Consumer Behaviour Consumers have so many choices to make compared to ten or
even twenty years ago. Today as always, business growth depends heavily on loyal
customers who return because they are satisfied with the product and/or service
they have received. But first companies have to bring consumers into the stores.
The companies bring consumers into the store by marketing their product. The
average consumer would probably define marketing as a combination of advertising
and selling. It actually includes a good deal more. Modern marketing is most
simply defined as directing the flow of goods from producers to customers. In
order to answer this question fully we must define consumer goods which means
goods that are used or bought for use primarily for personal, family, or
household purposes.
The paper outlines the contributions of marketing through
fast moving consumer goods. Promotion, which works hand in hand with marketing a
product, allows the product to be relayed to the right consumer through
campaigns. A Market research must be completed to find a target audience which
is used for promotional and advertising reasons. The last part of the scheme is
the actual advertising of the good which pulls the consumer into the store.
Marketing has had an influential impact on fast moving consumer goods through
abroad range of activities including, promotion, market research, and
advertising. Promotion is used to communicate information about goods and
services to target market audiences thereby facilitating the exchange process.
Promotion plays an important role in informing, educating, persuading
and reminding customers. The promotional mix is adjusted according to the
organizations promotional objectives and its marketing situation. Generally, in
consumer’s services, marketing and advertising will be by far the main component
and the most expensive. Promotion is essentially about communication. Target
audiences need to receive information about goods and services before they can
begin to consider making a purchase. The promotional objectives will influence
the nature of the promotional message and the type of appeal used to get the
message across. One of the key tasks in designing and executing promotional
programmes is the selection of appropriate media for advertising and other forms
of communication. The range of possible media choice is extensive but will
ultimately be governed by factors such as the budget available and the target
audience profile. The development of an effective promotional campaign involves
combining the promotional mix elements in the most appropriate way to meet the
organizations communications objectives. Evaluation and monitoring is important
and one method of evaluation is by completing marketing research. (Woodruffe
1995149,163-4) An advertisement, or a campaign of advertisements, is planned in
much the same way a successful salesperson plans the approach to be used on a
personal call. The first stage is working out the strategy. This requires a
thorough analysis of all available market research, personal discussions--or
focus groups--with typical prospective buyers of the product, and knowledge of
all competitive products and their advertising.Based on the understanding and
insights derived from this information, advertising professionals write a
strategy that defines the prospects that constitute the target market to which
they must direct the message and what must be communicated in order to persuade
the prospects to take the action that is desired. With this strategy as a guide,
copywriters and art directors begin to create the advertisements. At this second
stage they try to come up with an idea that involves the prospect, pertains to
his life or problems, and is memorable. The idea can take the form of an
unexpected set of words or a graphic symbol. It also can be a combination of
words and graphics, and even music.An advertising idea works best when it is a
totally unexpected yet thoroughly relevant fulfillment of the strategy. The
third stage is the execution of the idea. This means turning the idea into some
form of communication that a prospect can see or hear. For print advertising,
execution involves writing text, taking photographs or commissioning drawings,
arranging elements on the page (layout), setting type, making photo engravings,
and so on.
