Week 2- Consumer Behavior Overview

Chapter 1- Understanding how marketers understand the wants and needs of the consumer.

Not every consumer is the same, we know this. Every person is unique in how they look, act, through cultures, languages, preferences, regions, etc. There is so much that makes each consumer unique to a business. So, how do marketers go about targeting, and categorizing consumers into different sectors in the effort to earn business?

    Marketers look at demographics, or data relating to the population and groups within it. Examples of groups that are looked at in-depth within this chapter are age, gender, family structure, social class and income, race, geography, and lifestyle. All of these variables allow for the marketer to group each person into one section or another. The variables listed above are some of the larger examples of demographics, but there are far more demographics that can be similar within a group that may differ from another. These unique groups are called segments. 

    Even further than the capability to define segments, marketers have the capability to segment groups through the use of "Big Data" to understand and target behaviors common among different segments. We are living in the age of technology, which means data is everywhere around us, constantly being collected. Weather data in the places we live, comments we make on our friends' posts, how often we are using social media, and how long we look at a particular post. All of this information is collected and has become incredibly useful to marketers in their efforts. Have you ever been scrolling through Instagram and wondered "How does Instagram know I was talking about cat food?"  The answer; Big Data. Big Data is the analysis and collection of massive datasets that allow for the identification of behavior patterns. The truth is, Instagram and marketers had information about you collected through your social media that placed you in a group of someone who would want to purchase cat food. 

    Large amounts of information are collected on you, your family, and your friends- really all of us! All of this information is collected and used to create a profile and segmentation to better understand what you want and what you need.