Shared Practice: Strategic Market Segmentation
Segmentation entails grouping people with similarities together to understand and describe them better. In addition to such factors as demographics, a marketer also considers a combination of buyer behaviors, personal values, and attitudes when developing a segmentation strategy.
Marketers may access many commercial products to assist in the definition of target and other segments. In addition, many segmentation tools are available online. Most view segmentation as a marketing tool, and it is. The same concept of grouping people together who have similarities is a practice found in other professionals as well, however. For example, you can go online and complete a leadership profile, a personality assessment, a creativity assessment, and, of course, market segment classifiers. In each of these, you are assigned to a group of similar people and your profile is generalized, which results in a segmentation scheme.
For this week's Shared Practice, go online to one of the following sites and complete the information requested related to segmentation:
• The Nielson Company. (n.d.). Who are my best customers? Retrieved fromhttp://www.claritas.com/MyBestSegments/Default.jsp?ID=0&menuOption=home&pageName=Home
o Provide your ZIP code to see how your neighborhood is defined for marketers.
• Strategic Business Insights. (n.d.). The US VALS survey. Retrieved fromhttp://www.strategicbusinessinsights.com/vals/presurvey.shtml
o Complete the survey and see how you compare to other consumers
• U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Investor.gov. (n.d.). Assessing your risk tolerance. Retrieved from https://investor.gov/investing-basics/guiding-principles/assessing-your-risk-tolerance#.UwZ3d4VFqro
o This assessment defines you according to your risk tolerance. It will not show you any comparative information
Specialized Population specific assessments (better used for targeting than segmenting):
• American Diabetes Association. (n.d.). Type 2 diabetes risk assessment. Retrieved fromhttp://www.diabetes.org/are-you-at-risk/diabetes-risk-assessment/
o Interested in your degree of risk? Like many marketers, the US government uses assessemnts to categorize (segment) consumers.
• Galford, R. M., & Maruca, R. F. (2011). Your leadership legacy. Retrieved fromhttp://www.yourleadershiplegacy.com/assessment/assessment.php
o To use this tool for segmentation, it would need to be completed by a group of people who could then compare their results.
Post by Day 3 the following:
• A description of the assessment (name, sponsoring organization, intention of the results) you took.
• A description of the market segment classifications the assessment revealed (your own classification and the primary classifications (i.e., segments) indicated). Please do not reveal any confidential results.
• An explanation of a strategy a marketer might use with this segmentation classification to influence this segment's buyer behavior.
• Provide an insight from your own experience in completing the assessment and reflecting on your results. How does this experience shape your future buying behavior or your insights into market segmentation?