Buyer readiness states model

Answer 1

The stages are:

Awareness. Before you can sell, you must make contact with those who want to purchase. Your agency should create advertising and promotional programs that'll make your name conspicuous and will attract serious buyers.

Knowledge. Once rospective clients know your name, they begin the process of acquiring knowledge about what you can offer. Therefore, your advertising efforts should establish you as an expert - perhaps even a specialist in one or more niche areas.

Liking.

Knowing about a company or product does not mean the audience will necessarily like either, they may well be ambivalent, have no feeling at all, or even dislike the product. An audience with knowledge of a product must therefore be moved to the stage of liking the product. Promotion must seek to develop a positive attitude towards the product, or if market research identifies a poor product image in the market, promotion must seek to address these issues within its promotional campaign. IKEA addressed head-on the target markets concerns, that much of their furniture has to be assembled after purchase, and that there are limited staff available on the shop floor, cleverly turning what the audience may well have originally perceived as negatives into positives of shopping

Preference. Given the level of competition in markets today, it is often the case that the potential customer will like several competing products on the market, promotion must now therefore seek to develop within the audience a preference for their product. Through research the business must establish the key features of the product in the eyes of the target market, these might include efficiency, performance, economy, value, and quality. Promotion will now therefore underline the advantages of the product in terms of these key features, which differentiate it from the competition.

Conviction. An audience which prefers a particular product, may still not buy that product based on pure preference. In fact many customers will purchase a competitor's product which they did not prefer purely because they were convinced it was the right decision at that time. Promotion must now build confidence in the audience that their preference for the product is justified, and convince them through a range of promotion tools including for example the use of positive press reviews, and expert recommendations that their productis the right one to buy

Purchase

The last stage in buyer-readiness is purchase of the product, unfortunately conviction to buy may still not result in actual purchase, this may for example be due to the individuals current financial situation. Many customers will need further persuasion to make the purchase. Promotion may offer Sales Promotion discounts, or Personal Selling through Sales Representatives, in order to convert preference and conviction into a sale.