The concept of Family Life Cycle and use in marketing
The family life cycle is a series of stages determined by factors such as age, marital status presence or absence of children (McDaniel, Lamb & Hair, 2011). Marketers usually adopt this strategy in selling products to various groups of consumers. It helps marketers to know the consumption behavior of different family cycle. The major stages of a family life cycle include;
This stage consists of young singles living away from their parent’s home or living with friends and relatives. Customers in this group are mainly low-income earners, and they immediately get to spend t what they earn. They see no benefit to saving money for to be used after retirement. People in this stage have little financial care, and a large amount of their money is spent on basics kitchen materials, buying cars, furniture, going for vacations and recreation activities. The customers have no well-established financial management and control pattern.. The customers here form a target market for furniture, fashions, and those marketing vacations.
Newly married couples
At this point, the consumers are believed to have young or no children. People in this stage are financially stable, and most of their income is utilized in buying better houses, clothing’s, and leisure activities and on consumer durable goods such as cars and appliances. The consumers in this family life cycle also spend part of their income on vacations and leisure activities. People here have a well-established financial management and control patterns.
Full nest
The stage consists of those people who go on to have children. The family stage is further differentiated as:
I. Full nest I
The segment consists of those families whose smallest child is six years or younger. The families begin to purchase baby stuff such as toys and food. The spending on new homes and baby staff reduces the marginal propensity of the family to save. The couples in this segment are usually not happy with their financial position as they rely on credit finance, overdrafts, and credit cards.
II .Full Nest II
In this stage, the family financial position is improved since the wife has returned to work. The consumption pattern is heavily influenced by children. The youngest child is already in a school going age, and a lot of expenditure is made on buying necessities such as books, sports equipment, clothing, computers and food.
III .full nest III
The segment consists of old married couples with dependent children and a stable financial position. Expenditure is majorly on children’s higher education and more tasteful furniture, households and vacations
Empty nest stage
At this stage, the children are no longer living with their parents. The parents are in a stronger financial position since they are still working. The family will go for luxuries, make financial donations, recreation, travel, and self-education. They consumers are more satisfied with their financial position and money saved. In the empty nest II, the family is retired, and there is a decline in income. A lot of their expenditure is on medical care and health and some on pastimes and hobbies.
Solitary Survivor
These are the people in the final stage of family life cycle. The stage consists of those in labor and those who are retired. The ones still in labor force worries about security and dependence while the retired experience a cut in income and seek affection.
Products, TV show and magazine
The newly married couple stage should be marketed to products such as cars, fridges, furniture and cookers. The TV show and magazine to be used will be one that does a lot of advertising and education about the products. It is because adverts usually determine the way of family spending at this stage.
2. Consumer buying process
The similarity exists in terms of the essential principles of the marketing mix where in both situation;
I. The marketer must always position and price the product or service to match products and service offering with the market.
II. The marketer must always communicate and sell the product or service, so that effectively show value to the target market.
III. The marketer must always align the product or service with the needs of the target market.
Marketing information system
Marketing information system is a systematic way of continually collecting and analyzing data to provide marketing executives with the information they need for decision-making(Ellis, 2011).The major components of MIS are internal report system that consists of orders received, sales invoices and record of inventories. The marketing intelligence is a set of techniques used by managers to gather information in the business environment. The marketing research is the process of identifying market opportunities. The marketing manager does the research so as to understand the marketing MIX for a particular target market. The manager should know the MIS in order to carry efficiently out the management functions of planning, organizing, decision-making, controlling in the marketing process.
References
Ellis, N. (2011). Business-to-business marketing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McDaniel, C., Lamb, C., & Hair, J. (2011). Introduction to marketing. Mason, Ohio: South-Western.
