Background
Understanding the intellect of a consumer is a mystifying method. It is imperative to consider that no particular factor explicates why consumers behave the way they do. There are external and internal factors and to some extent environmental factors that influences on consumer behavior and marketing strategy.
When marketing products, it is essential that companies analyzes the impact of both external and internal influences on consumer behavior as well as marketing strategies to bond with their target market. This paper will illustrate internal influences and at the same time analyzes the impact that these influences have on the marketing strategy for the iPad.
Internal Influences
There are numerous internal influences on consumer behavior and as so, marketing companies need to enhance their marketing strategy for their product. They include among others knowledge, attitude, personality and lifestyle.
This paper will specifically discuss knowledge, attitude and lifestyle of the consumer as internal factors that would greatly shape Apple’s marketing strategy for the iPad. Examining the impact of internal influences, exposes essential information on consumer behavior, that goes along way in influencing the systems, plans and marketing strategies of Apple on iPad.
Knowledge
In the world of marketing, knowledge is the point to which customers are aware of a product in the market place. Without prior knowledge of the product, customers would not have an urge to purchase the product. Additionally, it encompasses the magnitude to which potential buyers understand the features, viable advantages as well as benefits of the product.
With regard to the iPad, interested buyer should have substantial amount of knowledge which would include features such as; increased performance, increased speed, perfect display and long life battery.
Marketing strategy: The ipad marketer ought to conduct market research to establish whether the customers are firstly aware of ipad. If they are then the ipad marketer need to understand if they for sure know the features and benefits of ipad over related products.
Attitude
According to Paul and Olson (2009) attitude refers to what a person feels or believes about a particular thing. In addition, attitude may be based on how a person acts guided by his or her own beliefs. Attitudes can be difficult to change when formed. Thus, if a consumer has a negative attitude towards a product, it would take substantial effort to change what one believes to be true. Positive attitudes lead to sales.
Marketing strategy: Market research is vital to study attitude towards the product. The marketer of iPad need to emphasize on the benefits of the product against all other related product at the consumer’s disposal.
Lifestyle
This factor generally relates to the way people live through various activities they engage in and the interests they express. It is what people value out of life. Lifestyle is in most cases determined by how people spend their time and money. It would be true to note that a person’s lifestyle dictates if one would be interested in the product or not.
Marketing strategy: The correlation here is enormous. A person’s lifestyle would be one of the main criteria in deciding if they would be likely candidates to buy an iPad. For instance, a 90 year old may not lead such a lifestyle that would make him/her buy an ipad, however, a 25 year old would find it worth buying.
Reference
Paul, J., & Olson, C. (2009) Consumer Behavior. McGraw-Hill: Washington DC.