Market Segmentation (#5)

So you today I’m going to teach you all about Market Segmentation and how that plays a role in companies.  Market Segmentation involves aggregating prospective buyers into groups that have common needs and will respond similarly to a marketing action.  This is a very important part of how organizations operate because this is what decides who your product or service will be most appealing to.  There are 5-steps in segmenting and targeting markets.

Step 1:  You group the potential buyers into segments.  Buyers within a segment should have similar characteristics to each other and respond similarly to marketing actions like a new product or a lower price. 

Step 2:  You put related products to be sold into meaningful groups. 

Step 3:  Organizations develop a market-product grid with estimated sizes of markets in each of the market-product cells of the resulting table.

Step 4:  Selecting the target market segments on which the organization should focus. 

Step 5:  Involves taking marketing mix actions-often in the form of a marketing program to reach the target market segments. 

Some of the bases used to segment consumer markets include geographic, demographic, psychographic, and behavioral ones. 

            The company that I want to focus on because I’m a proud user of the brand is Samsung; they are in the race for the crown with Apple in the mobile market.  Samsung’s market segmentation has three levels

 1) Strategic Segmentation- vision, strategic intent and product benefits

 2)Managerial Segmentation- resource allocation, alignment and planning

 3)Operational Segmentation- marketing programs such as advertising, sales and distributions. 

http://www.academia.edu/6393045/Samsung_electronics_market_and_analysis

The activities of market segmentation are exactly the same as those in the actual process but they value opportunities, new market space, matching value requirements with capabilities, market targeting and strategic positioning.  Samsung main focuses on lifestyle and demographic variables in segmenting their market.  They has different levels of segmentation for their products that are targeted to different markets of consumers who have common characteristics, the four segments are Segment Marketing, Nich Marketing, Local Marketing, and Individual Marketing.  In each of these they look at Geographic Segmentation (Region, City), Demographic Segmentation (Age, Family Size, Gender, Income, Occupation, Education), and Psychographic Segmentations (Lifestyle, Personality). 

http://maktechblog.com/samsungs-strategy-for-mobile-market-segment/

            In their race to be crowned king Samsung has been a leader in innovation and also very efficient in regards to their products.  They regularly introduce new models in all segments in every 4 to 6 months, they were the first to introduce “mini,” “mega,” and “zoom” concept in the mobile market.  This benchmark was created with the introduction of Samsung Galaxy S series for all in one entertainment, Galaxy Youth/Star for young generations, Galaxy Note series for professionals, Galaxy Zoom for phot enthusiasts and Galaxy Grand for budget friendly buyers.  Samsung is always trying to lure customers in with their perks for example they brought keyboards in 9 Indian languages to market to Indian users.  This is just a very small example of how Market Segmentation plays a role in the world that we live in today, there are thousands of other examples of how companies choose what markets to target with their products. 

Today’s Promotion

Sooo Microsoft is jumping into the smart watch market pretty soon with the new product that is now in the works.  It has been said that Microsoft will be releasing their new product to the public in the next few weeks to come, so if you’re looking for a cool gadget to get someone for the holidays here’s something to look into.  The price of the watch is yet to be determined along with the name.  It is said that this gadget will passively track a wearer’s heart rate and work across different mobile platforms, it will also boast a batter life of more than two days of regular which is a better life span than Samsung’s Galaxy Gear and Moto 360 which both only last for a day.  In interest to see what other cool thinks this smart watch is going to be able to do and also how it’s actually going to look on someone's wrist. Click the link attached to the photo to read more about this gear. 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/10/19/microsoft-wearable-smartwatch/

Brands (#4)

Greetings Earthlings!

            Coming to you live from the world of Marketing, I wonder how you all are doing on this evening that I write to you all.  Today’s agenda we’ll be looking at the awesomeness that is branding.  For those of you who don’t know branding is the marketing decision in which an organization uses a name, phrase, design, symbols or combination of these to identify it’s products and distinguishes them from those of competitors.  We all know a product brand when we see it for example the golden arches of McDonald’s or that good old check mark that is Nike. One product that has great brand equity when I think about it comes from Johnson & Johnson; Band-Aids are exactly what they sound like.  They are adhesive bandages that help protect your warrior scars, the significance behind this is how we give it recognition.  Majority of people refer to bandages as Band-Aids without regard to the actual brand that you are using, this is how you create what I like to call

‘Dominant Brand.’  As you can see on the Johnson & Johnson bandage packaging there actual name is very small and not to revealing the focus is all on the brand name and the actual product.  Their marketing strategy has been very effective over the years. 

            

            Another brand that people refer to a lot but doesn't necessarily have the same type of superiority as Johnson & Johnson is Kodak, who was the leader in the photography industry.  In the late 90’s Kodak began to lose their edge because they were reluctant to use innovation which they had the resources to propel them forward but they wanted to stick with using photographic film when new companies were emerging with digital film.  Now Kodak focuses on packaging, functional printing, graphic communications and professional services for businesses around the world.  Its main business segments are Digital Printing, Enterprise & Graphics, Entertainment, and Commercial Film. In their rain of power and sometimes still used today whenever there is a beautiful moment at play in the universe people like to say “That’s a Kodak Moment.”  Taglines are used in marketing to fulfill task such as the one that Kodak fulfilled, that came up with this catchy slogan that appealed to consumers of all ages and ran with it.  A tagline if you don’t know is just another word for a slogan for example Uncle Sam’s famous ‘We Want You” phrase that is

seen across America when it’s election time, which by the way will be coming up in another year.   

Today’s Promotion

So in big news for all those Apple brand lovers, the company is making another innovative move with the start of their new pay system.  The way it works you have a finger scanner that recognizes you finger print and in participating store’s you can just purchase your items through your phone, also you can hold your phone up to the register and have the cashier scan the bar code which I can’t even lie being an Android lover is pretty neat.  Tim Cook announced on Thursday that on Monday, October 20^th the company will be launching this new system on their iPhone 6’s so if you’re an apple lover and have yet to upgrade here’s something else that will motivate you.  Cook let us know that roughly 500 banks will be participating in this system so the chances of you bank being one of them are very high, also the retailers that are participating in this event so far are Bloomingdale’s, Macy’s, McDonald’s, Staples, and Whole Foods.  Some large trademark companies when you think about it which helps apple be more dominant than they already are today.  Click on the link provided below to go to the article to read more about this awesome new feature that Apple is bringing to the table and also to watch a video on it.  

http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2014/09/11/apple-iphone-apple-pay-safer-than-plastic.cnnmoney/index.html