Chapter 7 : Principles of Marketing : creation of the marketing strategy. (STP)

Marketing strategy is an important part of marketing. Marketing strategy talks about who is your target market for your product or service will be and under what criteria you have selected them. Since it is very understandable that your product cannot be for the whole population. You need to define some parameters for the audience whom product will be for. This concept is known as market segmentation, dividing the population into small chunks so that it becomes easy for the company to identify the potential customer. So normally we divide market on the basis of 4 criteria.

1) Geographic segmentation: dividing the market into small nations, states even countries. The most important part in geographic segmentation is a market expansion because companies need to focus on culture and buying pattern for the people as well. Since "Agha Noor" and "Khaadi" (apparel Pakistani brands) expanded their outlets to London and UAE, they need to focus on the culture and the way people dressed.
2) Demographic segmentation: dividing the marketing into the factors of age, social income, gender, religion. Since Mcdonalds actually targets the younger class so it is doing demographic segmentation.
3)Psychographic segmentation: dividing the population on the basis of lifestyle, personality. Since "EverLast" a sports brand targets those enthusiast sports people who do gym in their life. Since they have a specific amount of time in a day where they do gym. So once they go to the gym they wear everlast gears, it means that specific amount of time is embedded in their life by Everlast. Lastly
4)Behavior segmentation: divide the population on the basis of usage and knowledge of a product. It can be a repetitive behavior of a purchase, Like Starbucks loyalty is that everyday people when they leave for their office they consumer Starbucks on their way to their office.
The criteria for choosing segmentations are,
1) Measurable (the target population should be measurable, like demographics, their age, and income)
2) Substantial (Ample amount of profit should be there, like delivering ketchup to the individual is not profitable than delivering to restaurants.
3) Accessible ( Your product should be in a place where your target audience can easily reach (Malls) no restriction should be there.
4) Differentiable (differentiate your target market on the basis of their buying pattern, like buying pattern of a married couple is different from unmarried ).
5) Actionable (how to execute your strategy for e.g which platform of IMC will you be using.

Moving towards the next strategy that is Target Market. Find your target market with the above-mentioned segments.
1) Undifferentiated TM (Here the product is not differentiated on the basis of the target audience, this product is for everyone. For example, NESTLE water, the CEO of a company is consuming same water as a normal employee.
2) Differentiate TM (Here the target audience is differentiated on the basis of taste, color, price etc.  e.g. Diet coke, a specific amount of people consumer it who have diabetes or obesity.
3) Niche TM (here the product is for selective people, like Apple iPhone, only a few of people can afford or use it.
4) Micro-Marketing( here we talk about tailoring a specific product for e.g. having your car customized or your office suit specially tailored. It contains two types local and individual marketing.

Another important aspect of Target market is the socially responsible target market. We have witnessed that advertisement of alcohol and cigarettes are banned all over the world just to protect society. So the major concern is to protect the vulnerable segments like children.
Lastly, we are going to focus on Positioning.  It is the most important and difficult part in the creation of a company's strategy. The difference between positioning and placement is that positioning occurs when a customer won't prefer any other product than your product because the brand is strongly positioned in its mind. Placement is a physical location where the product placed for the purchase. When I say what fast food do you like some students say Mcdonalds in a jiffy second that means Mcdonalds hold a strong position in their mind. Through this company holds a competitive advantage.

#market segmentation#Geographic segmentation#Demographic segmentation#Psychographic segmentation#Behavior segmentation#Target Market#socially responsible target market.#Positioning.