Encouraging Consumer Adoption

throughout a Product’s Life Cycle

As a business owner, it’s important for you to understand the adoption

process that consumers go through when purchasing new products and ser-

vices. The adoption process is the psychological process that a consumer

goes through to make a determination on whether to adopt a product. After

you understand this process, you can help the consumer work through each

phase, moving her closer to the final phase — adoption of your product.

There are things you can do in each phase to increase the chances of con-

sumers adopting your products.

Consumers don’t adopt change at the same rate, so you use the five adopter

categories to understand how and why consumers adopt innovations at dif-

ferent rates. In the last half of this section, I introduce the five categories as

well as help you explore the characteristics of each category.

 When a consumer evaluates a product, she’s confronted with an overabun-

dance of product attributes and choices. Her decision of whether to adopt a

new product or a change in terms is based on the following:

 ✓ Level of prior use: This involves how much a consumer has used the

product before the changes and how much she’ll use a new product

after. The consumer evaluates the usability of the product that meets her

needs. For example, if she’s evaluating a new shampoo, she would realize

that she’d use this product daily. If the product is new or has changed,

she’ll determine how that will affect her use and satisfaction with it.

 ✓ Involvement with the product: With this factor, consumers evaluate

their involvement with the product. Their involvement either serves

as a motivator or it acts as a deterrent in their adoption of the new or

changed product.

 ✓ Understanding of the product offering: A consumer purchases products

based on the benefits they offer. So, when evaluating a new or changed

product, she must understand what benefits that product offers her.

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