Marketing and marketing segments

• Marketing is a planning process that identifies the needs and wants of potential customers in order to create a product or a service to satisfy them in a profitable way.
• Successful marketing means: having the right product, on sale in the right place, at the right price, in the right package, using the right promotion.
• Every business should:
- determine customers’needs through market research;
- Identify market segments;
- Select the target market;
- Identify a marketing mix.

MARKETING RESEARCH

• Market research is the study of market and is used to obtain data and analyze information about consumers’ preferences for goods and services.
• There are two main methods of market research:
- Field research: This type of research is also called primary research. It is carried out going out into the market place and finding directly information using different techniques: internet, telephone.
Field research provides up-to-date specific data.
- Desk research: This type of research is called secondary research because it is based on information gathered and published.
Desk research is cheaper than field research because the information is found easily and is instantly.

MARKETING SEGMENTS

• Marketing experts divide consumers into different categories called market segments. There are different variables that may be used in segmenting the market: age, sex, income, occupation, social class, family size, education, geographical location, ethnicity.

THE TARGET MARKET

• The target market is where to target a particular product or service. The choice of a target market will depend on factors such as the size of the segment, competition in the segment, sales and potential profit.