Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Making A Good Market Segmentation Strategy


By Alissa Gilliam


Marketing is the art of knowing how to sell a product and getting it directly to the hands of the consumers. Of course in order to do this, one has to know which group of customers he should actually zoom in on. The art of determining which group of people a marketer should push his product to is the art of making a market segmentation strategy.

The most basic concept where a lot of other concepts would stem out from would be the Maslows Hierarchy of Needs simply because it is the concept that will determine what type of product one will have to sell. For those who do not know, the components of the hierarchy involve the things that are needed to survive, the things needed for being safe, the things needed to belong in a group, and the things needed to boost esteem. In any business, a product will definitely have to be in one of these categories.

From the hierarchy, one will be able to know what type of product he is to sell. He will either be marketing a convenience product, an unsought product, a shopping product, or a specialty product. If one would connect these to the hierarchy, he can see that the convenience products satisfy the basic needs, the unsought ones satisfy the safety needs, the shopping ones for the belonging, and the specialty ones handle the self esteem and self actualization.

By knowing what category the product would fall under, it is actually very simple to determine which consumers should be targeted. Determining the demographics of a certain group is the next step in the process. Basically, one has to determine the gender of the market, the age range, and the income bracket in which they belong in.

When one has already determined the demographics of the target segment, then it is time to go a little bit more micro when it comes to the consumer. Now the psychographics would involve the lifestyle of the consumer and how the mind of the consumer would work. Basically, psychographics would cover the activities, interests, behavioral patterns, and opinion of the consumer.

Zooming in on the interests and behaviors of the consumer would enable the marketer to be able to solve the brand loyalty issue. Brand loyalty means the bond that the customer has with a certain brand. By taking a look at the lifestyle of the consumer, the marketer may now connect the brand to his lifestyle so that he will keep on using the brand.

Through this process, it is now possible to make great strategies. The four Ps of marketing will be at work here now because these concepts will be the one that will mix up all the above concepts. From there, a lot of things may now be implemented.

Now if one is tasked to make a market segmentation strategy, he must first go through this basic process. He must first determine what the product is and what type of people should be targeted. Once that is done, many plans and tactics may be made.




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