Proposal for Brand’s Communication Strategy Developed on Customer Segmentation Based on Psychological Factors and Decision-Making Speed in Purchasing: Case of the Automotive Industry

Abstract

Customers are key in the brand-building process. Many times, this term is applied very broadly, especially in segmentation and planning. Knowing the customer buying behaviour and customer decision-making process is important for brands, especially today, when customers are informed much better and get information over the Internet faster. In this paper, we present theory that deals with the purchasing behaviour of customers and emphasize the analysis of the sales cycle of the individual phases in the current conditions, when segmentation based on socio-demographic data is not enough. It is much better to define the psychological factors, which influence the customer and motivate him to buy in combination with the buyer’s decision-making speed. Thus, the article discusses the basic four types of customers according to the major research work carried out by Eisenberg brothers. Based on this analysis, we can determine the percentage of individual customers. The article offers a survey that was conducted to find the most important factors in the decision-making process when buying a car. In addition to the criteria, we also asked our respondents about the importance of these factors. We have used the multiple criteria decision analysis as it is one of the methods of complex evaluation and it minimizes the degree of subjectivity in choosing a suitable variant. Based on our survey, we have used analysis to estimate trends that brands operate in automotive sector could use to communicate in order to address the type of customer that belongs to their target audience. The primary aim of the paper is to prove that there is a growing trend of humanistic customers through study about their preferences and criteria during the decision-making process that leads them to buy a new car. Moreover, we determinate communication strategies for all four types of customers based on theory provided by Eisenbergs.