BUS203: Principles of Marketing

There are two major segmentation strategies followed by marketing organizations: a concentration strategy and a multisegment strategy.

An organization that adopts a concentration strategy chooses to focus its marketing efforts on only one market segment. Thus, only one marketing mix is developed. An organization that adopts a concentration strategy gains an advantage by being able to analyze the needs and wants of only one segment and then focusing all its efforts on that segment. This can provide a differential advantage over other organizations that market to this segment but do not concentrate all their efforts on it. The primary disadvantage of concentration is related to the demand of the segment. As long as demand is strong, the organization's financial position will be strong. If demand declines, the organization's financial position will also decline.

The other segmentation strategy is a multisegment strategy. When an organization adopts this strategy, it focuses its marketing efforts on two or more distinct market segments. The organization does so by developing a distinct marketing mix for each segment. They then develop marketing programs tailored to each of these segments. Organizations that follow a multisegment strategy usually realize an increase in total sales as more marketing programs are focused at more customers. However, the organization will most likely experience higher costs because of the need for more than one marketing program.