Introduction
The modern competitive marketing world presents a variety of challenges for companies. Considerable competition in the market provides a wide range of diverse products for consumers to choose from, thus compelling marketers to leverage all available opportunities for attracting customers by influencing their purchasing behavior. Online platforms and digital technologies contribute to the scope of methods of customer decision-making (CDM) influence and guarantee companies’ high profits.
The understanding of the stages of the CDM process amplifies the power of influence and is capable of developing many different ways of directing customers’ attention to a product a company wants to sell. Therefore, in the advanced digital environment, marketers should utilize online techniques of influence on CDM at every stage of this process to sell more efficiently and increase profit.
CDM Stages
The behavior a consumer experience in the process of buying has similar features in different individuals. According to Karimi, Papamichail, and Holland (2015), there are some typical patterns in CDM behavior that might differ depending on personal characteristics concerning needs, knowledge of product information, or availability of data about alternatives. These characteristics reflect different stages of CDM that every customer goes through when being engaged in a purchasing process. There are five commonly recognized stages of the buying process that includes problem recognition, search for information, evaluation of alternative products, purchase decision, and post-purchase behavior (Kotler & Keller, 2016).
At each of these stages, marketers may influence a customer leading his or her purchasing behavior toward a company’s profit – the case when a customer buys the company’s particular product. The advanced internet technologies provide a scope of essential techniques based on online marketing principles that facilitate the process of marketers’ influence on customer decision-making. The online-based approach greatly differs from the offline one due to its speed and the broader scope of prospective buyers who use the internet. Also, the manner of selling is different because online techniques make it possible to influence people constantly thus contributing to their decision-making on a greater scale.
Starbucks’ Strategy of Online CDM Influence
Many large companies utilize CDM influence methods to increase their selling rates. The advancement of online techniques that are capable of tracking the users’ preferences on the basis of their search history and likes on social media takes the strategic marketing to the next level of development. One of the examples relevant to the discussed issue is a coffee company, Starbucks. Online advertisement and evaluation of customers’ feedback collected from social media and special platforms are the most effectively used methods that Starbucks applies to its internet marketing strategy (Haskova, 2015).
Indeed, the company employs the ideas retrieved from open innovation communities that also contribute to its selling strategies (Martinez-Torres, Rodriguez-Pinero, & Toral, 2015). For example, at the stage of problem recognition a prospective customer might be influenced by an ad on social media demonstrating that besides coffee, there are Starbucks cups that a person might not know about (Haskova, 2015). Now that a customer has seen an ad, he or she might admit the need for such a purchase.
At the next stage of information search, the company utilizes its website as a source of all the needed information. This platform also ensures presenting the data that shows the product’s advantages over alternatives, thus completing the influence of the third stage of CDM. Easily accessible online purchasing platforms facilitate the process of buying and online communities aimed at feedback collection and communication with the customers provide Starbucks with the opportunity of influence on the two last stages. A personalized advertisement approach on every CDM stage is more effective than a regular offline one.
Conclusion
In conclusion, customers’ purchasing behavior has some typical patterns and undergoes five common stages from a product need recognition to buying and post-buying actions. Modern digital technologies provide marketers with diverse opportunities for online influence that can change CDM and bring profit to companies. Starbucks as one of the successful companies demonstrate its active users of online influencing techniques on every stage of CDM that result in the company’s high revenues.
References
Haskova, K. (2015). Starbucks marketing analysis. Bulletin of the Center for Research and Interdisciplinary Study, 1, 11-29.
Karimi, S., Papamichail, K. N., & Holland, C. P. (2015). The effect of prior knowledge and decision-making style on the online purchase decision-making process: A typology of consumer shopping behavior. Decision Support System, 77, 137-147.
Kotler, P. T., & Keller, K. L. (2016). Marketing management (15th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson Education.
Martinez-Torres, M. R., Rodriguez-Pinero, F., & Toral, S. L. (2015). Customer preferences versus managerial decision-making in open innovation communities: The case of Starbucks. Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, 10, 1226-1238.