Segmentation, Targeting & Positioning (STP): Exploring the Concepts and Locating the Connections between Them Although often underrated by general audiences, the subject of marketing is very complex, and the strategies used by companies to promote their brand are quite intricate. Understanding the reasons for these approaches to have the tremendous positive effect by which they can currently be characterised is critical to the overall promotion of progress within the specified area. By deconstructing the essential elements of marketing in the contemporary economic environment, one will be able to delineate a common trend and suggest options for enhancing the existing marketing process. As a result, opportunities for improving the framework for catering to customers’ needs will be provided. The STP framework itself is rather basic and, therefore, quite simple to follow. As the title suggests, it consists of three key elements, specifically, Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning. The decision to combine the Continue reading
Marketing Management Basics
Real-World Examples of Marketing Segmentation
While developing effective marketing strategies and plans, managers refer to segmenting the market in order to determine the areas in which the product or services will be proposed. The overall levels of segmentation include the mass market, the segments, niches, and individuals. The managers choose whether to compete within the mass market, the certain segment, the specific niche, or be oriented to individuals. When segments are selected, the managers focus on their characteristics and differences in order to address the chosen category directly. In their turn, the segments as groups of customers with specific needs and expectations in the market can be determined with the help of focusing on variables or differences of potential customers. The process of dividing the market into segments includes the focus on variables or characteristics of customers. Traditionally, the managers divide the market into segments while referring to such variables as behavioral, geographic, psychographic, and Continue reading
Market Myopia – Meaning, Examples, and Avoidance
The competitive market is an unstable and ever-evolving medium. Products change, companies rise and fall, and new trends and demands fluctuate from one point to another. In this environment, a business cannot allow itself to remain static unless it wants to be swept away by its competitors. Large companies have, arguably, an easier time facing the winds of business fortune. The big players tend to have resources, brand names, and teams of analysts and planners to prevent and predict every possible fluctuation of the market. Yet many large and successful companies have fallen victim to a trap known as market myopia. What Is Market Myopia? The concept of Market Myopia was first introduced in 1960 by Theodore C. Levitt, a professor of marketing at Harvard Business School. In his article, “Marketing Myopia,” published by Harvard Business Review, he described the mechanism of this faulty approach to marketing. Marketing Myopia is Continue reading
Understanding the Importance of Branding for Businesses
Branding is part of strategic management, and the primary responsibility of the brand is not merely communicating with customers, luring their attention, but representing the company. Nevertheless, for most firms, marketing and corporate communications are the most powerful, but not the only, branding tools. That is why, in order to achieve the greatest benefit for the company, the communicator must have a global vision of the brand, its essence, role, features. Branding may be perceived as an action aimed at creating a long-standing choice in favor of a product founded on the joint influence on a customer of trademarks, packaging, and advertisement, unified by a particular notion, which distinguishes the product from rivals. It should also be mentioned that the concepts of brand and trademark should not be confused; the former is a broader concept. In addition to the name, images, and certain symbols, the brand also includes the product Continue reading
Keller’s Brand Equity Model or Brand Resonance Model
A brand is defined as a name, term, sign symbol (or a combination of these) that identifies the maker or seller of the product. In order for a brand to succeed in the ever increasing market, brand building activities such as promotion and advertisement must be conducted in order to gain awareness to establish and promote the company. Financially, Brand Equity is described as the total value of a brand which is a separable asset – when it is sold or included in a balance sheet. Kotler (2013) defines Brand Equity as the “differential effect that knowing the brand name has on customer response to the product or its marketing.” Aaker (1991) defines Brand Equity as, “a set of brand assets and liabilities linked to a brand, its name and symbol, that add to or subtract from the value provided by a product or service to a firm and/or that Continue reading
Market Segmentation – Definition, Process, and Forms
One of the core objectives of business organisations is to maximise their profit. Attainment of this goal is only possible if is firm has integrated customer-driven focus. Over the past 2 decades, firms have increasingly considered the concept of market segmentation as an important element in their marketing success. Market segmentation is defined as the process through which a firm partitions its market into small groups depending on the customers’ characteristics and needs. Firms intend to satisfy the consumer’s needs. Currently, adoption of mass marketing can lead into a firm failing. For example, a firm’s margin may be pushed downwards because some needs of a certain category of consumers are not wholly addressed. This may also give the competitor a winning margin. Market segmentation is based on the notion that a market is heterogeneous in nature. Therefore, it is possible for a firm to divide the market into small homogenous groups Continue reading