What do you want!? (segmentation)

Before today, I didn’t know the meaning of Segmentation, however after this class I was very aware of what it is and how important it is in all aspects of retail.

Market segmentation which is most relevant to us is basically the practice of dividing a customer base into categories or markets such as income level, geographic location or subscription type. The population of the UK on census day 29th April 2001 was 58,789,194 and as I’m sure you can imagine, not all thee people want the same thing which is why it is so important to for us use ‘profilers’ to gather information about the population and this information forms the basis of segmentation. Profiler questions may include age, gender, social class, personality and even hair colour and type!

Below is a diagram which outlines what factors influence behaviour, which in turn will influence the segmentation of the population you fall into.






Over the years, population segmentation has changed, along with the products we want. For example, In Victorian days, carbolic soap, bright red in colour and with a very interesting fragrance, was used to clean just about everything, ranging from floors to even washing hair! How would you react if your Mum told you to wash your hair with Detol floor cleaner!? I don’t think it would go down very well!

Nowadays we have hundreds of shampoo and conditioner brands with shampoos for greasy hair, dry hair, blonde hair, red hair, brown hair, died hair, thin hair, curly hair, damaged hair, dandruff… the list goes on!

This brings me on to STP marketing which stands for Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning. Smith (1957) claims: “Segmentation is based on the observation of evolution of demand and represents a more precise and rational adaptation of the product and the marketing effort to meet customer or user demands.”

You might be asking yourself why we need to use Segmentation?
Well, basically it gives us a better understanding of customer needs which would therefore increase the chances of a product gaining brand loyalty. It also allows prices in some premium sectors to be raised and a clearer message can therefore be sent out to customers about their brand.

Segmentation allows us to produce advertisements to suit a particular audience for example, a holiday resort such as Ibiza which is well known for its night life is likely to attract people aged 18-30 and therefore elderly people would not be used in advertisements!