Target Audience

To tie the different elements together, we now introduce a framework that segments consumers into different categories. The basis of segmentation has been the buying behavior for it has been established that promotions influenced behavior and not attitude.

Loyal users are consumers who buy a particular brand on a more or less consistent basis most or all of the time. Competitive loyals are consumers who buy a competitor’s products most or all of the time. These can be further divided into

Intense loyals – These are the competitor loyals who are convinced of a particular brand’s merits to such an extent that for them other brands do not exist.

Value seekers – These are competitor loyals who buy the particular brand for they believe that it provides the most utility for the cost even if it is not the best in the market.

Habit bound buyers – are those consumers who purchase the brand not because they have made a conscientious study of its perceived value and price in comparison to that of other products, but because, it has become their habit to do so.

Switchers are the consumers who purchase a variety of brands within a particular product category. People who switch brands do so for a variety of reasons and hence can be categorized as Value switchers –Value switchers are consumers who evaluate the price-value relationship for each brand, on each shopping trip, choosing the brand that appears to be the best buy on that particular occasion. For instance a person might like aqua-fresh but may buy close up instead if the price difference is more.

Occasional usage switchers – Occasional usage switchers are the consumers who buy different brands within the same category to fulfill discrete needs – a classic example is the beer drinker, whose choice of a brand depends on the company he has for enjoying the drink.

Variety switchers – These are the consumers who switch from one brand to another simply to seek variety.

Price buyers are the consumers who consistently purchase the lowest priced brand on the market. Non users are people who don’t use any product in the category as they have some negative attitude about the category.

Goal as a marketer – spark the emotional response that creates the brand relationship and leads to sales and brand leadership two steps to finding the audience and what sparks the right response –

• Market Segmentation-Process of narrowing down a brand’s target audience to a “bulls eye” that helps make marketing efforts more efficient
• Defining Insight-Just as important as finding the audience is to find the “little kernels of truth” that identify your most important audience targets and give you the means to begin to communicate most effectively with them

Market Segmentation

Frederick Newell, the New Rules of Marketing – How to Use One-to-One Relationship Marketing to Be the Leader in Your Industry

Four major groups of segmentation variables –

• Geographic
• Region
• County size
• Urban/suburban
• Climate
• Seasons
• Zip
• Demographic
• Age
• Sex
• Family size
• Family life cycle
• Income
• Occupation
• Education
• Religion
• Race
• Nationality
• Behavioral
• Purchase occasion
• Benefits sought
• User status
• Usage rate
• Loyalty status
• Readiness stage
• Attitude toward product
• Actual purchase
• Psychographic
• Lifestyle
• Social class
• Personality

According to Newell

• Behavior is the most important of the segmentation variables
• Segmentation is not valid without understand brand Positioning

According to Our class

• One segmentation variable cuts through to provide the kernel of insight that can ignite your customer’s imagination and stimulate purchase-
• Lifestyle – the style or type of approach that people take to living their lives and associated activities and behaviors
• Evidence of the lifestyle’s value as a key segmentation variable –
• Leisure activities are influenced by demographic or geographic characteristics, but they are not dictated by them
• Even purchase behaviors are only influenced