Figuring Out Buyer Behavior No. 1

Market Segment- There are several market segments with regard to this business. Primarily these segments are based on the specific lives of different college and graduate school students in Gainesville. The specific one I have selected to interview in this exercise is students who will be spending a significant amount of time away from Gainesville within a given year and do not want to be responsible to pay rent while they are gone. While this is not a demographic group, it is a psychographic group and distinctly different than other potential consumers of this product who are interested in it for a different reason.

Need Awareness-  While the three people I interviewed are in the same segment, college students that plan on spending a significant amount of time away from school, their need awareness differs significantly. For two of them, their need awareness occurred as early as September of the year before an August lease was starting. Leasing companies in Gainesville begin offering their best lease deals early on, and students begin franticly searching for the best deal they can find before they all sell out. As desperate students wanting to live in specific locations, they will sign a one-year lease fully aware that they may be responsible to pay rent for when they do not intend on living there. The other person I interviewed recognized her problem when she decided she wanted to spend a spring semester completing an internship. She was unsure of where she wanted to be but was open to her options. Initially planning to live in Gainesville while interning, she signed a lease six months before it started. Two months later she was offered the opportunity of her lifetime 1,000 miles away from Gainesville. At this moment, she recognized her need awareness. While she knew she could get out of her lease that did not start for four months, she also knew she needed a place to live for the fall. Income the need awareness and desire for an option like what we are offering.

Information Search- The people I interviewed all seem to primarily trust their older friends suggestions over all else. Since most students have friends of different ages who have experienced different things, their advice evidently is useful and helpful to people struggling with this problem. In addition to this, the people I interviewed use the internet. One odd thing that I have discovered is that the real estate market in Gainesville is very different than most other cities. There are not many real estate agents, nor are there many students seeking agents. Word of mouth and marketing primarily seem to be how these apartment complexes sell their units. Based on this, when students are looking to solve their problems, they will use word of mouth from their friends and the internet. Both searching for what they are looking for and using forums are helpful. They also frequently read reviews on different places to determine the overall sentiment for it.

Findings- The most interesting findings I discovered through these interviews was learning how this market segment conducts their information search. While creating a useful and needed product is definitely very important, marketing your product to the public to insure they are aware of it is definitely important as well. If I were to offer these leases but nobody knew about them, they would not know they existed and would continue to have the need. It is also interesting that this need can happen at different times for different individuals and is extremely related to the external environment, rather than the segments of people being targeted.

Conclusions- This market segment has extremely unique need awareness sequencing for each of its individuals. There is no telling when someone in this group will determine when exactly they need a short-term lease, however it is always before the lease begins. Everyone in this segment signs leases early and knows before it has begun that they will need to pay for time they are not there. In addition, almost none of this segment uses traditional real estate agents, and while many people trust the advice of their parents over their friends, this group seeks help from them. Finally, the internet and social media are extremely important in this segments information search. Overall, If it is popular amongst students and talked about highly, relevant on social media and available on the internet, it will seem significantly more credible and enticing.