Download 40 segmenting markets for rapid growth

40. SEGMENTING MARKETS FOR RAPID GROWTH
INTRODUCTION
Fuelling rapid growth comes from gaining sustainable competitive advantage and differentiation
- which will come from looking for ‘response bases’ to identify an uncovered (unsatisfied)
market segment. Response bases are customer beliefs, attitudes, preferences, aspirations and
resultant perceptions and behaviours. Unearthing a key ‘preference’ or significant ‘attitude’ that
is very important to a sizeable group of customers in a product category and incorporating that
proprietary knowledge into tailored marketing & sales strategy and programmes- leads to better,
more cost effective buying responses ( and reduced buyer resistance) from that target market. It
also underpins a sustainable competitive advantage.
UNEARTHING THE ‘RESPONSE BASE’ INFORMATION
Unearthing response base information and then using it to group customers according to their
common response and identification bases involves two stages.
Stage 1 – Primary qualitative market research
Primary qualitative market research, using Depth Interviews and Focus Groups is done to
unearth the ‘response bases’ information that identifies an uncovered (unsatisfied) market
segment. These response bases often emerge from three specific areas of enquiry:
1. Customer needs that are not met (or unsatisfactorily met) by other competitors in the current
market
2. Desired customer buying process, decision-making process requirements and brand loyalty
propensity
3. Response and behaviour in relation to marketing communications and environment.
Stage 2 - Quantitative market research
The potential Response /Identification Basis questions and variables to be used in the
quantitative segmentation research will emerge from the Qualitative Depth and Focus Group
research conducted. A base-line segmentation study will be done to aggregate groups of buyers
who respond similarly to a set of potential Response and Identification Basis Questions and
Descriptor/Attitude Questions.
Example Identification & Response Segmentation Bases
Segmentation Bases
Attitudes
Life Stage
Socio-economic
Gender
Current Situation
Product Ownership
Channels and
Communication
Media
Consumption
Preferred Contact
Methods/Points
Cost Drivers
Employment
Status
Smoker Status
Product Assessment
Perceived Needs by Product Category
Satisfaction
Reaction to Branded/New Product Concepts
The results of the quantitative base-line segmentation research are then analysed to identify
important unmet needs in attractive customer market segments for the business and to select the
response base information for incorporation into tailored (right product, right message, right
way, right time) marketing and sales programmes for those customer segments.
This then becomes the growth engine for the business