In the last chapter I shared with you about some of the basics of marketing. One question which could be there in your mind is that - "Where does marketing begin?". Which means that when you approach a marketing problem, what is the first thing that you should look at. And the answer to that question is the STP - i.e. Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning.
Why do I say that?
What is Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning?
Let me ask that question to you again - Where does Marketing begin? I am listing down below the three most common answers that I have received for this question.
- Marketing begins at identifying the needs of the customers.
- Marketing begins with market research.
- Marketing begins with creating a product.
Now, if you analyse it further, you will discover that each of these could not be the starting points. And here are my concerns/reasons for each of the points.
- Marketing begins at identifying the needs of the customers.
Concern: Identifying which needs of which customers? - Marketing begins with market research.
Concern: But where will you find the customers to research. And also, which customers? - Marketing begins with creating a product.
Concern: Again, you are creating the product from whom? Who is the customer? And what do the customers want?
By now, it would have become clearer to you that somewhere the first step has got to do with the customer/consumers.
That is absolutely correct.
Marketing, the process of approaching a marketing problem, begins at Segmentation.
For you as a marketer, the entire world is your canvas. You can serve anybody in the world with solutions to their problems. These solutions are the products and services that you are marketing.
But, the fact is that each person in this world is unique.
Their needs, wants, desires, and pains are all different.
Which means that first you need to identify that which need are you trying to satiate and what pain point are you trying to solve. And since, the needs, wants and pains of everyone could be different, the first important task at your hands is that you need to find those human beings whose needs are similar.
And therefore you need to split this entire universe of all possible customers into smaller groups on the basis of some criteria.
This is exactly what is called as Segmentation. The next chapter is dedicated to Segmentation and what are the various ways or criteria through which you can segment the audience or the possible customers.
Now, once these groups of entire universe of the customers has been created through Segmentation, you as a marketer would now need to choose that which of these groups would you like to pursue or serve or target.
This is called Targeting, wherein you as a marketer select that which segment would you like to pursue through your campaigns.
Now obviously, while creating a marketing campaign your objective is to highlight the benefits of your product or the service. This benefit should be relevant for the target audience and at the same time your product or service should emerge out as unique among the competition.
This where Positioning comes into the picture. Positioning is about finding the differentiation of your product among the competition that is also relevant for the target segment. This obviously means that if there are more number of target segments that you are pursuing then you need to define the positioning for each of the target segments.
In a subsequent chapter where I discuss Positioning separately, I will share with you what I call the Positioning Formula which will make the exercise of Positioning extremely easy to understand and to perform.
So, what is Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning?
Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning is the starting point for you as a marketer and that is ideally where the entire process of marketing begins. It helps you group the entire universe of your possible customers into smaller group or segments, from which you will choose which groups or segments you want to target and what is going to be your positioning for each of your target audience.
I am sure this chapter would have done it for you. Now you have the clarity about what is Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning like you never had before.
Lets understand Segmentation closely in the next chapter.