What consists of a customer's purchasing decision?

Marketing seems to easy when we look at successful marketing campaigns. The ideas are easily grasped by target audience and the message is clearly sent to them. Thus, that is a successful marketing campaign. However, sometimes marketers fail to see that simplicity is almost always the best policy. The message is direct and straight to the point.

Just as the physical world is guided by certain laws of nature, businesses cannot escape the laws of the marketplace. Even in this New Economy, there remain indisputable laws of marketing, much the same as the laws of motion, thermodynamics, gravity and relativity. We'll call them the:

Law of Market Relativity - Customer's purchasing decisions
Law of Market Inertia
Law of Market Entropy

For today's entry, we will speak about Market Relativity only. I will come up with following posts on Market Inertia and Market Entropy. So, stay tuned.

The law of market relativity, E = [mc.sup.2]. Ok, probably looks like alien language to you now. Simply put in marketing terms, Law of Market Relativity means puchase decisions made by consumers are ALWAYS involved with a mix of logic and emotions. Ok, in simpler terms, Law of Market Relativity governs customer's purchasing decision.

Following the equation above, in marketing terms:

Emotional decision to buy(E) = mental logic(Mc) x considerations of the buyer(sup) x content of the marketing(2)

whereby,

Emotional decision to buy (E) = the final purchase made by consumers,

Mental logic (Mc) = customer's pros and cons for the purchase, financial considerations and the urgency need for product

Considerations of the buyer (sup) = what the consumer perceive of the product based on experience or word of mouth or through advertising

Content of marketing (2)= Marketing strategies

Therefore, Theory of Relativity leads to two conclusions, which is:

(a) all puchase decisions made by consumers are a combination of emotions and logic

(b) the level of emotion is affected directly by marketing tactics employed by marketers and personal considerations of the buyer
Relativity leads to two conclusions: (1) all purchase decisions are based on a combination of emotion and logic; and (2) the level of emotion is affected by the marketing tactics and personal considerations of the buyer.

For example, buying a book online, you should logically balance price, delivery time, and e-tailer reliability to get your book quickly and cheaply. But even without checking price, you might enjoy customer-friendly navigation at Amazon.com, or you may root for the underdog and buy from a lesser-known site. Even for this simple purchase, emotion and logic work together to influence your decision.

The purchase decision is more emotional if products are more exclusive and expensive. Few people buy jewelry that often, therefore, jewelry marketing stresses style and glamour and a posh lifestyle that appeals to its specific target audience. Car purchases are also the same. In reality, as long as a car that is functionable and reliable with low or little mainenance, it is considered a good car. However, there are some people who still favour a Porsche, SUV, 4WD, or even a mini cooper just to name a few, over other cars. When in effect it works almost as well as other cars - bringing you safely from Point A to Point B and back to Point A. And how often do these consumers burn the tracks in the highway on their Porshe, haul a ton of rocks in their pickup trucks or go on a road trip with their SUV? And yet, they feel they have made the best purchase for their choice of car. That clearly shows an emotional decision over logical decisions.

Therefore, these clearly illustrates that every single decision to purchase involves a mix of logical and emotional feelings and never devoid of any, no matter how insignificant or how big a purchase is. Knowing that customer's decisions are based on both logical and emotional feelings, it will be wise to know which type of product or service you have. In this way, you can put in the right marketing efforts that corresponds to the emotional appeal of the customers to your product or service.