Deliverable Length:   3–5 pages (not including cover page and resource page)

Assignment Details

Not everyone is going to be interested in your product, service, or idea. Rarely does a brand appeal to every potential customer. Most companies do not want to waste budgets on advertising to disinterested customers. To interest your target audiences, you must match the opportunities with their preferences. 

Various tools are used by marketers for successful advertising and publicizing their wares in the marketplace. The marketing formula of segmentation, targeting, positioning, and differentiation (STP / D) helps the marketer create a strategy that groups customers based on their likes or preferences and targets customers with specific advertising and public relations messages. 

Customer Segmentation and Interests

Segmentation allows marketers to group or segment customers based on similar variables. To segment customer groups, the marketer finds commonalities in the demographic and psychographic information, along with likes and product preferences.

Calling out segmentation and targeting helps marketers pinpoint specific customers or audiences. Demographics and psychographics are two key elements of marketing that are essential in finding the right customers and matching them to your products and services. 

Key Concept Snapshot: Demographics is data generated about your customer’s age, gender, education, and income—or the statistical or numeric data about your customer groups. Psychographics studies the lifestyle preferences of customers such as their hobbies, likes, and dislikes. Psychographics also studies an individual’s behaviors, attitudes, and lifestyles (e.g., hobbies, interests, or types of preferred foods). 

This customer data and information helps marketers divide customers into three groups, as follows: 

• Primary: Frequent users of the product or service 
• Secondary: Occasional users of the product or service 
• Tertiary: New users of the product or service

All are designed to expand customer reach. To prepare for this assignment, do the following: 

• View this video. 
• Begin analyzing this scenario: 
  • Targeting the right customers (i.e., those interested in your product or service) is key in successfully connecting what you want to sell to them. Carlos is interested in your Web site that sells a wide range of gifts, mostly for females between 18–34 years old. The name of the Web site is GoGirlGifts.com, with the advertised tagline, “We match the perfect gift to your special someone…” 

GoGirlGifts.com's primary customer profile is as follows:

• Demographic profile 
  • Age: 18–34 
  • Gender: Female 
  • Income: $30,000+ 
  • Education: College graduate 
  • Occupation: Professional
• Psychographic profile 
  • Health conscious 
  • Places importance on fashion and home décor 
  • Avid marathoner and cyclist 
  • Loves aromatic candles for home and office 
  • Techno-expert

The first thing that you might notice is that the Web site is aimed more at females who want to buy stuff. However, with so many items, the secondary audience could be males and others not in the specific demographic age range. View one of the following Web sites that are aimed at this customer profile:

• Apple
• Magnolia | Inspiration for Life and Home | Chip & Joanna Gaines

Add the following main ideas in your 3–5-page assignment:

• Begin the analysis by first segmenting your secondary targeted customer. Create a profile about Carlos, who is most likely a secondary customer. Create a profile for him that includes the following: 
  • Gender 
  • Age 
  • Income 
  • Education
• Next, profile his psychographics. What does he like to do? 
• How would you advertise to this secondary market? List some of the keywords and phrases that you might add to the advertisement (paid). List about 10–20 keywords or phrases that you might use. 
• Write about considerations related to 1 paid media (advertising) and 1 earned media (public relations) as possible communication channels. Outline some messaging topics and ideas to reach customers such as Carlos and other possible customers like him. 
• What are some main ideas that you believe the company should promote to its secondary audiences to promote business and market reach? If you could help shape an idea for the company, what would you like the press or social influencers to focus on about the Web site from a public perspective? 

References

365 Data Science. (2019, October 24). Segmentation, targeting and positioning – Learn customer analytics [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/Fij1aBcl_Ts

Apple. (n.d.). [Home page]. Retrieved April 15, 2021, from https://www.apple.com/

Magnolia. (n.d.). [Home page]. Retrieved April 15, 2021, from https://magnolia.com/

Nordstrom. (n.d.). [Home page]. Retrieved April 15, 2021, from https://www.nordstrom.com/?mrkgadid=3296931153&mrkgcl=760&mrkgen=mtext&mrkgbflag=1&mrkgcat=Terms&utm_content=1263338912172163&utm_term=kwd-78958705499862:aud-808275727:loc-