Market Segmenting, Targeting, and Positioning

Let's consider segmenting, targeting, and positioning (STP), known as the strategic marketing formula that helps marketers identify and segment their audience, target their market, and post their products to cultivate their desired brand position.

How Markets Are Segmented

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

  1. Understand and outline the ways in which markets are segmented.
  2. Explain why marketers use some segmentation bases versus others.

Sellers can choose to pursue consumer markets, business-to-business (B2B) markets, or both. Consequently, one obvious way to begin the segmentation process is to segment markets into these two types of groups.

Different factors influence consumers to buy certain things. Many of the same factors can also be used to segment customers. A firm will often use multiple segmentation bases, or criteria to classify buyers, to get a fuller picture of its customers and create real value for them. Each variable adds a layer of information. Think of it as being similar to the way in which your professor builds up information on a PowerPoint slide to the point at which you are able to understand the material being presented.

There are all kinds of characteristics you can use to slice and dice a market. "Big-and-tall" stores cater to the segment of population that's larger sized. What about people with wide or narrow feet, or people with medical conditions, or certain hobbies? Next, we look primarily at the ways in which consumer markets can be segmented. Later in the chapter, we'll look at the ways in which B2B markets can be segmented.