The Effect Of Motivation, Values And Involvement Of The Buyers In The Market

In each and every market the buyers are unpredictable and therefore strategic marketing should be in a way that the marketers influence the decisions made by the buyers. Motivation, values and involvement of the buyers plays a very important role in influencing the decision of the buyers. For a business organization to be unique from other competitors in the industry it needs to form a strong relationship with the current buyers and the potential buyers.Considering the values of the buyers, involving them in the decision making process and motivating them accordingly are some of the ways that businesses can use to influence the behavior of the buyers. There is need to research on the motivation, value and involvement of the buyer because all of the successful sales are made not because of the excellence of the products being marketed but because the marketers either consciously or unconsciously have found a human reason to why their products should sell. The marketers need to underst and the role of motivation, values and involvement of the buyers so as to have a successful sale.Businesses that misunderstand the above role end up making wrong decisions concerning the behavior of the buyer and hence they incur significant losses. Research also needs to be carried out to show the differences in the levels of motivation and involvement between buyers who are purchasing for business reasons and those who are purchasing for personal reasons. Understanding the values, motivation and the involvement of the buyers also helps businesses retain their customers and hence have a stable market and a competitive advantage in the market.Due to the above factors which clearly show the importance of the motivation, values and involvement of the buyers there is need to carry out a research so as to provide more information to businesses on this topic. LITERATURE REVIEW In a business context the behavior of the consumers is referred to as the study of the reason why consumers purc hase specific items during a certain period in a certain place. In trying to understand the concept of consumer behavior a lot of research has looked at it from a social, psychology and economics view.A lot of research has been carried to evaluate the behavior of the consumers but most of the research is carried out on groups of the consumers and fails to investigate the behavior of a single consumer without the influence of the other consumers in the market. Most of the research that has been carried out studies the characteristics of consumers in groups so as to understand the needs and preferences of a certain group of consumers (Solomon et al: 121-135). This research study will study the consumers individually to understand personal needs and preferences of consumers.Studies have also been carried out to investigate the influence consumers get from their friends, families and the society as a whole. Consumer behavior also tries to study the consumer retention, the relationship o f the consumers and the business and also the values of the consumers. Businesses need to consider the motivation of the buyers in order to improve their sales. There are two types of motivations of the buyers: psychological motivation and physiological motivation (Hauftvet et al: 889).Consumer behavior studies are carried out to determine how the consumers use and dispose the product as well as to understand how the products are purchased. Marketers need to understand the use of the products they deal with because this affects how a product is positioned in the market and how the marketers can influence the consumption of the product. Due to the fact that environmental problems arise as a result of disposal of the products purchased by the consumers it is necessary to study the disposal of products as this affects the motivation of the buyers towards a certain product.The research will extend previous studies in that it will look at the effect of consumer behavior on the society fo r example aggressive marketing of foods rich in high foods has serious effects on the health of the population (Henry, 2004: 256-262). In the early 1900’s Dither carried out a qualitative market research and suggested that the motives of the consumers are initiated by concealed unconscious needs. However, most of the theories developed by Ditcher on consumer motivations have been disregarded in the modern marketing strategies (as cited in Ziems, 2004: 211).Ditcher identified five stages involved in the motivation process as underlying need, drive, desire, goal and behavior. Consumer involvement is the increased state of awareness that tends to motivate consumers to think about a product and seek information regarding the product before they buy it. High levels of involvement of the buyers have been seen to increase the attention of the buyers towards certain products and also the consumers place greater importance on the sources of the information relating to the products.Thi s research will also investigate whether there is more to motivating the consumers rather than unaware desires or wants of the consumers. Hein, 2006 noted that the only best way to hook a buyer into buying a certain product is touching the buyers emotionally (Hein, 2006: 42). HYPOTHESES The level of motivation of the buyers affects the competitive advantage of the business. The value of buyers on a certain product affects the sales of the product. High levels of involvement of the buyers increase the information the buyers have regarding the product.RESEARCH METHODS In selection of the research methods to be used in this research, time available for the research, the cost of the research and access to the information were the factors that will be put into consideration. For the successful completion of the study it will be necessary to collect data from various sources to enable the business produce items that the buyers want and not what the business thinks the buyers want. Both pr imary and secondary methods of research will be used in this study.Secondary research will involve making use of information that has been collected in previous studies. Primary data collection methods will also be used in this research. The methods used will include mail questionnaires, use of focus groups, phone surveys and direct observations. The research will focus more on the data collected through surveys because surveys produce more specific information regarding the buyers. The surveys will have open ended questions as well as close ended questions.Due to the fact that mail surveys are generally inexpensive they will be preferred in this research to cut down the cost of the research. MEASUREMENT APPROACH Collection of the data in this study will commence by informing the expected respondents of the need to carry out the research and how their responses will be treated during the research. The expected respondents will then be sent a copy of the questionnaire through mail. S o as to minimize the chances of unanswered questionnaires the researcher will take a sample of the respondents from a group of the consumers.The sample will consist of people of all races, ethnic group and age. Follow ups will then be done through the phone to ensure that the respondents have received the questionnaires and they are willing to respond to the questionnaires. Observations will then be made to understand the level of involvement of the respondents and how this affects the market of the product. After the questionnaires have been completed by the respondents the researcher will then collect all the questionnaires and analyze the data acquired.Analysis of the data will be carried out by use of SPSS and then graphs and charts will be derived from the data to present the data in a more clear way. The researcher will then collect secondary information from previous studies that have been carried out. The secondary information combined with the primary information will then be used to show how the values, motivation and the involvement of the buyers affect the market of the product. Statistical analysis will also be carried out on the data collected to test for validity and reliability of the data.DISCUSSION For the successful completion of this research contributions will be drawn from earlier researchers in the area. The marketers will also be expected to participate in the research in that they will give experiences on how the values, motivation and involvement of the consumers have affected the marketing of their products. One of the major difficulties expected during the research is unwilling respondents. This will result to unanswered questionnaires hence gaps in the expected data.An error may occur in the observation method of collecting information, this happens when the researcher observes the wrong behaviors of the sampled population. There will be need for further research in this area to clearly identify the measures that business organizat ions should take to ensure that the buyers are more involved in the business activities. WORD COUNT: 1, 480 WORK CITED Haugtvedt P. Curtis, Paul Herr and Frank R. Kardes, (2008), Handbook of consumer psychology, Illustrated Edition, New York, CRC Press Hein, K. (2006, October 2). Inside the Mind of the Marketer.Brandweek, 47(36), 16-21. Retrieved July 22, 2009, from the Academic Search Complete database Henry Assael, (2004), consumer behavior: a strategic approach, illustrated Edition, Boston, New York, Houghton Mifflin Publishers Solomon R Michael, Gary J. Bamossy, Soren Askegaard, (2001), Consumer behavior: A European perspective, Second Edition, New York, Prentice Hall Publishers. Ziems, D. (2004, June). The Morphological Approach for Unconscious Consumer Motivation Research. Journal of Advertising Research, 44(2), 210-215. Retrieved July 22, 2009 from EJC database