-: Hello and welcome to the video lecture
on customers and competitors.
So we're gonna talk about two important groups
that you will need to consider
as you work on your marketing plan.
So we're gonna talk about those two,
first customers and competitors.
And when we think about customers,
there's two main types that we think about.
Are you selling directly to the consumer
or the customer, the B2C business to consumer model?
Or are you selling to another business
that will then take what you sell
and transform it in some way?
And when we talk about place,
we'll go into a lot more depth here as well.
So let's start with assuming that you are selling
to the final consumer.
It's important that you know about them.
You want to know who they are and what they buy.
We also wanna know a great deal
about how do they buy and why they buy.
So we'll walk through the purchase decision process,
pre-purchase, purchase, and then post-purchase.
So these are the five stages
where they recognize they have a problem, a need, a want.
They do an information search,
they think about what are the options,
they buy it and then they evaluate
are they happy and would they buy it again.
So, problem recognition starts with something
that you want or you need.
You might be hungry, your phone got destroyed,
you need a new piece of clothing.
Many options here.
And think about what is the problem
that your product or service will be addressing.
It might be my, I need to move,
or my house is very dirty
and I need this service as well.
So you do an information search.
You may start internally,
what did I buy before the last time?
What was it?
And did I like it or not?
And if not, or in addition,
you may also look externally.
You may ask your friends,
you may do a search online,
you may think about advertising.
And then that's going to yield
the brand awareness set.
What are all the options out there
that you know about that could help solve
this need or want or solve the problem?
And note that if they're not aware of you,
if they don't know that you exist,
clearly they can't buy it.
So you want to be in their brand awareness set
and then they start to choose from the various alternatives,
and hopefully choose what you have to offer.
So things that you can think about
as far as the brand go, their objective criteria
that it's food, something like nutrition,
it's shape or size, it's color, things like that.
Also more subjective, is it fashionable?
Is it prestigious?
Then again, if they're not aware of you,
they're not gonna consider you.
So there's an important model here
that thinks about what kind of attributes does a good have,
and there are three main types here.
First is search attributes,
where you can tell just by looking at it.
Is it a red bell pepper?
Is it a large TV?
Is it an SUV versus a sports car?
Things like that.
Next are experience goods where you must try it
and sort of consume it and experience it,
which might be a tart apple, a crisp apple,
a fast car, a fast computer.
But maybe the most interesting type
are so-called credence attributes,
so this comes from the same word as credibility.
And in this case, it would be very hard
for the consumer to know whether these claims
or whether these attributes are true or not.
And a lot of attributes
around sustainability are credence attributes.
So in food, things like certified organic,
if it's grown organically,
if it's grown locally, if it's fair trade,
so which is a program
where they import things like coffee and chocolate
and aim to give a fair price
to the farmers who grew it.
But in all those cases, it's not really reasonable
or realistic for the consumer
to know whether it is organic,
that you can't just look at it.
You can't just try it,
but you sort of have to take their word for it.
And in many cases like this,
there are third party verification processes,
such as certified organic where someone will come
and inspect your farm and look at how you do things,
and if you meet all the criteria,
then you get to label your food organic,
and there are many other examples of this.
So hopefully your good or service is in their mind.
That's what they choose.
They buy it, they consume it in some sense.
If it's a service, they have it done.
They have their car detailed,
or have their house cleaned,
and then they compare it with their expectations,
and decide are they going to buy it again.
So that's the end of part one.
Please go to part two. Thanks.