The 3rd - Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning

This is a very important part of marketing, before the marketer plans to promote a certain business or product, they will have to see how they will segment the market and who their target market is. This is where STP comes in, only after the marketer has an idea of who the target market is and how the market is segmented, they can develop better ways of communicating with the customers. With STP, the marketer can also differentiate their tools of marketing and target specific groups of customers with the tools appropriate for that audience. This helps get the best responses from the customers.

Segmentation, in marketing, is the dividing of the customer base to target different groups of people. Marketsegmentation.com offers a professional definition of exactly what it is.
"Market segmentation is the process of splitting customers, or potential customers, in a market into different groups, or segments, within which customers share a similar level of interest in the same or comparable set of needs satisfied by a distinct marketing proposition".
So simply it is the splitting up of groups of customers to better satisfy their needs. For example there would be different ads to target a 15 year old then to target a 50 year old. So age is one of ways in which marketers can segment the market. This takes to how the market can be segmented, these are the ways in which they can be segmented:

• Age
• Income
• Social Class
• Gender
• Personality
• Lifestyle

If you didn't like the text explanation of market segmentation, how about a presentation video!?

It has no background music but it does get the point across!



This basically explains the concept of segmentation and how businesses segment the market to meet different customers' needs.

Market Positioning

Market positioning is the way in which a marketer positions his/her business to attract attention to the business from possible customers and existing customers.
The main reason why a business would position itself in the area it has would be because there is a need for the product in that market. If there is a need for the product then there will be a demand and thus the business would profit from this.
The advantage of positioning is that businesses can find parts of the market in which there are gaps and thus they can fullfill the customers needs with this. Without this, the business will have to offer something different then the existing products in the market.
Maybe this guy explains the concept a little better!
Take a look at the video.



This person is obviously an expert in the field. Its the best video I could find quite frankly.

The 2nd - Perception

Perception can be defined in various ways, Paul Rookes states in his book, Perception, that “Perception is a process which involves the recognition and interpretation of stimuli which register on our senses”. (Rookes, P. 2000). Wilkie offers a different definition of what perception is, “Perception is the process of sensing, selecting & interpreting consumer stimuli in the external world” (Wilkie 1994)
Perception is under the forth part of Kotlers behaviour model and comes under the Psychological category.
I think perception is how we see the things around us and how something can seem different from a different vantage point. There can be various ways in which we perceive the environment around us. Also different people may see things in different ways, for example this advert shows exactly what I think perception is.



This advert from The Guardian shows that things can be completely different from one point of view to another. When the man runs towards the other person, I first perceived that he was running at him to hit him, because this is the first thoughts which come into peoples minds, that if he is running towards him like that, he is going to hit him. But when the camera angle is changed then we can see that the man was going to help him. The video details are also important, firstly the advert is in black and white, this, I think, makes the audience concentrate only on the man and not the surroundings. If they had added colours in the advert, then, I think, it would have not been as effective in showing that things can seem different from other sides.



This three part diagram also shows what perception is, first there is a sensation i.e. our senses show us, for example with an advert, what the colours tell us and what the music is like, from this we get a sensation of what the advert is about and it catches our attention. After that we interpret what the advert is about and it makes us think of a decision.

The 1st - First Impressions

1st Lecture - First Impressions
First impressions are very important. People do not take very long to judge a person through what they are wearing and what they look like. It is said that you only have 17 seconds to make a first impression and the first impression always counts. Say you were a market researcher and you had two people to meet, one was dressed in very smart clothing, hair brushed and his body language shows confidence. The second is dressed more casually and does not seem to care about anything. You would talk to the first person in a polite and organised manner because you have seen this person before talking to him and made up your mind on how he is as a person. But to the second person you will talk differently because you will make the first impression and understand that you will probably have to talk in a different manner then the first person. This may seem a bit stereotypical but this is how humans behave. This can be wrong, e.g. the person who was dressed smartly, may not actually be as smart as he looks and the person in the jeans may be able to give you more information for the research.
If you didnt understand the word description of first impressions, how about a video!



What must the people this person met have thought of him. He didnt make a very good impression talking about peoples wives the first time he met them did he?!!

Now...
The lecture...
The first thing in the lecture we had to do was to draw a star on a blank piece of paper. I do not have a picture but I will describe what was on the paper. I drew a small star on the middle of the page and then Ruth asked some questions and we had to write the answers anywhere on the paper we wanted. They were simple questions about us etc. the first question was, "how many brothers and sisters do you have?" Ruth said you can answer it however you like; I wrote two sisters and a brother. After all the questions were answered, Ruth collected the papers and gave them back out randomly. On the back of mine it said sporty, out-going, gender: male. This I thought were good words to describe me and the fact that they got this from just the simple answers I answered is amazing.After this Ruth asked two students, who the whole class had never seen before by the way, to come into the class and not speak while the class had to judge them on their appearance and their body language. This did seem a bit unfair on them as we could have said things which would have offended them but we said them anyway!!! Ruth wrote in two sides what the class pointed out. I thought the first student was outgoing, foreign and loud. The second student, I thought was shy because of the way she was standing and I also thought she is foreign because of the distinguishing looks.The majority of the class had got the right first impressions after the two students were rigorously questioned about all sorts of things from their names to where they do their shopping.
This is amazing, the way people can judge just based on apearence and also get it right majority of the time!!