STP & Marketing Strategies

 

Importance of serving customers by grouping:

Segmentation:  

Surf Excel was launched in 1959 as a family brand with tough stain removal and a caring image. It was segmented for an audience which prefers washing their clothes with ease and comfort.

Segmentation is done on the basis of living standard measure (LSM), which ranges
from 1 to 15. 1 denotes those people who are living from hand to mouth, whereas 15 denote
extremely rich and elite class. LSM is measure by a number of variables such as no of mobile
phones in a house, no of cars, income bracket, etc. Surf Excel starts from 6 who can afford
washing machine for washing.

Targeting:

Surf Excel mainly targets housewives but the things have to be seen in context. Surf Excel is not just targeting the middle income category. With the broadest socio-economic footprint amongst consumer goods competitors, Surf Excel is also looking at lower income market as well as the higher income bracket with different sets of products.

Positioning:

Surf Excel is considered to be a trusted and premium brand because of its unique association. Unilever is positioning their product in the best of their customer satisfaction which also differentiate from their competitors. They are creating environment for people to have a life easy chance. As regarding the image there is message for the peoples to avoid on the occasions to restrict “when kids are in situation of doing something extra ordinary”.
They are also positioning as considering the fact of Strong’s competition .So they are also focusing different type of facilities.

 SegmentationàTargetingàPositioning is the sequence which marketers follow for effective target marketing.

If we change the sequence which marketers follow the following consequences can arise;

P-S-T:

·         When we position a product, we put it out in such a manner so as to create a distinctive image of the offering in the minds of the people we want to target.

·         If we try to position our product without knowing who our target is, there are chances that it will not be accepted by the majority who we have made an offering to.

·         Take into consideration the vehicle manufacturer Rolls Royce, if they position their luxury before segmenting the market, we will not know the behavioral pattern of the people in that particular market environment. After this if we target the segmented market, the surety of our positioning being is success is highly doubtful. It may or may not work.

·         This can cause unrest in the market and even cause the failure in our launching.

S-P-T:

·         Segmentation is done on the basis of Geography, Demographics, Psychographics and Behavioral patterns.

·         Once we segment the market, we get an idea of the kind of product and features a particular audience desires. Now, if we position the product as per the mass variety and value expected by different customer groups it will be impossible to satisfy the different needs of all the customer segments.

·         If we then target a particular group, it is sure to have unmet demands, needs and wants from our offering.

·         Hence, targeting has to be done before positioning to create and distribute the required value to the customer.

P-T-S:

·         If we position our product first, it will just lie in the market without anyone to go to. Thus we will have to select a particular audience who would understand our positioning. For this, we will have to target the right audience as per our positioning which would be a very difficult task as it is the reverse of our general path of targeting and then positioning.

·         Once we target our audience, there is no point in segmenting it further. It would only create additional cost to the market researcher and would not even be fruitful.

·         It is like trying to create the value of a service by not considering other customers as done in the Rapid Rewards case study. Liz Bast was not happy with the positioning by South West Airlines.

·         After positioning, when we target only a particular group, it is very probable that the interest of the group will be completely different from the product/service features which we have offered and the consumers will be dissatisfied.

·         Now if we target the market, it will create a segment of mixed customers which will exhibit the qualities of a rather mixed interest oriented audience rather than one which would be happy with a particular offering.

Thus, it is seen that the standard S-T-P approach will help to reach the target consumer effectively and help eliminate undue expenses and dissatisfaction from the consumer’s as well as the marketer’s side.