Targeting Multiple Customer Segments - Explained
How Many Segments to Target?
Written by J. Mance Gordon
Updated at April 17th, 2024
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How many segments should we target?
How many market segments to choose will depend a lot on the good or service that we provide.
Our options are as follows:
Niche Marketing
One is that we could engage in niche marketing. That is targeting one single segment that we think we can meet their needs the best. We can identify that one group that fits best with what we offer and target them. The idea here is that we would really expect to meet their needs very well because everything we're doing is to target them.
Multiple Segment Marketing
We could serve multiple segments by creating different strategies in order to serve different groups. This is a good option in the case where our product can serve different purposes or meet different needs.
Combining Market Segments
Another option would be what's called combined segments. This is an approach where we believe that we can essentially target more than one segment with the same strategy. In other words, we can lump different groups together and meet their needs with one marketing mix or one marketing strategy.
Cost as a Consideration
One major consideration in which approach to choose is costs. If we have multiple different strategies it's going to be more expensive. Whereas, if we have one strategy or we're targeting one segment, we can lower our cost in some ways.
Customer Needs as a Consideration
Another consideration is that there may be trade-off between how well are meeting the needs of the customer. Usually, if we target one group and develop a marketing strategy just for them, we can really meet their needs well. Conversely, if we try to meet lots of different people's needs with one strategy (like in a combined segment situation), we might not be meeting needs quite as well.
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