Family decision-making in single-parent and adoptive households

Family Decision Making

During the past decade the market has become increasingly customer oriented, and an important feature with customers is the purchase behavior relative to the family. For instance, parents' purchasing behavior is influenced by the needs of children; similarly, the children's purchases are influenced by parent's considerations' advices and preferences. Therefore, marketers have to consider several family characteristics in promoting and selling certain products and services.

The family decision making in regard to the items bought can be analyzed from four perspectives: role structure, power structure, decision making stage and the family culture. The role structure reveals that the decision making process within a household is influenced by the role played by each member, husband, wife, mother or father. Similar to the role structure, the power structure also states that the person holding the highest power mostly influences the decision making process. Take for instance the patriarchal family, where most decisions are made by the father as opposed to the matriarchal family, where most decisions are taken by the mother. The decision making stage states that, at one point in the purchase process, each family member influences the final decision. Take for instance the case of purchasing an automobile; here, the woman will specify the needs the new car must address, the man will decide upon the car model and the technological features, whereas the children will influence the color. Finally, the forth dimension, family culture, establishes that families will make purchases based on particular features, such as social status, cultural background or family values (Mann).

Family Types

In order to best understand how family members can influence the purchase behavior, one should look at several family types and identify their characteristics as well as the power of influence each member holds. The primary types of families include:

The nuclear family (parents and one or more children),

The single parent family,

Extended family (single parent or nuclear families which live with other relatives, such as grandparents),

The blended family (a nuclear family where one or both spouses have been previously married, resulting even children)

The adoptive family

The foster family

Other family types (Chamberlain)

However the list of possible family types is extremely comprehensive, we will choose the single parent and the adoptive family as references to the decision making process in regard to the family's purchase behavior.

Marketing Strategy

Marketers must always develop and implement their strategies in accordance with the purchasing behavior of consumers. The basic decision making process of consumers' follows five steps: becoming aware of a problem or an opportunity; searching for information; evaluating alternatives; deciding on what to buy and then purchasing it and finally, reassessing the purchase (South Western Learning, 2004).

Keeping this in mind, as well as the characteristics of the presented family types, markets must clearly identify the major decider within the family and then place their products as showing the benefits of the product for the decider in the family. Then, they must offer extensive data on the products as to allow customers to become informed. Then, the prices must be competitive on the market; otherwise the product sold could easily be replaced with a substitute.

All in all, the marketers must follow the next four steps as to ensure a successful marketing campaign:

Step 1: Make significant investments in order to clearly understand the fundamentals of economy and customer behavior

Step 2: Use this knowledge to identify the needs, wants and demands of customers

Step 3: Develop products that are customer oriented and satisfy the needs identified previously

Step 4: Develop appropriate strategies incorporating personalized messages, addressed to small customers group (Business Standard, 2004)