MARKET SEGMENTS

An effective marketing campaign calls for segmenting. Segmenting isn’t just about grouping your market by their common traits. To form groups in your market, you would need to identify their common buying factors – factors which affect their decision and their response to marketing. Marketers use 5 common groups to segment their markets: Location, Demographics, History, Lifestyle, and Character.

Location – Your market’s location tells a lot about their buying habits. Their location gives you an idea about what your market’s demands are. Segmenting your market according to location helps you figure out what people buy in an area. People’s buying habits are heavily influenced by their community. People who live in certain places respond better to marketing strategies if they are familiar with the material used in advertising. Put up a banner or a sign that will invite interest to your product. Make your presence felt in a community and it will invite locals to talk about your product.

Demographics – Segmenting your market according to demographics will greatly influence your marketing strategies. People in the same age group, gender, ethnic background, income, education, employment, and citizenship tend to respond similarly to a marketing strategy. Find out which marketing strategies would work on a specific demographic. Know which marketing strategy and delivery method works for a certain age group, or research about the spending habits of a middle-class family living in the suburbs. These methods will greatly influence where you would allocate your resources in fuelling your marketing endeavours.

History – Your target market’s history also dictates their spending habits and response to marketing strategies. Their experience with different products and services would influence their future expenditures on a product of the same kind. Your market’s personal experience also factors your market’s response to marketing. For example, a person with a history of abuse, disability, or illness may become less responsive to marketing.

Lifestyle – A person’s lifestyle tells the most about their spending habits. Your market’s tendency to respond to marketing is directly influenced by their beliefs and values. A person’s lifestyle also reflects their political views and religious beliefs. Some marketing strategies may not work for people who follow their religious and political affiliations to the letter. For some, appealing to their belief system may be the key to a more responsive marketing campaign.

Character– Segmenting your market by their character is for identifying their buying habits through brand loyalty, quality inclination, and price preference. Get your message across by tailor-fitting your message to fit a market’s behavioural profile. Appeal to similarities and/or comparison to a person’s preferred brand or price, and you’ll get a better chance of getting the message across due to familiarity. A person can relate more to a message if they are accustomed to the message being conveyed. Have a personal touch to the message that you want to deliver. You can also hand out business cards whenever you get the chance. Business cards add a personal touch to your business and sharing between peers is one of the best advertising that you can get. People can relate your message better if they can quickly associate your message with a person or an encounter that is memorable.

Segmenting your market through these groups can make your message more intimate to your target market. Marketing uses the factors surrounding an individual to help convey the message in a more effective manner. .