DISCUSSION 1

Geodemographic Segmentation: Finding your People

Finding and Targeting Your People

Geodemographics is a common and effective means to segment potential customers. Leveraging both demographic (e.g., gender, age, income, marital status) and psychographic (e.g., habits, hobbies, spending habits, values) data, households can be classified into segments and the relative attractiveness of these segments for your product or service can be determined.

In this interactivity, you're going to take a geodemographic system (Prizm Premier) and determine which segment best describes you. Then, exploring map data, you'll assess how common your segment is for where you live and where you could live amongst more people like yourself! Finally, with knowledge of your segment's profile, you're going to suggest a promotion for your internship brand targeted specifically to your segment.

Guided Response:

1. Begin by perusing the Prizm Premier interactive tutorial.

You'll note there are 68 segments. Fortunately these are broken into 11 lifestage groups that provide a more manageable starting point.

2. Visit the Prizm Premier Lifestage Groups page and determine the following:

The lifestage group and segment that best matches you

How common your segment is where you live

Where you could move to find more of "your people"

How to do all that? Our step by step Prizm Premier Tutorial reveals all.

3. Create a promotion from your mentor marketer to target your segment.

Imagine you're executing a targeted promotion. Tell us the product or service and deal that you will pitch your segment and justify its appeal.

Feel free to package products or services together.

4. Publish a post to the forum below containing the following...

Your Premier Prizm lifestage group

Your Premier Prizm segment and the characteristics driving your choice

The "popularity" index of your selected segment where you live

The high indexing area for your segment that you've chosen and its value. Tell us what town is in your county that we might have heard of (or any other attraction).

Your segment specific targeted promotional offer and rationale

5. Provide feedback to three of your peers

Find peers who picked a different segment than you. Argue why their identified product/service would be more, equally or less appealing to your segment. Peruse their segment's summary page as necessary.

I Need Help! I Can Help!

Got questions about segmentation, Prizm or this assignment? Or maybe a helpful tip to share? Please post to our week 4 help forum, so others can benefit!

FAQs
Do I have to use my internship brand for this assignment?

Please do, as this will enhance your understanding of their marketing practices.
My internship brand doesn't market products targeted to my segment. What should I do?

Be creative and make one up!

Market segmentation in action

View Prizm Premier Lifestage Groups page

A step by step Prizm tutorial...
View online tutorial

Our sample post...
My Prizm Premier lifestage segment is "Striving Singles" and the segment I chose is "Small-Town Collegiates." I chose that segment as we are a younger family just starting out who does occasionally horseback ride and shop at True Value hardware stores.

The index for my segment in San Diego County, CA, where I currently live, is very low at 14. The high indexing area for Small-Town Collegiates that I chose as my potential future home is James City County, VA. It has a 468 value for Small Town Collegiates and is where you'll find colonial Williamsburg and the Loch Ness Monster roller coaster!

For my mentor marketer, Papa John's Pizza, I am proposing a mid-week $5 small pizza deal to appeal to Small-Town Collegiates' tight purse strings and likely smaller households. This will be a pick-up only offer, as delivery would not likely be profitable. This segment tends to live in more rural areas and their smaller households mean smaller order

DISCUSSION 2

Foreign Market Entry Podcast

As you are likely aware, your internship brand doesn't just do business in the U.S. So, in this interactivity, we're going to research their past entry into a foreign market. But rather than writing about it, we're going to talk about it - by creating a short podcast.

Guided Response:

1. Identify a specific country to analyze your brand's entry into

First identify the countries your mentor marketer does business in. Or did. Check out the corporate website. Or the latest annual report.

Then search your brand in business periodicals such as Forbes in conjunction with country names or terms like "foreign" or "international." See which markets have been written about and select one.

2. Research your chosen market to answer these questions:

When did your mentor marketer enter this foreign market?

What specific challenges did entering this market present? (e.g., cultural norms, language barriers, local competition, government regulations, economic conditions, etc.). Identify at least three.

What changes were made to the marketing formula in entering this market? What other changes were needed? Cite at least three examples, linking each one to a marketing "p." You can repeat "Ps" more than once.

How successful was the entry into this market? Is the brand still in the market?

3. Identify and create proper APA citations for 3+ different sources.

Try to explore different types of sources (periodicals, videos, annual report, etc.). Tap the Forbes archive and other Ashford University resources as needed.

As you will be creating a podcast, in-line citations are not required, but you will need to document your sources.

4. Script (or at least outline) for your podcast.

Be sure to introduce yourself and identify your mentor marketer and the relevant market before answering the questions above.

5. Record your podcast with SoundCloud.

SoundCloud provides the means to record and share a link for free.

Consult our step-by-step Creating Your Soundcloud Recording tutorial.

6. Post your podcast link and APA formatted sources to forum below.

7. Listen and react to three peer podcasts.

Which P do you think was the most important factor in the failure or success of the market entry they described? Why?

I Need Help! I Can Help!

Got questions about foreign market entry, SoundCloud or this assignment? Or maybe a helpful tip to share? Please post to our week 4 help forum, so others can benefit!

FAQs

Do I have to use my internship brand for this assignment?

Please try to, as this will further your understanding of the brand.

Do I have to use Soundcloud

No, but you will need to post an accessible link to your podcast.