Market targeting

Table of contents
  1. Difference between segmentation and targeting
  2. Defining target marketing strategy
1.
Difference between segmentation and targeting

When you appeal to someone or a group of people in order to make an influence on them, it is called targeting. In marketing, your targeting audience is a number of existing or potential customers who have to be engaged with your promotions.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary provides a suitable targeting definition: it is an act or development to affect someone. Cambridge dictionary suggests another targeting meaning: a direction of advertising or a product at somebody.

Taking all mentioned above into account, we may sum up that target marketing is an activity aimed at achieving a specific marketing goal.

Difference between segmentation and targeting

Market segmentation is the process of dividing all existing and potential consumers of goods or services into smaller groups (segments) based on the differences in their needs, characteristics and behavior. The market may be divided by such categories:

  • geographical: by countries, states, regions, cities and districts;

  • demographic: by age, gender, education, religion, race, nationality etc.;

  • economic: by the level of income and savings of the population, inflation level;

  • psychological: by belonging to a certain social class or social group, way of life, type of personality;

  • behavioral: what motivates a customer to make a purchase, how much a client is committed to the brand or how much time a person needs to make a decision of buying something, order history (if users have previously bought from you).

The aim of segmentation is to start operating only within those market segments which need specific products, instead of spreading goods all over the market.

Let’s have a closer look at the advantages of segmentation.

Pros of segmentation

  • helps businesses to avoid huge competition;

  • can be an effective way to continue selling a product which is no longer popular within another part of the market;

  • can help small manufacturers to maintain their positions in a competition with larger ones;

  • allows businesses to focus on individual needs of a customer in a certain segment and, therefore, be more relevant than mass mailings.

To deliver information about what your business offers, you may use product or service targeting. Targeting is a tool that helps to reach out to that part of your audience which meets the predetermined criteria, and display the advertisements only on it. In other words, targeting assists in order to reduce costs of the advertiser and attract the audience which is likely to buy a product.

So, the main distinguishing feature between segmentation and targeting is that the market segmentation is a method to identify certain groups of your customers and get more profit with less effort, whereas targeting is an instrument using which you can appeal to more people who are interested in your product or service.

Defining target marketing strategy

Target marketing strategy is a detailed planned intention to get to an extraction of potential clients who a business is willing to sell their goods to. The targeting strategy consists of above-mentioned market segmentation and also determination of a product which will be sold to various segments. A company that offers plenty of different things can decide if they should sell the same product to a few segments, or if every segment should get a customized solution. This decision can be based on different criteria, such as a level of competition on the market, its diversity, and expected sales volumes.

Types of the market targeting strategies

1. Mass marketing (undifferentiated) 

This strategy is widely used by companies which don’t pay attention to distinguishing features at their customers’ needs. They are oriented on each and every person on the market and do their best to grab their attention. Basically, they don’t use targeting at all. Such businesses should reach as many people as possible and make them like their brands.
On the one hand, this method is cheap and widely available, because it’s much easier to create the same product or promo aimed at everyone. On the other hand, today people prefer personalized products, which requires individual promo.

2. Segmented marketing (differentiated) 

To use this strategy, you need to identify a few main target segments which have the highest potential value for your business and may give you the biggest profit in perspective. After that, it is essential to develop separate concentrated strategies for each of them.
If you choose differentiated marketing, then you are more resistant to competitors, because you provide something special for various categories of your audience, and they feel valuable and unique. Therefore, such customers will have more loyalty to your brand, even if there are other companies which offer the same stuff with a cheaper price.

3. Niche Marketing (concentrated) 

This approach focuses on the specific wishes of a customer. Brands make a huge effort to become the only supplier of a particular product on the market, overcoming its competitors, and attract as many clients as they possibly can. The goal of these brands is to win their audience’s loyalty and sympathy to build long-lasting cooperation and grow in this niche together with clients.
Usually such brands aim to create a special community of users of their product, and this community often helps them to promote the goods. People tend to recommend something they are emotionally connected with. And when you make a post on your social media, tag a brand and they share it with their followers, you automatically become a part of their large community. And, of course, you keep sharing your experience with others.

Liubov Zhovtonizhko_Photo
Liubov Zhovtonizhko Copywriter at Stripo
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