers to switch from the market leader, so they will offer promotions, free samples, and advertising that encourage consumers to try something new.