The changing demographic trends have been pushing research agencies to demarcate the profiles of customers into more and more bifurcations. In order to market a product such as a Flat Panel Plasma TV, the target market that I would want to reach would be people who are interested in watching quality visuals on their television sets. According to the article, the groups of people who are the best fit would be the ‘Greenbelt Sports’, ‘Brite Lites’ and the ‘multiculti mosaic. All these three groups have been researched to show an affinity for watching television be it sports or satellite channels.
Since target marketing concentrates on recognizing similar patterns between customers but also the differences that are present between similar groups of customers (Linda, 1996). The ‘greenbelt sports’ group would want a clearer, crisp voice (core benefit) from the product; while the ‘multiculti mosiac’ group would want better visibility to watch movies, etc. People relating to the ‘Brite Lites’ would just want the Plasma TV as a contemporary addition to their beautifully furnished homes.
Considering the marketing mix, for the Brite Lites, the product would be ‘positioned’ as an expensive, contemporary product that would help them increase the beauty of their house; the pricing method that can be used can be ‘premium pricing’.
For the ‘multiculti Mosiac’, it would be a product that would provide them with amazing viewing options. However, the high price of the product might pose an issue, which can be resolved by using ‘differential pricing’. Promotional campaigns would.
As for the ‘greenbelt sports’ group, the product would appeal by providing amazing visual quality to watch sports at an affordable price. Promotion of the product could be done at sports events and on television with the advertisement focusing on the enhanced visual quality of the product.
The importance is marketing research can be gauged by the fact that in today’s environment, the customer is the main focus of marketers. In order to know what the customer wants, thorough marketing analysis is done at the beginning so that the product attributes can be designed according to the needs and the wants of the customer. A satisfied customer would mean repeated sales and profit generation. Marketing research, therefore, holds the key to successful marketing activities for a product.
Buyer behavior is the way the potential buyers of your product would behave in response to the various activities and attributes of the product. The most important behavior that one would want to influence is the ‘buying’ of the product (Charles, 1974). End users buy when they are influenced and convinced enough that the product they are about the purchase is going to satisfy their needs. The initiator comes up with the idea, influences advice is to buy a certain product, decider makes the final decision of purchase, the buyer is the role in which the customer actually buys the product and user is the end-user. A person may be performing one or all the above-mentioned roles at the same time (Elizabeth, 1996).
There are various steps in market segmentation; the decision needs to be taken if you want to produce an undifferentiated product or do you want to actually target a specific market. In target marketing, various groups of people are selected depending on their demographic, psychographic, geographic, and behavioral attributes that would be fit for targeting. In positioning, you develop the product and its attributes and the marketing campaign in the way you want your brand to be remembered in the mind of the target market (Elizabeth, 1996).
Works Cited
Armstrong, G., & Kotler, P. (2006). Marketing: An introduction. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Charles Glenn Walters (1974). Consumer Behavior: Theory and practice. R.D. Irwin.
Elizabeth Hill, Terry O Sullivan (1996) Marketing. New York: Longman Publishing.