Wednesday, March 20, 2013

In response to Kaley DeBoer

However, what I question is whether or not one of the market segmentations is more beneficial is establishing a target market or does it depend on the product? Or do all of the above segmentations need to be considered at once when a market is determined?

I believe that all of the segmentations (geographic, demographic, psychographic, benefit, and usuage-range)  play a crucial role in determining a target market.  If marketers were to just focus on one segmentation because they felt it was more important than another, they could miss out on a key factor that is important in establishing a target market, and they could possibly lose out on customers.  For instance, if a company were to focus solely on geographic segmentation (segmenting the market by region or country, market size, market density, or climate) they might miss out on a key factor about the demographics in that area that are key to creating a target market like age, gender, income, ethnic background, family life cycle, etc.  An example would be if a target market was created for a high cost product in an area because it had an appropriate climate, but the income of the people of that area was very low, so the people in that area really would not be able to afford that product.  Therefore, it would be more valuable to consider all the factors when determining a target market.  I also believe that the product also plays a key role in who the target market is.

Are there any examples you can think of when a company focuses too much on one segmentation and eliminated a key segmentation which ended poorly for the company? 

No comments:

Post a Comment