How to Market a Product to the Correct Market Segment - Online or Offline

Tip #1: analyse your market segment

 - Regardless of whether you're an online or offline marketer, the market you try to distribute your products into needs to analysed thoroughly and effectively. Before you begin, make a short list of what you product needs from the customer or what it offers to them. This usually is in the form of a solution to a problem, or you could even be cheeky and make a problem and then solve it all in the same product! (I often use Apple as an example whenever I give a speech about market segmentation. You don't NEED a fancy iPhone do you? Is your life dependent on it, or is it more of a luxury? If somebody took away Angry Birds and Temple Run from you, would you suffer or just be a bit annoyed and move on?)

Tip #2: Demographics - When it comes to analysing demographics, think about the gender, age, income and target area. An example of this would be boys won't buy dolls for themselves; girls won't buy condoms for themselves, so why market to them if you can't generate revenue?

You can choose from a range of demographic options to help pinpoint your marketing and ensure that it's as effective as possible. These include:

· Age: Marketing to the appropriate age group is essential. Typically teenagers won't buy a brand new, latest model Mercedes but they might buy a second hand Fiat. Make sure that this is considered as a priority when conducting your research.

· Gender: This may only apply to a set amount of products such as children's toys, hygiene products and so on. If you are dealing with a product that is in the self-help market segment, typically speaking this will be a factor and necessary for research. Males aren't going to want female time-of-the-month products!

· Location: Typically this only applies to offline marketers but can also apply somewhat to onliners too. There are companies that collect information on people based on their home address and career such as annual income, number of family members, average bill costs etc. It's impossible to list all of them, but for example the UK's #1 company is Accorn. These numbers to help you to market an expensive gadget to an area full of people that have expendable income as opposed to the homeless shelter. Some argue that this process is immoral, but in reality if you can't afford a product, you can't afford it. Why would a team of advertisers target you to be shown an ad for a shiny new car when you can only just about pay your rent? These numbers are important and yet often go left out of the entire process. If they'll be useful, use them!

Okay, so you've got your product, and you've got a demographic to market to. You still have factors to consider such a price, mark up if you're selling business to business, added value and others. Ensure that you research all aspects of the product you're selling and how others may have been selling something similar in the past (or even actively!). This can be a great help and quite often the information is freely available thanks to the internet.

Posted in: BUSINESS,MARKETTING