Strategic Marketing: Planning and Control, Third Edition

overseas institute will give you the names and addresses of overseas

nationals. The only way of pursuing this opportunity was to persuade

overseas nationals to identify themselves. This could have been

accomplished by attracting consumers to respond to a promotional

campaign, allowing the organisation to build a customer database.

However, for a small organisation this was likely to be a costly oper-

ation and the idea was dropped in favour of other options.

Given the fact that segments need to demonstrate these four characteris-
tics, the next step is to examine the variables that can be used to usefully
segment a market (see section Consumer behaviour). Comprehension of
consumer buyer behaviour theory is central to the successful develop-
ment and application of segmentation criteria.

■ Consumer behaviour

Consumer buyer behaviour relates to the end customer, the individuals
who purchase products and services for personnel consumption. This
section of the chapter will summarise the main sources of influence
on consumer buyer behaviour (see Figure 4.1), in order to illustrate the

Segmentation 51

Social

Culture

Subculture

Social

class

Reference

groups

Family

Roles and status

Personal

Age

Life-cycle

Occupation

Lifestyle

Personality

Self-concept

Economic

circumstances

Psychological

Motivation

Perception

Learning

Beliefs and attitudes

Situational

Figure 4.1

Influences on

Consumer behaviour