Communication and the Consumer Buying Process

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Communication and the Consumer Buying Process
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Model of Consumer Behaviour
Marketing Stimuli
Other Stimuli
Buyers Black Box
Buyers responsibility
Economic Technological Political Cultural
Product Price Place Promotion
Product Choice Brand Choice Dealer
Choice Purchase timing Purchase amount
Buyer Characteristics
Buyer Decision Process
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Buyers Black Box

• How to influence ?

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Factors influencing behaviour
Cultural
Social
Personal
Psychological
Culture Subculture Soical class
Reference groups Family Roles and status
Age/Life cycle stage Occupation Economic circumst
ances Lifestyle Personality and self concept
Motivation Perception Learning Beliefs
and attitudes
Buyer
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Factors influencing behaviour

• Individual attitudes are the sum of cultural,
  social, personal and psychological influences.
• If attitudes can be clustered and size,
  accessibility and responsiveness criteria applied
  these can be formulated into significant market
  segments.

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Factors influencing behaviour

• Communication strategy can be based upon these
  substantive consumer segments

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The Tourism Communication Gap
External communications to the consumer
Gap 4
Gap 3
Service delivery and physical presence
Translation into tourism service
Customer Needs
Gap 2
Management perceptions of consumer expectations
Perceived Service
Past experience
Gap 5
Gap 1
Expected Service
Adapted from Parasuraman, Berry, Zeithaml
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Gap 1

• Differences between consumer expectations and
  management perceptions of consumer expectations
• -Do heritage visitors want education or
  entertainment

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Gap 2

• Differences between management perceptions of
  consumer expectations and service quality
  specifications.
• - If the perception is that heritage visitors
  want education (when some of them want to
  entertained) then specifications for
  architectural presentation may be irrelevant.

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Gap 3

• Differences between service quality
  specifications and the service actually
  delivered.
• - How do you ensure that information about
  architecture is given accurately by guides.

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Gap 4

• Differences between service delivery and what is
  communicated about the service to the consumer.
• - Nature of the communication can influence
  expected service, actual service and evaluation
  of service

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Gap 5

• Differences between the perceived and expected
  service
• Creates a problem for strategy definition e.g.how
  to plan and communicate benefits of air service
  to regular business traveller and infrequent
  vacation traveller

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Consumer Behaviour

• Consumer behaviour is purposeful
• The consumer has free choice
• Consumer behaviour is a process
• Consumer behaviour can be influenced
• There is a need for consumer education

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Purposeful

• Purposeful but not necessarily rational can be
  influenced by non product/service benefits e.g
  image.

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Free Choice

• Consumers do not have to pay attention to
  marketing communications

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Process

• Marketers must understand the process in order to
  influence it

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Influence

• Once the process has been understood (through
  research?) communication plans can be evolved

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Education

• Because of the complexity of many tourism
  products consumers may need education via
  effective communications

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Tourism Communication Mix
Advertising, Public Relations

• Creates awareness
• Creates image
• Strategic
• Difficult to check effectiveness
• General proposition

Tourism Product
Design Features
Consumer perceptions

• Tactical
• More direct link with sales
• Specific proposition

Merchandising, Sales Promotion Direct Mail,
Personal Selling
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Communication Mix

• Depends upon
• Stage in the corporate/operation life cycle
• Target Market
• Competition
• Strategic position including budget
• Social/economic/political trends

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Communicating Tourism Products

• Basic issue - to create a tangible/integrated and
  straightforward proposition for the tourism
  target market from a complex set of intangibles

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Communication in the Tourism Marketing Mix
Product Design, Packaging
Price Value for money Promotional pricing
Distributors Atmosphere of agencies
Location Neighbourhood Environment
MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS
Personnel Presentation, sales
Customers Ambience
Administrative process Direct communication
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Communication in the Tourism Marketing Mix

• For established tourism organisations the key
  marketing issue is to discriminate between
  competitive offerings in the market place using
  each aspect of the marketing mix as a
  communication tool.

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Stages of the buying/decision process
PROBLEM RECOGNITION
INFORMATION SEARCH
EVALUATION
DECISION
POST PURCHASE DISSONANCE
SATISFACTION DISSATISFACTION
BUY
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Problem Recognition

• Consumers preference structure for a tourist
  destination is influenced by internalized
  environmental factors derived from, cultural
  norms, family/reference groups, financial status
  and social class

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Information Search, Decision and Evaluation

• Develops the frame of reference by which future
  tourism purchase intentions are established

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Post Purchase Dissonance

• Will determine the extent to which future
  purchase of tourism products/services involves
  straight rebuy or modified repurchasing behaviour