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A target market is a group of customers that the business has decided to aim its marketing efforts and ultimately its merchandise. A well-defined target market is the first element to a marketing strategy. The target market and the marketing mix variables of product, place(distribution), promotion and price are the two elements of a marketing mix strategy that determine the success of a product in the marketplace.
Once these distinct customers have been defined, a marketing mix strategy of product, distribution, promotion and price can be built by the business to satisfy the target market.
Market segmentations
Target markets are groups of people separated by distinguishable and noticeable aspects. Target markets can be separated into:
- • geographic segmentations (their location)
- • demographic/socio-economic segmentation (gender,age, income occupation, education, sex, household size, and stage in the family life cycle)
- • psychographic segmentation (similar attitudes, values, and lifestyles)
- • behavioral segmentation (occasions, degree of loyalty)
- • product-related segmentation (relationship to a product)
Strategies for Reaching Target Markets
Marketers have outlined four basic strategies to satisfy target markets: undifferentiated marketing or mass marketing, differentiated marketing, concentrated marketing, and micromarketing.
HOW CHOCOLATE WORKS
Mmmm, chocolate. It turns out that we have the cocoa tree (the abroma cocoa) to thank for chocolate. Cocoa trees grow in moist, shady areas in equatorial regions such as West Africa, Indonesia, and Central and South America. The cocoa tree produces a fruit about the size of a small pineapple. Inside the fruit are the tree’s seeds, also known as cocoa beans. The beans are harvested, fermented for about a week, and dried in the sun. The dried beans are then shipped to chocolate makers to be processed. Cocoa processing involves several steps, including: winnowing, roasting and grinding. Winnowing removes the meat of the cocoa bean from its shell. The roasting is important because it brings out the flavor. Sometimes different types of beans are blended together before they are ground because trees from different regions can produce beans with distinct flavors. Ground beans form a viscous liquid called chocolate liquor. All seeds contain some amount of fat, and cocoa beans are no different. However, cocoa beans are half fat, which is why the ground beans form a liquid. Chocolate liquor is pure, unsweetened chocolate-meaning it’s very bitter. You can do three different things with chocolate liquor. You can pour it into a mold and let it cool and solidify. This is unsweetened chocolate. You can press it in a hydraulic press to squeeze out the fat. Or you can add ingredients to make something like a chocolate bar. When you put the liquor through a press, what you are left with is a dry cake of the ground cocoa bean solids and cocoa butter (useful in everything from tanning products to white chocolate). If you grind up the cake, you have cocoa powder. You can buy unsweetened chocolate (baking chocolate) and pure cocoa powder at the grocery store. What you are buying is ground cocoa beans, either with or without the cocoa butter. To make a tasty chocolate bar, chocolatiers must add ingredients like sugar and vanilla, conch the mixture, and then temper the chocolate in order to blend the ingredients together and to smooth it out. This process can take anywhere from two to six days. Tempering is a carefully controlled cooling and heating process that allows the chocolate to harden properly. These three steps, along with the blend of cocoa beans chosen at the start and the way they are roasted, are the art of chocolate making.
The Psychology of Target Marketing
A principal concept in target marketing is that those who are targeted show a strong affinity or brand loyalty to that particular brand. Research has shown that racial similarity, role congruence, labeling intensity of ethnic identification, shared knowledge and ethnic salience all promote positive effects on the target market. Research has generally shown that target marketing strategies are constructed from consumer inferences of similarities between some aspects of the advertisement (e.g., source pictured, language used, lifestyle represented) and characteristics of the consumer (e.g. reality or desire of having the represented style. Consumers are persuaded by the characteristics in the advertisement and those of the consumer.
References
- Kurtz, Dave. (2010). Contemporary Marketing Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.
- Cohen A. Wiliam. (2005) The Marketing Plan. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
- Aaker, J., Brumbaugh, A., & Grier, S. (2000). Nontarget Markets and Viewer Distinctiveness: The Impact of Target Marketing on Advertising. Journal of Consumer Psychology (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates), 9(3), 127. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier database
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