Unit 3 - Making It Happen with Marketing
Learning Target 2: I can explain how to define a target market
If I were to ask you to name a product that is marketed to everyone, what would you say? You might say gum or water. Those are good answers but let’s look a little deeper look at those answers. There are lots of different types of flavors and variations of gum such as winter mint, cinnamon, fruit punch, etc... Why is this? The reason is actually very simple, there are different types of gum because everyone does not like the same type of gum.
This seems very simple for gum but what about water? For this example, let’s look at the very competitive bottled water market. On a quick look bottled water is bottled water right? If this was true, why would a person want to buy a $5 bottle of water when they can get the same amount of water for less than $1 from another brand. The reason is because the label of the $5 bottled water is more desirable than the label of the less than $1 bottled water. The person buying the more expensive bottled water is buying it in a sense to show off they are better than others because of what they buy. The opposite is true for the person who chooses to save money and but the less expensive bottled water. This person does not care what the name of the bottled water is but rather they want the convenience bottled water offers.
As you can see if a marketer decided to market to everyone they would be wasting their advertising dollars. If a person does not like spearmint gum, why would you advertise to them. Instead of mass marketing marketers chose to practice market segmentation in order to create a target market.
Market segmentation is the process of dividing a total market into smaller, more specific groups.
Below are different a business can segment a market.
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Geographic segmentation involves segmenting a market by physical location.
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Segmenting by behavior: marketers consider factors such as the market's product knowledge, purchasing habits, and responses to products.
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Occasion segmentation classifies buying behavior by important events such as birthdays, holidays, and weddings.
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Psychographic segmentation is the division of a market on the basis of consumers' lifestyles and personalities.
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Demographic segmentation considers factors such as income, education, age, and gender.
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Baby boomers were born between 1946 and 1964. Baby boomers, therefore, represent people of a particular age range that is aging. Many baby boomers are empty nesters, and they have the money and time to travel
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Watch this video about market segmentation.
Once a business has a clear understanding of its market segmentation it needs to decide what market they should enter. They have basically two choices, they can use an undifferentiated strategy where they make the same product available to all segments of a market. The opposite of this is a niche marketing strategy, this is where a business offers different product and services to different segments of the market.
Most companies who use a niche marketing strategy have benefited significantly. They are successful because they tuned into the specific needs and wants of the customer which can ultimately increase repeat sales, which means loyalty and which ultimately brings the customer back often. This will also relate the ultimate goal of every business which is profit through increased sales, repeat sales and referrals to new customers.
Make The Connection: Take a product of your choice and explain 3 different target markets for that product