Understanding Your Target Market - Targeting Different Social Classes - Value Segmentation

Understanding Your Target Market
Understanding the target market is a vital aspect of the communication process. When companies launch a brand new product or alter a current product, they try to promote this particular product to increase/maximize profits. Marketers can do that through a promotion communication process. Through mass media, such as television, newspapers or web advertisement, a target market can be reached by the communication. The Promotion manager acts as the sender & with his/her kind of the communication (it could be for example the advertisement on television), the "message" is encoded. The individuals who view the commercial on television (which is the message channel), decode the message by using their own interpretation. Interpretations can vary from individual to individual, because everyone's personal experiences & current circumstances influence the way interprets the message. Thus, messages may even be interpreted differently by the same person at different times.

Feedback
The only way that marketers (& fundamentally also companies) can know how their message has been received is by the feedback of the viewers. Because selling is only emphasized on the target market, it is most crucial for companies & marketers to understand the target market's feedback in this communication process.

Because the target market determines the sales performance of a company, it is important to understand the target market correctly. Feedback such as the words "I agree", positive comments on web web-sites, lots of recommendations as well as a high sales rate of a product mean usually that the target market is providing positive feedback.

This however is not an simple task. The target market starts a new communication method when leaving feedback by encoding their message, sending it through a message channel until the company or marketers receive the message & decode it, which has the risk of being misinterpreted as well. Hence, the communication method is difficult to understand correctly.

If the target market sends negative feedback, in the kind of negative comments about the product or no sales activity for a given product, the marketers must not only interpret the feedback as being negative, but also analyze & understand why the target market does not like the product.

In addition, marketers need to understand the target market in regards to consumer surveys. The answers/results need to be closely analyzed so that marketers can understand & predict purchasing behavior & create products & services that will meet customer's desires & needs & thus be high in demand, which in turn would lead to high profits.

Targeting Different Social Classes
It is important for companies to adjust their promotion strategy & create different offerings for consumers in different social classes

Each social class usually has differing needs, desires, & consumption patterns. The upper class & upper middle class usually tend to invest over people of other social classes. Other consumer behavior patterns among the upper class & upper middle social class that have been identified are that only half of the social class purchases gifts from upscale stores, while the remaining half buys gifts at regular stores. Furthermore, for this class the product characteristics choose the quality assigns to a product than the cost.

A distinct consumer behavior habit between the middle class & the lower class is for example that higher percentage of people in the middle-class subscribe to premium cable channels. reason for this behavior is the financial factor, namely that more people in the middle class can afford the every month payments for premium cable channels. Finally, homeless individuals who do not have shelter & sometimes much food, have significantly different values than people in the upper class for example. Homeless people will spend money primarily on food & shelter, which are their primary & basic needs. In contrast, since upper class consumers have shelter & food, they take it for granted & value luxurious items more.

To meet consumers' values, needs, & expectations of all social classes, a company ought to create different offerings for consumers in each social class.

There's lots of other distinct consumer purchasing habits that each social class has. & only with the knowledge of these differences, can a company create an offering that will suit a targeted social class in their desires, needs, & expectations. Offerings that would be valued & affordable by the upper class, such as a Rolls-Royce automobile are not affordable for someone in the working class. Thus, other automobile models that will be affordable to the working class as well as meet their needs of commuting every day to & from work must be developed.

Value Segmentation
Not only ought to a promotion strategy and/or an promotion campaign be adjusted to the social class is targeting, but it may even be based on another factor.

Value segmentation is the process of identifying groups of consumers who have a similar or same set of values that differ from those of other groups.

Examples
 example is the marketplace for cosmetics. Ladies who value luxury & cost as well as brand name to be thought about someone who values high quality & has the finances to buy the product might buy a Lancome Definicils for $25, while someone who basically wishes to lengthen & darken their lashes & doesn't value the brand name or quality of the mascara might purchase the Maybelline Full'n Soft Mascara from Walmart for $7.

Another example would be the acquisition of a mobile phone. While some people, teenagers, will value for a mobile phone to be "new", & "trendy" as well as pricey & having the latest know-how & thus purchase an iPhone for $450, another group of people might basically value the ability to communicate with a mobile phone irrespective of their location in the United States & buy an LG Rumor for $80.

Another product market where value segmentation can be basically observed is the car-market. The group of people valuing their status as perceived by others might purchase an pricey Lexus or an Audi, while another group of people valuing the basic ability of transportation from place to another will buy an cheap Toyota that will meet their needs.