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2. Provide valid links/websites  for all sources - all sources APA style

3. Paper must be understandable with a good grasp of English.

Marketing

Assignment 1: Discussion-Social Media

Companies around the globe are using social media to connect with their customers.

Consider an online social media network, such as Facebook or LinkedIn, and respond to the following:

• For targeting new customers, examine the advantages and disadvantages of using these social networks compared to search engine advertising.
• Provide specific examples of products that lend themselves more to social networks than to search engine advertising.
• Discuss how this avenue of marketing might be effective in the success of a new product associated with existing brands.

Write your initial response in 300-500 words. Your response should be thorough and address all components of the discussion question in detail, include citations of all sources, where needed, according to the APA Style, and demonstrate accurate spelling, grammar, and punctuation

MODULE 2 OVERVIEW 

In Module 2, you will explore the concept of market segmentation. Segmentation is an important component of marketing since it is vital to understand and respond to the different needs of each group of consumers.

A market segment consists of group of customers who share a similar set of needs and wants. Understanding your core customer and his or her needs and wants is a critical component of marketing strategy. If you truly understand your customers and their needs, you can focus your advertising and promotional resources to generate the best return on investment for your organization and stakeholders.

In addition to market segments, this module will also explore how one can go about creating a brand position. In this regard, understanding your organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) is critical to your success. This starts with an honest self-assessment of your organization’s viability and success. What are your organization’s operating and reputational strengths and weaknesses? What segments and trends present the most viable opportunities? What are your organization’s competitive threats? Will your competition exploit your weaknesses? Do you know your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses? Does your organization have the ability to complete the tasks at hand? What resources would be required to win?

MARKET SEGMENTS

Researchers define market segments by looking at descriptive characteristics: geographic, demographic, and psychographic.

Geographic segmentation divides markets into states, regions, counties, or cities. Each segment presents its own set of opportunities that may be unique to that area.

Demographic segmentation divides segments into variables such as age, family size, gender, income, occupation, education, religion, race, generation, nationality, and social class.

Psychographics is the science of using psychology and demographics to better understand how consumers think about products as part of their personality and lifestyle. Buyers are divided into different groups on the basis of personality traits, lifestyle, or values.

A popular psychographic segmentation model has identified four groups with greater economic resources: innovators (upscale, niche-oriented products and services), thinkers (mature, satisfied, and reflective), achievers (successful, goal-oriented people), and experience (young, enthusiastic, seeking excitement).

There are four groups with relatively fewer economic resources: believers (conservative and traditional), strivers (trendy and fun-loving), makers (practical, down-to-earth), and survivors (elderly, passive, concerned about change). Thus, marketers who adopt this segmentation model might tailor their product features, pricing, distribution, and promotion and communications to these segments.

MARKET SEGMENT IDENTIFICATION

Market Segment Identification

To identify and analyze your intended target markets, you must first understand the essence of buyer behavior. Understanding buyer behavior is

crucial to successful relationship marketing to attract and retain guests.

Buyer Behavior

There are different factors that influence buyer behavior.

Cultural Factors

Cultural factors have a significant impact on customer behavior. Marketers are always trying to spot cultural

shifts that indicate the emergence of a demand for new

products or an increase in the demand for existing

products. For example, the cultural shift toward greater concern about health and fitness has created

opportunities for salad offerings in fast food restaurants.

Personal Factors

Personal factors that influence customer behavior include age and life cycle states, marital status, children (if any) and employment status; occupation and income, including the level of education and household income; the lifestyle, including activities, interests, and hobbies and the personality, including the level of self confidence and social abilities. 

Social Factors

Social factors include Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (physiological, safety, belongingness and love, esteem, and self actualization), our perception of the world and our role and status in the community, and the family. 

Psychological Factors

Psychological factors that influence buyer behavior are motivation; selective exposure or a sudden spurt in

the number of advertisements for a product; beliefs and attitudes,

whether positive, neutral, or negative

toward products, services, firms, people, issues, and institutions; the importance of purchase; and the

perceived risk of purchase. 

Create your Brand Positioning

 A successful brand is a product or service that delivers an expected level of value for the price being paid by the consumer. It helps create loyalty and a relationship with the consumer that can persist over time.

Brands have other benefits for organizations. They communicate quickly to a buyer information about quality, price, and other characteristics of a product or service and differentiate it from similar products.

Brands are important competitively because they are not easily imitated—although competitors may be able to duplicate manufacturing processes and product designs, it takes longer to duplicate the level of trust a strong brand has with customers. Conversely, brands that fail to meet expectations (like Toyota in 2010) can expect to spend years earning back the trust that was lost by breaking the brand promise.

What does it mean to position a brand? Positioning a brand consists of defining its offering and image so that it is unique in the perceptions of those in the target market. Positioning acts as a guide to marketing decisions by clarifying what the brand represents to its target customers, what goals it helps them achieve, and what is unique about it.

Therefore, it is imperative for a company to understand its strengths and weaknesses. Consider Southwest Airlines. Early in its history the company made a strategic decision to serve only shorter routes between city pairs where travelers were likely to drive. All of the company’s operating tactics were thus designed to minimize the amount of time spent waiting in airports. It used less congested secondary airports; it did not offer assigned seating to speed the boarding process; it used one type of aircraft to simplify operations and minimize mechanical disruptions, and so on. Other actions by Southwest enabled it to offer low fares. As a result, Southwest was able to offer a cost competitive alternative to long drives (up to 500 miles) for business and recreational travelers.

Southwest offers a very good example of a well-defined market segmentation model that underpinned its business strategy. It avoided direct competition with many carriers and gave many travelers a compelling reason to fly instead of drive. This strategy served Southwest very well for over two decades as it posted 25 consecutive years of profitability, which was virtually unprecedented in commercial aviation.

However, as with many segmentation models, Southwest began encountering limits to its strategy and eventually found itself operating in some of the nation’s busiest airports, including San Francisco and Denver, while also expanding into long-haul service and competing directly with big carriers. As Southwest grew and matured, it began to resemble the large carriers with more complex route systems and operations.

Southwest's strategy was not bad, but its experience shows how market segmentation can drive a unique strategy that eventually grows obsolete as markets become saturated.