It is important to understand why anyone would want to buy your product or service, this is because customer behaviour will affect their decision to buy or not to buy.

Why people buy
The reasons for buying usually fall into two categories: rational and emotional. Rational reasons could be because the product or service is cheaper, has a free one-year warranty or the running and maintenance costs are low. Emotional reasons could include the product looks good, it has been recommended by friends or it has prestige appeal.

Psychological Influences
Without wanting to go into any depth into psychology, it would be useful to know about the individual make up that constitutes your target group. The following will therefore look at such aspects as: personality, perception, motivation and groups.

Personality
Personality lies at the heart of customer behaviour. For example, Freud believed that the mind composed of three interacting forces: the id (which seeks immediate gratification), the ego (which operate on the reality principle) and the superego (which defines what is morally right).

Whether you are a believer in the Freudian theory or not, find out the personality traits and characteristics of your target group, so that it can be reflected in the product or services itself and you can conduct your marketing activities around it. In other words find out what makes your customers tick.

Perception
This is how individuals process and reorganise the information they receive. The time of day or what the individual is doing can affect the way he or she interprets a message. For example, an individual may feel more relaxed to read an advertisement in the weekend papers than during the week. This will need to be taken into account when you market your product or service.

Motivation
What triggers the needs and wants of a customer? What drives a consumer towards fulfilment? It is peoples' motives that initiate behaviour; for example hunger (which is a motive) will prompt a visit to a shop (behaviour) to buy food (goal). Maslow's hierarchy of needs has been used as a framework for classifying motivation into five levels. Examples of consumer behaviour and marketing activity that can be found to fit all levels are:

• Physiological needs - such as hunger, sex and thirst which needs to be satisfied regularly. Your business can capitalise on such feelings.
• Safety needs - which covers the need for self-protection and long term survival, such as home security and insurance services.
• Belonging needs - this is emotional security such as love, affection and affiliation. This is often portrayed through the portrayal of family.
• Esteem - is the individual's need for success, status and good opinion within the wider society, for example luxury products can suggest that by using their brand, you will be a cut above the rest.
• Self-actualisation - this is personal fulfilment, which is dependant on who you are and what you want from life.