Consumers go through a complex psychological and psychosocial decision-making process before deciding to make the purchase of a desired product or service.

 

These psychological and psychosocial influences have been extended to social media; making it a powerful platform for advertisement. Consumers use social media to share opinions and give recommendations.

This means that it has broad implications for businesses if exploited effectively. This makes it extremely necessary for advertisers to understand what factors influence purchase decision. Here are some.

Motivation

Motivation happens upon a need arousing and the consumer wants to satisfy it. This need drives a consumer to buy the product that will fulfill the desire.

If the product satisfies the desire, it may influence the consumer to make a repeat purchase. On the other hand, if it does not meet the need to satisfy the desire, the consumer may try to find a different product that will fulfill the desire.

Perception

This refers to how a consumer collects information and organizes it. It can be determined by the number of times in which the said consumer is exposed to the information or how they interpret it individually.

Personality

This refers to an individual’s psychological traits, characteristics, habits, attitudes and beliefs. These factors influence how an individual responds to stimuli.

Learning

This refers to the process via which consumers obtain knowledge on product purchase and utilization. It can be through adverts, friends or past experience.

Attitude

This refers to the overall evaluations that express how much a consumer likes or dislikes a particular product. Consumer attitudes are learned and last over a long period of time and cannot be changed easily.

Culture

Culture is a way of life of a people and it is made up of behavior patterns and social relations, which characterize each culture and make it unique from others.

It provides a reference frame for consumer desires and the behavior exhibited towards achieving them.

Culture usually contains sub-cultures such as race or ethnicity, religion and geographical regions. Marketers should design products that meet different needs of each sub-culture.

Social class

This refers to the divisions in society where individuals sharing similar values lifestyles, interests, level of income and behavior can be categorized.

Members of the same social class often have similar behavior patterns.

This means that one’s social class determines what they wear or what they eat. Social class can be used as a reference frame by consumers when they are making purchase decisions.

[irp]

Reference group

This refers to a group that consumers use as a standard in making their purchases. In this context, the consumer buys products that conform to those of other members of the reference group in question. Examples of reference groups are can be the consumer’s family, peers or social class.