Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Management Lite & Ezy 7 – Segmenting Consumer Markets

Market researchers segment the markets by looking at their descriptive characteristics, e.g. geographic and demographic. Alternatively, they may also form segments by looking at consumer buying behavior.

Geographic Segmentation – e.g. North America, Latin America, Japan, Asia-Pacific, EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa)


Demographic Segmentation

Demographic segmentation can be based on variables described below:

Age and life-cycle stage – e.g. apparels for babies, infants, kids, teenagers, adults

Life stage – e.g. products targeted at newlyweds

Gender – e.g. fashion, hairstyling, cosmetics, magazines

Income

Generation – In America, there are GI Generation, Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Gen-X, Gen-Y, Millennial

Social Class


Behavioral Segmentation

Here consumers are grouped on the basis of their knowledge of, attitude toward, use of, or response to a product.

Decision roles – initiator, influencer, decider, buyer, user. Marketers can target one or more groups.

Occasions – Some products are sold year round, while others are available on special occasions such as Christmas, Chinese New Year, Valentine’s Day.

User status – nonusers, ex-users, potential users, first-time users, regular users

Usage rate – light users, medium users, heavy users

Loyalty status – hard-core loyals, split loyals, shifting loyals, switchers

Site note: I am perplexed as to how researchers identify the EMEA market. I prefer to see them as three different segments – Europe, Middle-East & North Africa, Sub-Sahara Africa.

Reference: Kotler & Keller, “Marketing Management”, 12th edition


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