Marketing Strategy

Video Transcription

Hello, and welcome to this tutorial on marketing strategy. Now, as always with these tutorials, please feel free to fast-forward, pause, or rewind as many times as you need to make the most out of the time that you're going to spend here.

So when we go and see our favorite sports teams, they go onto the field of play with a game plan in mind. They understand the opponent. And they understand what it is that they want to do to reach their goal, which is to win the game.

Well, in business, it's not really much different, especially with marketing. You've got to have a strategy. During this tutorial, we're going to look at the marketing strategy, what it is. We're also going to look at target market and market segmentation. And lastly, we're going to take a look at some examples of this. The key terms for this lesson are going to be, target market, and market segmentation.

So let's talk about the marketing strategy for just a second. Now, the marketing strategy, as far as business is concerned, is a plan to have the most efficient use of all the tools at their disposal, in order to get the most bang for their buck from their marketing. Just like a sports team is going to have a plan to make the most efficient use of all their players, the business is going to have a plan to make the most of their abilities.

Now, a marketing strategy typically has two parts. Those parts are, one, selecting the target market through analysis. Now, the target market we're going to define here in just a second. But that's basically the market that I want to focus on. Who is it that's going to be most interested or want or need my product the most? And next, we're going to get the 4 P's set up so that the product is most appealing to that particular target that we've selected.

So what's target market? Now, target market, we're going to define that as an identified cluster of customers that are the focus of the business, specifically marketing efforts. Who is it that's going to want or need my product the most? Which segment of the whole market that's out there am I going to focus on?

And you really want to make sure you're targeting one specific group. Because if you just target to everybody, you're going to waste a lot of dollars. It's not going to be very efficient. And chances are you're not going to put the most potential you can on the market that's most likely to buy your product.

Now, target markets and market segmentation. Companies have a choice with how they choose to reach that particular market. Now, they can use an undifferentiated method where the product is not necessarily targeted at all. We kind of mentioned that. And it's not very efficient. They're just throwing a wide net out there and hoping to catch somebody.

Or they can use market segmentation. Market segmentation is a marketing process where the market as a whole is subdivided into categories of potential consumers, based on traits. And then each subdivided group is focused on for specific marketing efforts.

Now, how would I segment a market, you say. Well, let's take a look at some examples here. Well first, we may look at geographic segmentation, for instance, regions within the United States. Cold weather gear would be very, very good to have in places that are in the northern United States. Surfboards would be very popular along the coast. Farming equipment would be very popular in places where there's a large agricultural area. So these are all geographic segmentations, based on what is present in that geographic region.

Next is demographic segmentation, for instance, gender. Who does Levi's jeans sell their product to? Well, they sell it to both. But they have different lines of clothing for women and for men. And they target those specific demographics to get the most bang for their buck for those particular clothing items.

Next, we have psychographic variables, for instance, lifestyles that a particular group may enjoy or participate in, like hunting or fishing gear. Hunting and fishing gear is going to be targeted to people who, obviously, hunt and fish. I wouldn't look at the segment of the market that doesn't like hunting and fishing or who likes to spend their time doing something else, like going to movies or watching television or perhaps playing video games. That would not be an effective use of my marketing dollars. And it also wouldn't be very efficient. I'd also miss a lot of potential customers by looking at the wrong segmentation.

So what did we cover in this lesson today? Well, we looked at the marketing strategy and basically what it is, those two main parts, getting my target market, and then making sure that my 4 P's are most appealing to that particular target. I looked at target market and segmentation, how that's different and related. And we also looked at some examples of that market segmentation, for instance, geographic, demographic, and psychographic variables, where I live, the particular demographic that I might belong to, and also some of the lifestyles that I may enjoy, for targeting my particular product most effectively.

I want to thank you, as always, for spending some time with me today. And you folks have a great day.