Segmentation...

The aim of the marketeer is to split the consumer into groups. But realisticly how easy is this when you think of all the different possible combinatins of people, or even still if you think that every single person in the world is an individual and there are no two exactly the same. The factors influencing behaviour from my previous blog suggests that everyone is unique.




How are 60 million people divided up into groups? Marketeers are always looking for ways to group people. They strive to find out as much information as possible about the consumer to allow them to target their market effectively.

For example Tesco Loyalty card-there are roughly 12/13 million people who own one of these. Through computer analysis of this data the company is able to achieve a detailed profile of most of their customers. Whether their married, single, how many children they have, where they live, their spending habits, their lifestyles etc. This is all done through market research, through things such as questionnaires. By simply giving your postcode to someone they can instantly find out what your typical income is, what kind of area you live in, what level of education you are likely to have. Find out for yourself, a detailed profile of your expected lifestyle, by entering your postcode into the following link:
http://www.upmystreet.com/

This research is carried out by what we call "Profilers" and it is believed that the technology used within these databases to find out exactly what a customer wants, is the same technology used for the database used to trap and understand serial killers, used by the CIA and FBI!!
The identifiable profilers become the basis for segmentation:

• Age
  
• Gender
• Social Class
• Personality
• Hair colour and type.

Did you know that in the olden days carbolic soap was used to clean just about everything, from floors to your hair! Nowadays though you will notice a significat change as there are so many types of shampoos for every different type of hair:

• Greasy
• Dry
• Blonde
• Red
• Brunette
• Dyed
• Thin
• Curly
• Damaged
• Frequently Washed
• Nits
• Dandruff
• Flaky/Itchy scalp
• Tinted
• Grey
• Bald

and i'm sure the list probably goes on and on! This is a good example of STP marketing- segmenting the market, targeting the market and then positioning.

Smith (1957) believes "Segmentation is based on the observation of evolution of demand and represents a more precise and rational adaptation of the product and the marketing effort to meet customer or user demands" 

Kotler (2000) believes segmentation is "the subdividing of a market into homogenous (similar) subsets of customers, where any subset may conceivably be selected as a target market to bereached with a distinct marketing mix" 

.....in other words finding out what different groups of people want!!