Solved: Discuss the factors determine the degree of influence a reference group

Answer 3. A consumer is a person or organization that will be the final user of the goods or services that are on offer. Reference group is a cluster or group of people who are referred at the time of evaluating the attitude, behavior or the qualities. This group can be work groups, family or close friends.

The factors that determine the degree of influence a reference group will have on a consumer decision are as follows:

• Knowledge about the product: – If a person is using the product for the first time and does not have information about its specifics will take advice from people or friends and the impact of reference group in making the decision will be very high.
• Acceptance of the Reference Group:-People who are considered to be trust worthy and credible also play an important role in influencing. When the buyer is concerned with the acceptance or approval of others with whom they relate to they are likely to accept the product, brand that these people use.
• The visibility of a product makes a high impact on the people. If the product is visible good and a novelty product it is likely that the product will be promoted by a lot of people and will have a high visible appearance.
• Culture: – Culture plays an important role in what a person purchases and uses. Mostly people from similar social background have similar purchasing patterns and the advertisers use that while selling their products. This has been seen mostly in food products and services.

Answer 4: The psychographic and lifestyle study is relevant to marketing because it is a cluster of a person’s attitudes, values and interests and for marketing of any service or goods the study of all these factors is the most important thing and helps in forming the marketing strategy .

Based on the psychographics of a person like education, sex, occupation, age group the product can be segmented and advertised. For example a life insurance policy will be of interest to a working person than a school or college going person.

The lifestyle of a person plays a great influence in his buying characteristics. The ways in which lifestyle can be measured is as follows:

• The spending patterns of a customer i.e. the products and services a person is consuming.
• The culture or values system the person is following helps a lot in determining is buying preferences.
• Activities and interest a person has. For example- If a person has interest in playing football the marketing person will target him to sell product related to football.
• The personality trait that a person has also helps in measuring the lifestyle pattern.

Based on all the above factors the target audience is determined by the marketing team and focus is made to sell the product or services to them.