My POV on Marketing segmentation and positioning and how it can help you with your plan and how to access yourself and make your business grow.

1. Point of View on
Marketing,
Segmentation and
Positioning
By: Kayla Strausburg

2. Segmentation
Buyers and markets are different in many ways such as in
their needs, wants, locations, resources, attitudes and
behaviors. By segmenting into groups with similar needs, you
can develop a marketing strategy that can effectively target
who you want to gain in your customer base.

3. First type of segmentation is geographic segmentation which
divides a market based on where the consumer lives and
works.
Another segment is based on demographics, which is based
on age, gender, family, income, occupation, education,
religion, ethnicity and generational cohorts.

4. The third is psychographics segmentation which divides a
market based on lifestyle and personality variables.
Lastly is behavioral segmentation which divides a market
based on the purchase behavior and the consumers use and
knowledge of a product.
So the four ways to segment a market are geographic,
demographic, psychographic and behavioral.

5. Once you segment a market, you can decide on which
specific segment or segments are better to target for your
brand or company. Which is called target marketing. A target
market is who you are focused on to engage interest in you.
You want to attract many consumers but you want to target
the correct people who will be interested and help your
company become successful and well established.

6. The segment has to be accessible where the organization
can develop a marketing mix strategy that can be effective in
reaching the group. The more you specify you reduce who
you are targeting which can make it hard to make a
sustainable business.
If you are targeting multiple segments you have to reach
each segment in different ways. You can not always use one
plain to target different types of people because what
intrigues dog lovers might not also intrigue cat lovers.

7. Positioning
In a positioning statement the segment must be identifiable so the
segment is easily recognized. Variables like demographics,
geography, psychographics or behavior are great examples.
Your segment needs to be large enough where your business is
able to make a profit. Would it make sense for you to go into
business to only be able to sell to ten people in the world? Probably
not, even if the price is high you will not be able to generate a
sustainable profit for an extended amount of time.

8. Positioning is how the product is perceived by the consumer
in comparison to other similar products. A product position
statement needs to be a clear and concise statement
describing your target market and paints a vision of how
consumers see your product. With this, with environmental
changes the position statement can move and keep showing
a clear picture of what you want your product to be seen as.

9. Perceptual Map
A perceptual map shows in a graphical form how your
product compares to competitors on key attributes. This is
an easy way to see how you are doing to competitors and
how things can be altered to help your business. Using a
perceptual map in a graphical form is easy to quickly see
the overall levels on key attributes.

10. Segmenting and mapping needs to be aligned with the
organization's objectives and resources. With all these being
said, positioning of a company and segmenting the market
that works for one company might not work for another. You
have to find your own way and still continue to move with
the environment.