By
Raul Bernardino
Introduction:
Nowadays,
companies that are selling the products and services, either they are operating
as the small or as the large company, it has to be adopted the market
segmentation strategy in order to be sustained or survived in the long run of
the business.
The
market segmentation is the way to identified or grouping the customers or
entities that have similar needs, demands, and also aim to have best qualities
of the goods and services, including how to pricing the goods and the services
for this specific group. It is also to differentiate customers’ needs and
demands from one region to other regions before doing the real marketing.
“There is no single way or method to
segment the market”, Armstrong, G. and Kotler, P. (2010). It
has to use deferent approaches or ways to determine the best to structure the
market.
There are variables that use in market
segmentation as follows:
Geographic: this segment is to determine
the customer location, either the location scope are worldwide, per region,
country focus, cities or metros, including climate and also density. The
localization of the goods and services, including promotion and advertising are
now becoming a trend for the companies to fulfill the demands and needs of the
customers in that domain.
Demographic: this segment is to determine
or grouping the customer with ages, gender, family size, family life cycle,
income, education, occupation, race, religion, generation and the nationality.
The demographic factors are varying from on region to other region including
needs from different ages and family life style as well. It is also depending
on the group of incomes and occupation.
Psychographic: this segment is to
determine customers or grouping them base on the social class, lifestyle, and
people characteristics.
Behavioural: this segment is to determine
customer base on the knowledge, attitude, customers that responds to the
products, and the uses of the products. There are several customers that are
loyal to the certain products and services also have high rate of products usage
etc.
To answer, the first discussion question
1, where stated that: is
it good idea for small company to adopt a differentiated segmentation strategy?
The answer is yes. As it explained in the introductory that to be sustain in
the market small or larger companies have to adopt market segmentation.
The advantages of have the market segmentations are:
1.
Able to identify the
customers’ needs, wants and demands per location, per demographic, per
behavioural, and per psychographic
2.
The accessibility of the target can reached
and able to measure the target group with the promotions and advertisements (communication
means)
3.
The target group can
be measured the size and determine that the target group is sufficient for
market plan
4.
The target group
can be measured for the future profit making plan
5.
Able to identify the
target group in which has a unique needs and wants
The disadvantages are:
1.
Need lot of
resources to prepare the market segmentation strategy
2.
Market research is
time consuming
3.
The needs and wants
including the demands of the customer may change because of the time difference
of market research and real marketing the products and services.
Conclusion:
To assess those parameters for market segmentation, any businesses will allocate resources to obtain information. It is not a case anymore; with the current technology industries whereas becomes a back bone and take roles to obtain the right information at the time and with a very minimum cost.
To assess those parameters for market segmentation, any businesses will allocate resources to obtain information. It is not a case anymore; with the current technology industries whereas becomes a back bone and take roles to obtain the right information at the time and with a very minimum cost.
References list:
- Armstrong, G. and Kotler, P. (2010) Principles of marketing,13th edition, Global edtition: Prentice Hall
- Lecture notes: PRNMKT_week3_lecture
- Chaffey,D. (1998), Effective E-Marketing, The Critical Factor for Success, [on-line]. Available from: http://www.smartfocus.com/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=OK8TGVMciW4%3D&tabid=178&language=en-GB (Accessed Date: July 22, 2011)
- Market Segmentation, [on-line]. Available from: http://jhcblog.juliehuntconsulting.com/market-segmentation/ (Accessed Date: July 22, 2011)
