Sketching out the Beginning of the Buyer Behavior Process - Assignment 12A

1) Segment and interviewees

o   The segment I chose is the demographic of people who are already pretty healthy but live a proactive lifestyle and trying to make improvements. I chose this segment since I think I best fall under this category and would be able to identify prospective interviewee’s easily. I chose 3 students who all happened to come from the Health and Human Performance college at UF. My second two interviewees are in the process of applying and interviewing for medical schools, so they are well versed in the area and would provide a good perspective of the information search portion.

2) What I learned from interviews

o   Regarding need awareness, I focused primarily on a need that develops when they notice something negative happening to their lifestyles. This basically means that if they notice something abnormal with their bodies (getting sick, constantly tired, achy body) how do they go about diagnosing and solving the problem. Furthermore, I asked them if and why they will research new information that isn’t prompted by an immediate need. They mentioned that sometimes they are curious about certain bodily processes that may not be causing a problem, but are interested in. For example, one of my interviewees is an avid weightlifter, thus he enjoys researching new exercises to implement into his workout. He mentioned he has a couple websites he uses and YouTube pages that he follows, along with several social media accounts he will check once in a while or see on his timeline.

o   Regarding information search, all three of the interviewees stated that they first try to think if they have experienced the problem before and if they were able to resolve it in the past. Secondly, they will look it up online and try to diagnose themselves and figure out a cure. Should they think their research is appropriate, they will begin treating themselves. After this response, I was curious if they ever referenced their formal studies for a diagnosis. Surprisingly they said that they either remember the information they learned or forget, so sometimes their formal studies plays a part.

3) Summary

o   This segment can be described as both reactive and proactive. Like anybody else, it is when a problem starts to bother them that they realize a need. However, they also are proactive and search out new information regularly simply because they are interested in it.

Furthermore, once they recognize the need they usually will refer to what they know the best and are most familiar with. If they are able to use previous knowledge to diagnose their problem, they will not need to refer to an external source. However most of the time they will refer to the third party they know the best and is most convenient. This is where social media and the internet becomes an important role since it is usually accessed daily. This is good for my business idea since it will almost exclusively use social media and the internet.