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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