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List the types of potential segmenting dimensions
and explain which you would try to apply first, second, and
third in a particular situation. If the nature of the situation
would affect your answer, explain how
Tred
A:
Tred,
Thank you for your question regarding
segmentation. Segmentation of a market can be described as a
pie cut into slices, each segment of the pie representing
various parts of the market. For example, image that our whole
pie represents the people living within a certain city.
Now imagine that the pie is sliced into two
halves, one half representing men and the other half women. Now
take the half with the men and visualize that one-half of that
half, or one-quarter of the whole pie is men over forty years
old and the other quarter is men under forty years old.
Each piece can be broken further down into
categories such as income, marital status, number of children,
and so forth. The types of potential segments can be small
or very large but always keep in mind that the segment you
choose to go after, that particular niche market, must be large
enough to sustain sales and profits for your company and
possible competitors. For example, there may be people living
in metropolitan areas of the United States that would prefer to
have milk delivered to their doorstep each day, but that unique
market is not probably not large enough to keep a business
going.
There is no right or wrong way to answer
your question about what which dimensions to apply. You must
make a SWAG (scientific wild ass guess) to try and initially
determine which types of people or businesses the particular
benefits (both logical and emotional) of your product or service
meet. After that, you can perform more in depth research within
those identified segments and narrow it down to that core market
or markets to begin your marketing attack upon.
Be aware that you should do as large as
possible sampling of these potential targets to get the
information you require. With too small of a representation,
your research can be vastly off.
You main focus should be on determining the
largest profitable market you want to and can serve and look for
ways create an emotional, compelling reason for them to want to
buy your product or service.
Rodger B. Price
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