Market segmentation, targeting and positioning

Market segmentation , targeting and positioning

Introduction

You must have ever wondered why marketers only target certain markets and how these markets are identified . Think about universities : how do they identify which students to touch with about degrees schemes ? What criteria or base (variables ) do they use ? Do they base it on where you live , your age , or your previous schooling scores ? Do they market to postgraduate and undergraduate groups differently , what about international and domestic student groups----is this difference important for the effective marketing of higher education services to students

p This essay gives a brief answer to it . Firstly it introduces market segmentation and its methods then it describes how to identify market differentiation . Thirdly , it introduces how to target a market and the judgement criteria and also puts forward targeting approaches and how to implement the positioning of the target market as well , finally 2 examples are given to support the above view

This essay is intended to provide a simple understanding about market segmentation for readers

Market segmentation

Market segmentation is the division of a market into different groups of customers with similar needs . Or to express it in another way , market segmentation is the division of a mass market into identifiable and distinct groups or segments , and each has common characteristics and needs and displays similar response to marketing actions . The purpose of market segmentation is to leverage scarce resources or to ensure that the elements of marketing mix (price , distribution , products and promotion ) are designed to meet specific needs of different customer groups . For companies have limited resources it is not possible to produce all possible products for all the people all the time . The best way is to provide selected offerings for selected groups of people most time . This allows companies to focus on particular customers ' needs in the most efficient and effective way (RIES and TROUT , 1972

There are two main approaches to segmenting markets . The first adopts the point of view that the market is considered to consist of customers which are basically the same , so the task is to identify groups which share detail differences . This is referred as the breakdown method . The second approach considers a market to consist of customers that are all different , so here the task is to find similarities . This is known as the build-up method . Nowadays these 2 methods become similar in some way . The aim of both methods is to identify segments in the market where identifiable differences exist between segments and similarities exist between members within each segment

es as followed ?seletion of the base (a priori ) for segmentation (e .g demographics , geographic ?selection of segment describing words ?sample design---mostly using stratified sampling methods and occasionally a quota sample ?data collection ?forming the segments based on a division of respondents into categories ?setup of the pro of the segments using multivariate statistical methods (e .g multiple discriminate analysis , multiple regression analysis ?translation of the findings about the segments ' size and characteristics into specific marketing...