Student Corner - 260
SEGMENTATION (GEOGRAPHIC)
We have seen the significance of segmentation
as a business strategy and the kinds of segmentation that makes marketing
efficient and effective in the sense it does not encourage to use resources in
ways that are not profitable to the company. Capital cannot be treated lightly
when framing budget for the financial year. Budget must reflect the efficient
understanding of the marketing dynamics.
We saw segmentation tends to exploit your resources where they bring
productive results, that is, your customer stay with you and new customer joins
you.
In addition to the kinds of segmentation we
have looked into, we will consider some more kinds of segmentation that generally
business houses engage themselves with. Experts discuss generally four types of
segmentation: geographic, demographic, psychographic and behavioral.
Let us briefly look into each kind of
segmentation for the sake of clarity in understanding. But one word of caution.
These four kinds do not exhaust the possibilities of some more kinds of
segmentation the future might pose before you.
After all, it is the experience of the customer that is his sense of
satisfaction that matters. And the experience is one of the unpredictable facts
of life. Friends turn foes; wives who have lived with somebody very happily
suddenly find themselves considering divorce; the ranks of the wealthiest in
the world keeps changing; in every field of living, we find unexpected events
surprise us. That is, these four kinds of segmentation are for our convenient
approach to the problem. An openness of mind will face any number of challenges
without the fear of failure, a human characteristic which is too deep to be
understood and accepted easily. Now, let us turn to the four kinds of
segmentation.
First one we mentioned geographic
segmentation. We know that every customer without exception is born somewhere
at some time. And this event of birth decides so many factors for him or her;
we have seen and heard about different cultures like Western culture and
Eastern culture, to mention just the major cultures talked about. Culture again
is a very big subject like commerce itself and both interact with each other.
From the bullock-cart to Boeing, everything defines culture. Let us not go into
the nuances of culture at present the context being commercial overtone.
The birth happens in a county; in that
country, it happens in a region; and the region has a state and in the state
you are born in some area. The people of the country have their own specific
needs besides some common needs. The
needs of a state often differ from those of a country and even of a specific
area. Now you know the components that fall under the geographic segment.
We will see other kinds in our next. Just for the sake of knowing them and trying
to use them where and when it is possible.
