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Companies that understand the steps that consumers go through when making a purchasing decision have a tremendous impact on the outcome of this process.

Let’s start with the question: who are your rivals? Take a moment to list two, three, or four companies. Now ask yourself, how do you understand that these are your closest competitors. Are these companies that participate in tenders with you? Are their products placed on a shelf next to yours? Do they appear in search results next to your brands? Do they compete with you for resources and employees? Do they fight you for consumer money?

If the company or brand is truly your competitor, you answered yes to several of these questions. But in the end, only one condition really determines the opponent: do your target consumers remember your brands together when they consider buying a product. So let’s ask the question in a different way: not which brands are your competitors, but which brands do consumers consider when making a decision. To determine this, you need to find a way to look into the thoughts of the consumer. This is not an easy task, but it is worth doing, because your list of competitors may not coincide with the list that has formed in the minds of your customers. But it is he who is more important and better shows who you are competing with than the list that you made while sitting in your comfortable office chair.

Of all the products that can satisfy an existing need, consumers usually consider only a few, even in the most difficult purchase scenarios. This group of products from this circle are your closest competitors. These brands are evaluated by a limited number of criteria, after which one is selected. Thus, based on the beliefs of the marketer, there are three critical issues that affect the way you analyze your competitors and behave in relation to them.

1. How to make sure that your brand is necessarily among those that are considered by the buyer?

2. How to ensure that for as many people as possible there are as few competing brands among those considered?

3. What other brands are in the circle under consideration and how to make your chosen when buying?

Let’s take a deeper look at the client’s decision-making process to understand how you can systematically increase your chances of success in each of these issues.