 As-Salam-Alaikum-Khwateen-Hasrat. Wasim As-Sain welcomes you to lecture number 11 of Marketing for Non-Profites, MKT 628, at the Virtual University of Pakistan. The component of learning is on stages of consumer behavior. We all know that the primary job of any marketer is influencing the behavior of the target market. Until the behavior is influenced the way the marketer desires, the transaction will not take place. And a transaction in the context of non-profits is giving up some sacrifice, going through a certain level of inconvenience and getting something in return in the form of a benefit or a reward. An excellent example is quitting smoking and going through the pains of withdrawal of a very well-established and entrenched habit and ensuring in return with a better health. So, until the behavior of the target market is influenced by the marketer, nothing is going to move forward. It is therefore very important to watch really the forms of behavior and what are the factors that can be instrumental in changing the behavior the way the marketer desires. Behaviors are classified as simple behaviors and complex behaviors. The advantage is that most of the behaviors are complex. They become simple as a result of certain efforts undertaken by the marketing people. And at the end of a fruitful marketing campaign, the behaviors manifested by the target market become simple and simple behaviors are reflected in their taking the desired decision toward a certain behavior change. We therefore have to talk about the complexity of behaviors. And toward that complexity, I think we do understand that behaviors are not formed overnight. It takes the years and years before those behaviors are formed and manifested the way they are. And therefore, as the marketing people, we have to understand the underlying currents that form that complexity. Experts classify exchanges as low involvement exchanges and high involvement exchanges. Well, there is a direct correlation between the level of involvement and simplicity or complexity. In other words, if an issue is simple and the decision making on part of the consumer is not going to take a long time, it is going to be a low involvement exchange. Conversely, if the issue is complex, complex in the sense because the target market has certain perceptions about that issue, and they have certain very well entrenched kind of habits and values which are difficult to change, and the issue therefore happens to be complex and the target market takes a lot more time to convince themselves that they are all set to bring about a change in their behavior the way the marketer desires. And therefore, we can say there is a direct correlation between the involvement level and the level of simplicity or complexity involved in this equation. I'm going to show you this with the help of a graphical presentation in a short while. But let me say here that the simple behaviors and not the ones I'm going to talk about, I'll rather talk about the complexity of behaviors because that is something that we should whatever focus on. There are quite a few factors that people consider before they change their behavior or before they start considering a change in their well-set and established behaviors. Let me give you the example of polio vaccination here. Just look at the opposition that the people generally have toward that vaccination program thinking that the babies may develop certain medical complications in the later years of their life which of course happens to be a very negative perception but this is kind of a consideration which people have before they start considering a change toward the behavior meaning what is going to be the price I may have to pay if I change the behavior and what is going to be the reward. Once they are convinced, they take the decision. People might consider things like what is going to be the personal cost and the economic and social cost if they do not change a particular behavior. I'll go back to the example of the quit smoking campaign which is all about bringing some benefits to the target market who are into smoking. People think there are going to be many social pressures if they did not quit smoking and if they did, they are going to get the approbation from their peers, friends, relatives and so on and so forth and on top of all that, they are going to ensure a better, healthier and happier life. People may also look at the possible impact of the behavior change on their self-image. If they think their self-image will improve as a result of changing their behavior, they will certainly be quick on making the decision and manifesting a change of behavior. So the marketing people have to understand the undercurrents and the complexity of the factors which the target market considers before they think about a change in their behavior and there are certain tools that they are supposed to find out to the stage the target market is at because one of them happens to be the marketing research about which I'm going to talk about in one of the following components but the fact here is that the real challenge for the marketing people is to fully understand the thought process that goes on in the minds of the consumers and then put together their marketing moves to respond to the challenges their thought process opposes. In other words, the marketing people have to bring about simplicity in the complex thought process by putting together campaigns which can do that particular job. I'm going to talk about that later because we have to understand the stages through which consumers pass before they start considering a change of behavior. Experts classify these stages into the four different steps. The one is the pre-contemplation stage. The second one is contemplation stage. The third one is known as preparation and action whereas the fourth one is maintenance stage. The terminology for each stage is the kind of self-explanatory and the pre-contemplation stage basically reflects everything and anything that goes on before the campaign has been launched. So in other words, it basically reflects almost no awareness on part of the target market. The marketing people do know what's going on at their end. They are the ones who are putting together the campaign but the target market is not really aware of what is going on at that particular end. They may have an inkling of that particular campaign through the French peers and their neighbors or maybe through people from the neighboring village where the campaign either has been launched or is in the process of being launched. For example, visits undertaken by the medical teams of the organization trying to level the ground for launching that campaign will spread the word around and everybody in the neighboring villages will have some idea of what's going on in their neighborhood. So this is a stage where people have not yet started considering the internal factors which bring about a change of behavior. And at the same time, they're not really aware of the complete moves that are planned by the marketing people. However, they may have an idea of the marketing campaign through external sources of which marketing people may as well be a part. Like I talked about the pre-distribution visits undertaken by the organization or distribution visits when the campaign is underway. However, the one thing that's very important about this stage is that the target market does not really weigh the costs they have to pay and the benefits they may get or rather will get by paying those costs. This is something which takes place in the second stage which is known as the contemplation stage and as the terminology suggests, this reflects the people's awareness of the issue and this is the stage where they start weighing the costs they pay in terms of certain sacrifices by changing their belief system, their value system and start considering rather favorably the benefits that they might get if they changed their behavior. So this is a stage where people start contemplating a change of behavior. Some are early contemplators and some are late contemplators but the fact remains that this is a stage which marks a very careful study of costs versus the benefits. The next stage is the preparation and action and I would say again as the terminology suggests this is the stage where people demonstrate a buy-in of the concept which is being sold to them by the marketers. So this is a stage where marketers see success because they see people getting ready to change their behavior in favor of what they really want. Here I would like to take you back to the two particular factors that I talked about earlier, the factor of others and the factor of self-efficacy. Others also are responsible in giving the final push to the change in behavior of the target market and the factor of self-efficacy that gives confidence to the target market in terms of managing by themselves a change of behavior on their own, in other words. However, it is the final push which is given by the marketing people in order to stage the final change of behavior. The final stage is that of the main trend stage where marketing people have the challenge to make sure that the behavior stands changed, remains changed. In the meaning, the influence they have exerted on the target market should remain as is and it calls for a lot of challenge because people do have a tendency to go back to their old behavior patterns. For example, research shows that 80% of smokers go back to smoking after they have quit it. There are other people who go back to the old behavior of not taking any medication which was prescribed to them by the marketing team that was working on a medical program convincing the target market that they have to take medication in order to prevent a certain deadly disease because they do not see any observable change in their body. They seem to think that things would still have been the same if they had not taken that medication and therefore they show the tendency to adopt the early behavior that they manifested before the marketing program was undertaken. An equivalent of this on the commercial side is people switching over to another brand meaning losing the brand loyalty. So this is kind of a reflection of the marketing failure on part of the marketing people if people go back to their old behaviors. A very important stage and once marketing people find their target market in this particular stage it is for them to come up with strategies that can ensure that the target market will keep exhibiting the behavior which already has been influenced as a result of the marketing effort. What is the marketing implication here? We have talked about the complexity of consumer behavior and the need for marketing people to understand that complexity so that they can come up with the right marketing campaign. This basically is the implication. Any concept that we learn in the context of non-profit or anything else it really boils down to coming up with the right set of strategies because formulation of strategies and executing strategies is the name of the strategic game. The whole strategic process that we have learned should owe to a complete understanding of consumer behavior and then the ability on part of the marketing people to come up with the right set of strategies so that they succeed in influencing the behavior they want. The marketing people in other words have to determine at what stage they find their target market at. Do they find it in stage 1, 2, 3 or 4? So whenever they find their target market at they have to come up with compatible, relevant marketing strategies. In other words, if they find their target market at stage number one which is pre-contemplation it means they have to create awareness. So the dynamics of the launching of a program will be dominant in that campaign. If they are dealing with the target market at stage number 2 that they are mostly going to talk about the benefits the target market derives out of the program because it is the benefit side that has to be very dominant in terms of telling the market that the sacrifices and inconveniences that they have to pay and go through in terms of the cost side is going to be more than offset by the benefits they are going to get out of the program. And that is going to be the beauty of the campaign telling your target market they must change their behavior if they really want certain benefits. If the market happens to be at stage 3 where they are getting ready to take the action because they have bought the concept then you have to come up with communications accordingly. It may be in the personal communications meaning personal interaction it may be a huge campaign consisting of a different media meaning a multimedia campaign. If you find your target market at the last stage which is that of maintenance I think quite a few words have been said by me earlier you have to make sure that they do not go back to the old behavioral patterns because that is going to be the failure of the marketing program. So in other words, here the name of the game is going to be reinforcement of the message. It is like advertising being done for a product which is well established and which already has been accepted by the market and now you want to make sure that the people go for repeat purchases and in the process develop a brand loyalty. Similarly in the non-profit context you have got to make sure that people who have shown a change of behavior because you have been able to influence their behavior do not go back to the old thing and stay where they are. This is a huge challenge because research has shown that 80% of smokers go back to smoking after they have quit it and people, whatever program they have been subjected to should stay where they are after they have shown a change of behavior. That is the crux of the matter. This component is on marketing research. The very fundamental question here is why marketing research and the very fundamental answer is we need to carry out marketing research because we need to have certain strategic answers to certain strategic questions without which we cannot move forward with our program. We cannot afford to be vague. We have to bring into a sharp focus all the issues with which we need to clarify and therefore we would like to take you through all those five or six different steps a market researcher has to put together to carry out his marketing research program. First of all, the marketing researcher has to identify the problem. The second step is coming up with the research design and the third step is about identifying all those tools that are going to be instrumental toward making that design work and then we collect data, analyze data and then present a report. These are the six fundamental steps any market researcher has to go through. In the context of non-profit marketing we have to be extremely clear about the issue at hand and the answers that we are looking for. If we are having a problem we need resolution to that problem or there's an opportunity that we really want to seize and we want very clear answers to that particular issue we need to carry out marketing research. It's not really important that we carry out a very comprehensive research in the context of non-profit marketing but nevertheless we do have to understand as a refresher all these five or six different steps that need to be put together to come up with a research program. So like I said in the very first place it is extremely significant to be very clear about the problem identification until we really can bring into focus the problem or the issue at hand and have an accurate marketing research mechanism. Once the problem is identified we move ahead with the research design. The problem therefore lays the ground for anything and everything that follows. One practice that is generally followed by many organizations and I would recommend you following the same practice as coming up with a hypothetical report after you have identified the problem. What you do is if you are in a state of predicament whether to go for this option or that option come up with a report by plugging in hypothetical numbers and get the answers to whether you should go for absolutely free meals or subsidized meals or a combination of those and once you present the results to the people who are responsible for making the final decision then you will be in a better position to ask even more appropriate questions when it comes to putting together your research and once you have carried out the research you can plug in the actual numbers that you have generated through the market research process and that is going to give you a lot of confidence toward making decisions which should be better than if you had not gone through the marketing research process. The marketing research process assures the better decisions because of a higher level of confidence it does not really guarantee the 100% of your success. I must point that out. Once you have done that you get on to the next step which is putting together the research design. Well this is a stage where you put together the plan of action and the real plan of attack, so to say and this is where you decide what exactly is going to be the design of the research with the meaning whether it is going to be qualitative in nature or exploratory, so to say or it is going to be descriptive in nature meaning quantitative or it is going to be causal. Just a few words about all these three types of research designs so that we can be sure which one is the best under different possible situations in a non-profit context. The exploratory or qualitative research is about all those issues which are not very clear to the organization. We do have a vague understanding of the issue and we can talk a lot about that particular issue but we do not really have very concrete answers and therefore we like to get into some kind of research to broaden our understanding of the issue. Once we broaden the issue that helps us narrow down the focus and give us a greater depth into the whole thing and that is where we start asking the right questions and needless to say that we all understand what qualitative or exploratory research is because it is all about asking people their opinions of the issue at hand and therefore we form focus groups because we get into the interviews and we in other words interact with small groups or individuals who we think can get us the right answers. The second type of possible research design is quantitative research. This is the research that expands the base of the qualitative research that we have gathered out. We understand the trends relating the issue and we also have some very qualitative answers but we have to quantify those particular trends by expanding our design and asking those questions to so many different people because the intention here is to generate data. In other words we can say that this is where the real meat and bones of the whole process is and we get into asking them the very pinpointed questions so that we can generate the right amount of data. What is going to be the sample size and how we are going to go after them and what is it that we are going to do to incentivize them are all part of the research design that you put together and generate data to interpret that. Once you are done with it you are done with the quantitative process. The third type of research is the causal research which happens to be the most specific of the research designs because this lets you develop certain causal relationships between different variables. For example, you can draw a relationship between the demographic features of the relatives or the family members of those elderly people who you think form the prospective target market for the nursing home and if you think there is going to be a relationship between the demographics of one constituent and the intention on part of them to let their elders to go to the nursing home, then this research is the one you must carry out because this gives you very specific answers. You may also have certain questions that may reveal certain psychographic relationships between the constituent that makes the decision for their elders and the final decision on the elders going to the nursing home. So causal research is something more specific and more authentic gives you a lot of leads into making the good decisions. After we have chosen which type of research design we need to undertake we are all set to carry out the research. If we are going to go for qualitative model we put together questions for the moderators because you know that qualitative research is carried out with the help of moderators. They are the ones who talk with the focus group or individuals they interview and so on and so forth. If the model or the design is quantitative, in other words descriptive, then we have to have a different type of a questionnaire, whether it is going to be lengthy, which is going to be comprehensive and which is going to be the basis of the survey which you are going to carry out as part of this research. And if the design is causal the questions are going to be formed accordingly. With this you are all set to carry out the research. Whatever the design you are now out to collect data whether through focus groups interviews or surveys you are out to collect data that you decide to generate. Here I would like to say one thing before you go all out with the exercise especially in terms of comprehensive surveys when you are getting out quantitative research you like to go for a sample data collection exercise because you don't really want to base your resources and you want to make sure that the design that you have is going to work the way you want because you carry out this research in a restricted area or with a restricted sample you decide on the basis of the different variables because what exactly is going to be the sample of this particular exercise and those variables basically are a function of economy and efficiency. Otherwise you have the same questions and you have the same techniques to follow out to rather carry out research. The sample research exercise will get you certain observations on the basis of which you may like to bring about certain changes to questions to which you have put together as part of the survey and therefore when it is a question of a comprehensive research requiring huge resources sizable resources because you must be careful and more so in a non-profit context than a commercial context because non-profit organizations are always the short of funds and given the fact that funds are generated through outside sources in most of the cases non-profit organizations have got to be even more careful when they are out to carry out these surveys if at all they are doing that because in many of the cases non-profits should be okay with focus groups and other qualitative research for the methods. Back to the sample data collection and on the basis of that going all out we are all set to carry out the research because once we are done with that we are done to the next stage which is analysis of data. We have collected data and we have to structure that data into so many different forms in different segments so that we can get answers to the demographic features or to psychographics and come up with the right segments of the population which I am going to talk about in one of the following lectures the fact remains that the structured form of data analysis is going to be the right most professional way to interpret data. Interpretation of data is going to give us insights into making certain strategies so in other words from the quantitative side we are now moving back to the qualitative side and therefore we have to have the right most numbers that can become the basis of good qualitative decisions and once we have interpreted the data and come up with the interpretations then we can prepare our report, present that report and seek the decisions that are required in order to move ahead with the program. So this is in brief the six different steps of getting out marketing research and I will say it again the reason I have talked about these steps is because we have to be clear about which one of these is most appropriate in our non-profit context. If we go back to different examples that we have been learning through different components we will see which one is compatible with which example. This component is on marketing research in a non-profit context meaning why is it that we have to carry out research for a non-profit organization. Well the fact remains it gives a lot of credibility and relevance to the non-profit organization. We know that non-profit organizations have to depend a lot on outside sources meaning donors and therefore in order to stay relevant and credible in their eyes non-profit organizations have to carry out marketing research to assure all the constituents that they have a total grip of the environment and they understand all the trends that are taking place within the marketplace and the developments that are affecting the non-profit or have the potential to affect the non-profit in terms of either presenting certain problems or presenting certain opportunities have to be pinpointed with the help of research and therefore NPO's do get into research to convince all those constituents that they are on the right track. In other words, they have to convince all the constituents that they do not base their decision making on just plain observation and reflections. However, systematic those reflections may be, they proceed with the help of all those tools which are significant part of the management process, meaning strategic marketing management process and therefore the need for the marketing research. When it comes to marketing research, there is a perception about it especially in the context of non-profits that it has to be very comprehensive and whenever people talk about marketing research, everybody's mind wanders toward what I said descriptive or quantitative research, meaning surveys. We do not really have to carry out surveys all the time within the non-profits the way we carry out surveys for commercial enterprises. We want to check the level of brand loyalty. We want to check what is it that is making our customers move away from the brand. We want to check what people think of the distribution system and so on and so forth. There could be so many different hypotheses on which these surveys can be based and are based. Here in a non-profit context, there are certain things which may not be subjected to the quantitative research and the fact remains that in many situations qualitative research which is a combination of the focus groups and interviews and which characterizes interaction direct interaction either with individuals or with the smaller groups ask what forms the qualitative research and that is something NPO's can really bank on. With these findings, the most marketing managers and marketing researchers are all set to put your data together analyze that data interpret it and generate certain vital sets of information that different constituents require to give you go ahead for some very strategic decisions. The constituents who are extremely important to the organization under these circumstances whether you are board of directors along with the top management of the organization and donors because they are the ones who play a significant role toward sustaining the organization and therefore you have got to prove it to them that you have a complete understanding of all the segments of the external environment and the interplay of that environment with the internal setup. You can also throw light on how things well look like in the short run, in the medium term and also in the longer run. Once you have proved your understanding, you have gone much beyond just proving a point that you are a good market researcher. As a matter of fact, you have to prove your complete mastery of the overall environment of the organization and that is why I said to keep themselves relevant and credible NPO's have to carry out marketing research from time to time and this marketing research may not have to be very comprehensive in the form of quantitative surveys. This could be a qualitative exercise whereby you seek opinions from different people by forming focus groups by getting into interviews and any other way of interaction that can get you some vital inputs toward all those decisions that are to be made for the organization. Let me give you a couple of examples to further explain what I have been saying. You would like to find out why the donors donate money. What is it that really motivates them to donate toward the cause that you are addressing because this is a question which may be asked by one of the sponsors of the organization why should your donors keep on donating money to you all the time and if you have certain specific results to support your answer you are going to be better off and you can talk in more convincing terms which are going to be based on research and not just observations and reflections like I said earlier. You may like to find out why the donors are moving away from the program that you initiated and toward which they were very enthusiastic to begin with but now they have started donating to some other cause. You have this feeling that they are donating to some other cause and therefore you would like to get into research to find out what that causes and why they are moving toward that cause. So in other words you have to find out what is it that others are doing. What is it that are addressing a similar cause or a cause different from yours but it happens to be a cause for social welfare and therefore you need to find out what is it that is driving them away from you and into somebody else's favor. These are the kind of facts that you need to unearth. You may like to find out who are the donors contributing toward your cause as a consequence of a cost marketing relationship. Now here you say I am going to talk about a couple of things that we already have learned. Just imagine yourself getting out of a cost marketing relationship and you are done with the exercise which has been positive and it has given you good results. What has happened as a consequence of that exercise is that certain consumers or part of your market has developed what experts call customer corporate identification and you want to extend that customer corporate identification from those customers' loyalty toward that organization to yours meaning to your non-profit organization so what is going to happen? We all know that as a result of cost marketing people who are socially conscious do support the organizations or support those commercial entities that they want to work for a certain cause because of the fact that those socially conscious consumers have their own sets of beliefs and values and when they find out that certain corporate sector organizations also have the same set of values and they want to do something for social welfare they become very loyal to those organizations and they start supporting those organizations by buying their products you need to extend that identification to your organization because you would like those customers to be loyal to your organization even after the relationship has expired meaning the cost marketing relationship and therefore you may have the need to carry out some kind of research to make sure that those people stay loyal with your organization and remain your donors you may like to find out through qualitative research what really motivates people to become volunteers if you have certain goals which are volunteer dependent then it is very important to know what really is it so that you can be in close association with them all the time and not be let down given the time for them to make their contribution comes so we can say that the help of research findings you can make your marketing case very convincing and be very credible and relevant in the eyes of all the constituents that matter for the sustenance of the NPO one thing we must keep in mind all the time is that in the non-profit context marketing research must not be carried out if its findings are not going to have a direct application to a particular issue that issue may relate to a certain problem or it may relate to a certain opportunity which we want to capitalize on if there is no direct impact of the findings of the marketing research on that issue it should not be carried out or rather it must not be carried out it is the different from the commercial setup in which you carry out marketing research information even for times to come and you keep doing that by way of carrying out usage and attitude tests as to what is it that keeps them loyal to the product all the time and what is it that makes them go away and so on and so forth those are the kind of studies which commercial enterprises carry out from time to time even if there is no pressing need for that because it is a different ball game altogether and the intensity of competition has certain different kind of dynamics in that environment which is not the case for NPO's NPO's are dependent on revenues which are not generated by themselves NPO's depend on donations which are given by the donors and therefore the revenue stream has a very different character given the limitedness of the budgets at the disposal of NPO's they have to be very prudent and fastidious when it comes to making the decision on whether they should go ahead with marketing research or not but the fact remains research should be carried out so that marketing people can get insights into the behavioral patterns of the target market they can find out the stage of behavior the modification their target market is at and then make the better decisions in terms of communication strategies the fact is with the help of marketing research so many different issues should be simplified they should be made more convincing and they should become the basis of certain strategic decisions which are good for the health of the organization thanks