Principles of Marketing - Essay Example

The main reason behind market segmentation is to help a company understand the needs of a particular segment (Beane & Ennis, 1997, p. 31). Mass marketing mainly assumes that all customers have the same interests and consumption behaviour. Segmenting the market can also serve in identifying smaller groups of consumers who make their own subsets an aspect that improve the overall efficiency of the company’s marketing efforts (Dibb, Simpkin, Pride & Ferrell, 2001). Market segmentation enables the marketer to compare different marketing opportunities of different marketing segments through studying consumer needs and potential, their level of satisfaction etc.

This helps the company in coming up with appropriate strategies to satisfy the needs of these different segments. There are different forms of segmentation. These include geographical segmentation, demographic segmentation, psychographic segmentation and behavioural segmentation. Geographical segmentation This is segmenting the market based on the location of the customers. Demand of goods can vary according to geographic location of the customers. Geographical segmentation therefore, focuses on prospective markets’ location and different attributes that are associated with each location.

The marketer can therefore, focus on either a single location or many depending on the varying requirements of each region and the cost of serving these locations. Demographic segmentation This is division of the market according to demographic variables such as age, gender, individual occupation, education or even family size. The marketer uses these variables in making decisions and identifying the target market. In an example, a company may decide to segment the market according to age of the people.

As a result, it can develop different products that meet different requirements of customers that belong to various age groups (Hunt and Arnett, 2004, p.23). Psychographic and behavioural segmentation Psychographic segmentation divides the market into different segments which have similar lifestyles. Lifestyle is an individual mode of living and mainly describes how a person conducts his/her daily activities. On the other hand, behavioural segmentation divides the market according to behavioural characteristics of the customers.

Different customers have different behaviours which are used by a marketer to market the produce (Kotler & Armstrong, 2011). Market targeting Marketing targeting is a process of identifying different groups of consumers that exist in a market who are likely to purchase a certain good or service. Target marketing makes it easier to price, promote and distribute the product or service at a cost that is effective. When targeting the market, a marketer should ensure that the firm has adequate resources to meet the requirement of the target market.

Targeting plays an important role of reducing market ambiguity as marketers are able to have an in-depth knowledge concerning the target consumers. There are different forms of targeting. One of the methods is referred to as broad or undifferentiated targeting. The concept that underlies this method is that a product or service has a broad appeal to all customers irrespective of their age, gender and location. Second method is referred to as selective or differentiated method. With this