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Because few, if any, products can satisfy the needs of all consumers, companies often develop
different marketing strategies to satisfy different consumer needs. The process by which
marketers do this is referred to as target marketing and involves four basic steps: identifying
markets with unfulfilled needs, segmenting the market, targeting specific segments, and
positioning ones product or service through marketing strategies.
Identifying markets
Target market identification isolates consumers with similar lifestyles, needs, and the like,
and increases our knowledge of their specific requirements. The more marketers can establish
this common ground with consumers, the more effective they will be in addressing these
requirements in their communications programs and informing and/or persuading potential
consumers that the product or service offering will meet their needs
Market Segmentation
The segmentation process involves five distinct steps:
1.
2.
3.
Developing a market-product grid to relate the market segments to the firms
products or actions
4.
Selecting the target segments toward which the firm directs its marketing actions
5.
Geographic location
Demographic attributes
Psychographic attributes
Behavioural attributes
Market Positioning
Positioning has been defined as the art and science of fitting the product or service to one or
more segments of the broad market in such a way as to set it meaningfully apart from
competition. Positioning strategies generally focus on either the consumer or the
competition.
Developing a Positioning Strategy: To create a position for a product or service, managers
must ask themselves six basic questions:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Market Positioning
Positioning has been defined as the art and science of fitting the product or service to one or
more segments of the broad market in such a way as to set it meaningfully apart from
competition. Positioning strategies generally focus on either the consumer or the
competition.
Developing a Positioning Strategy: To create a position for a product or service, managers
must ask themselves six basic questions:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Product decisions
An organization exists because it has some product, service, or idea to offer consumers,
generally in exchange for money. This offering may come in the form of a physical product
(such as a soft drink, pair of jeans, or car), a service (banking, airlines, or legal assistance), a
cause (United Way, March of Dimes), or even a person (a political candidate). The product is
anything that can be marketed and that, when used or supported, gives satisfaction to the
individual. The term product symbolism refers to what a product or brand means to
consumers and what they experience in purchasing and using it.
Price Decisions
The price variable refers to what the consumer must give up to purchase a product or service.
While price is discussed in terms of the dollar amount exchanged for an item, the cost of a
product to the consumer includes time, mental activity, and behavioural effort. From an IMC
perspective, the price must be consistent with the perceptions of the product, as well as the
communications strategy. Higher prices, of course, will communicate a higher product
quality, while lower prices reflect bargain or value perceptions.
company may use trade advertising to interest wholesalers and retailers and motivate them to
purchase its products for resale to their customers. Trade advertising usually appears in
publications that serve the particular industry.
A push strategy tries to convince resellers they can make a profit on a manufacturers product
and to encourage them to order the merchandise and push it through to their customers.
Sometimes manufacturers face resistance from channel members who do not want to take on
an additional product line or brand. In these cases, companies may turn to a promotional pull
strategy, spending money on advertising and sales promotion efforts directed toward the
ultimate consumer. The goal of a pull strategy is to create demand among consumers and
encourage them to request the product from the retailer. Seeing the consumer demand,
retailers will order the product from wholesalers which in turn will request it from the
manufacturer. Thus, stimulating demand at the end-user level pulls the product through the
channels of distribution.