Considerations for Effective Segmentation
For any potential market to be effectively segmented, the following factors are considered important.
a) Measurement – The size, purchasing power, and profiles of the segments can be measured. However, certain segmentation variables are difficult to measure, for example, left-handed people, etc.
b) Accessibility – The market segments should be reachable and easily served. For instance, product XYZ was designed for blind and dumb people, who are scattered in the country, thus, accessing such a target market may not be easy.
Marketing practitioners should devise means of reaching their target markets. The blind and dumb can be reached through hospitals, special homes, etc.
c) Market Segments should be large enough or profitable centers. A segment should be the largest possible homogeneous group worth pursuing with a tailored marketing program. It will be a fruitless effort to design products or services, and the company will not be able to achieve the desired target or break even.
Read Also: Basis of Segmenting Business/Consumer Markets
d) Programs should be designed to effectively serve segments, irrespective of the competitors in such markets.
In conclusion, a market is made up of people with money to spend, and who are willing to spend it.
For most products, the total market is too broad and heterogeneous for a strategy of market segmentation- that is, developing one product and one marketing program to reach the entire market.
A more effective strategy is market segmentation; that is, the total market is viewed as several smaller, but more uniform sub-markets.
Marketing executives have various ways of reaching target consumers. This unit has examined one way through which marketing executives serve their target consumers. This is known as ‘Market Segmentation’.
Market and various types of markets, benefits of market segmentation, basis of segmenting consumer and industrial markets, and conditions for effective segmentation have also been considered in this article.
Read Also: Market Segmentation and Benefits of Market Segmentation
