The effect of word of mouth communications on consurmers? purchasing decisions and an application

Nowadays such factors as the message confusion caused by mass media and the existence of so many products that satisfy almost the same needs in the market have led consumers to apply to objective and independent information sources in their purchasing decisions. Consumers collect information from other consumers about the products before their purchasing activity. They think that the information obtained through word-of-mouth-communication is more trustworthy than other sources. As a consequence of these interpersonal interactions, consumers conduct their purchasing decisions.Although there are lots of studies about word-of-mouth-communication with regard to foreign countries as the importance of this topic has getting surged in the marketing literature of recent years, there is a short of studies in this subject with regard to Turkey. Word-of-mouth-communication is a type of communication occurring naturally between customers about products and services without an effort, however it deeply affects purchasing decisions of consumers.This thesis that aims at researching the effects of word-of-mouth-communication on consumer purchasing decisions consists of three chapters. In the first chapter, communication concepts extending to marketing communication, and its components, properties and process are reviewed. The second chapter examines the features, parties, sources, types, causes, process of between-consumers communication concept and the elements that firms should pay attention in the application of their between-consumers communication campaigns. In the final chapter, the impacts of between-consumers communication efforts on automobile purchasing decisions of consumers in Bolu city are investigated. Key Words: Word of mouth communication, consumer purchase desicions, marketing communication