Types of Segmentation Bases

Table 5.1 "Common Ways of Segmenting Buyers" shows some of the different types of buyer characteristics used to segment markets. Notice that the characteristics fall into one of four segmentation categories: behavioral, demographic, geographic, or psychographic. We’ll discuss each of these categories in a moment. For now, you can get a rough idea of what the categories consist of by looking at them in terms of how marketing professionals might answer the following questions:

• Behavioral segmentation. What benefits do customers want, and how do they use our product?
• Demographic segmentation. How do the ages, races, and ethnic backgrounds of our customers affect what they buy?
• Geographic segmentation. Where are our customers located, and how can we reach them? What products do they buy based on their locations?
• Psychographic segmentation. What do our customers think about and value? How do they live their lives?

Segmenting by Behavior

Behavioral segmentationDividing people and organization into groups according to how they behave with or act toward products. divides people and organization into groups according to how they behave with or act toward products. Benefits segmentation—segmenting buyers by the benefits they want from products—is very common. Take toothpaste, for example. Which benefit is most important to you when you buy a toothpaste: The toothpaste’s price, ability to whiten your teeth, fight tooth decay, freshen your breath, or something else? Perhaps it’s combination of two or more benefits. If marketing professionals know what those benefits are, they can then tailor different toothpaste offerings to you (and other people like you). For example, Colgate 2-in-1 Toothpaste & Mouthwash, Whitening Icy Blast is aimed at people who want the benefits of both fresher breath and whiter teeth.

Another way in which businesses segment buyers is by their usage rates—that is, how often, if ever, they use certain products. For example, the entertainment and gaming company Harrah’s gathers information about the people who gamble at its casinos. High rollers, or people who spend a lot of money, are considered “VIPs.” VIPs people get special treatment, including a personal “host” who looks after their needs during their casino visits. Companies are interested in frequent users because they want to reach other people like them. They are also keenly interested in nonusers and how they can be persuaded to use products.

The way in which people use products is also be a basis for segmentation. Avon Skin So Soft was originally a beauty product. But after Avon discovered that some people were using it as a mosquito repellant, the company began marketing it for that purpose. Eventually, Avon created a separate product called Skin So Soft Bug Guard, which competes with repellents like Off! Similarly, Glad, the company that makes plastic wrap and bags, found out customers were using its Press ’n Seal wrap in ways the company could never have imagined. The personnel in Glad’s marketing department subsequently launched a Web site called 1000uses.com that contains both the company and consumer’s use tips. Some of the ways in which people use the product are pretty unusual, as evidenced by the following comment posted on the site: “I have a hedgehog who likes to run on his wheel a lot. After quite a while of cleaning a gross wheel every morning, I got the tip to use ‘Press ’n Seal wrap’ on his wheel, making clean up much easier! My hedgie can run all he wants, and I don’t have to think about the cleanup. Now we’re both GLAD!”

Figure 5.4

Encouraging consumers to use your products for multiple purposes is a smart marketing strategy.

© 2010 Jupiterimages Corporation

Although we doubt Glad will ever go to great lengths to segment the Press ’n Seal market by hedgehog owners, the firm has certainly gathered a lot of good consumer insight about the product and publicity from its 1000uses.com Web site. (Incidentally, one rainy day, the author of this chapter made “rain boots” out of Press ’n Seal for her dog. But when she later tried to tear them off of the dog’s paws, he bit her. She is now thinking of trading him in for a hedgehog.)

Segmenting by Demographics

Segmenting buyers by tangible, personal characteristics such as their ages, incomes, ethnicity, family sizes, and so forth is called demographic segmentationSegmenting buyers by tangible, personal characteristics such as their ages, incomes, ethnicity, family sizes, and so forth.. This section will discuss some prominent demographic characteristics used to segment buyers, including age, income, gender, and family life cycles. Other demographic characteristics include occupation, education, nationality, religion, and social class.

Demographics are commonly utilized to segment markets because a mountain of demographic information is publicly available in databases around the world. You can obtain a great deal of demographic information on the U.S. Census Bureau’s Web site (http://www.census.gov). Other government Web sites you can tap include FedStats (http://www.fedstats.gov) and The World Factbook (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook), which contains statistics about countries around the world. In addition to current statistics, the sites contain forecasts of demographic trends, such as whether some segments of the population are expected to grow or decline.

Income

Tweens might appear to be a very attractive market when you consider they will be buying products for years to come. But would you change your mind if you knew that baby boomers account for 50 percent of all consumer spending in the United States? Americans over sixty-five now control nearly three-quarters of the net worth of U.S. households; this group spends $200 billion a year on major “discretionary” (optional) purchases such as luxury cars, alcohol, vacations, and financial products.Tim Reisenwitz, Rajesh Iyer, David B. Kuhlmeier, and Jacqueline K. Eastman, “The Elderly’s Internet Usage: An Updated Look,” Journal of Consumer Marketing, 24, no. 7 (2007): 406–18.

Income is used a segmentation variable because it indicates a group’s buying power. People’s incomes also tend to reflect their education levels, occupation, and social classes. Higher education levels usually result in higher paying jobs and greater social status.

The makers of upscale products such as Rolexes and Lamborghinis aim their products at high-income groups. However, a growing number of firms today are aiming their products at lower-income consumers. The fastest-growing product in the financial services sector is prepaid debit cards, most of which are being bought and used by people who don’t have bank accounts. Firms are finding that this group is a large, untapped pool of customers who tend to be more brand loyal than most. If you capture enough of them, you can earn a profit.Constantine von Hoffman, “For Some Marketers, Low Income Is Hot,” Brandweek, September 11, 2006, http://www.allbusiness.com/marketing-advertising/branding-brand-development/4670054-1.html (accessed December 2, 2009).

Figure 5.5

Do you ever wonder if your neighbors can really afford to drive the cars they do?

© 2010 Jupiterimages Corporation

Sometimes income isn’t always indicative of who will buy your product, however. Companies are aware that many consumers want to be in higher income groups and behave like they are already part of them (recall the reference groups discussed in Chapter 3 "Consumer Behavior: How People Make Buying Decisions"). Mercedes Benz’s cheaper line of “C” class vehicles is designed to appeal to these consumers.

Gender

Gender is another way to segment consumers. As we explained in Chapter 3 "Consumer Behavior: How People Make Buying Decisions", men and women have different physiological and other needs. They also shop differently. Consequently, the two groups are often, but not always, segmented and targeted differently. Marketing professionals don’t stop there, though. For example, because women make many of the purchases for their households, market researchers sometimes try to further divide them into subsegments. (Men are also often subsegmented.) For women, those segments might include stay-at-home housewives, plan-to-work housewives, just-a-job working women, and career-oriented working women. Women who are solely homemakers tend to spend more money research has found—perhaps because they have more time.

Figure 5.6

Considering the rising number of U.S. women who live without spouses, should some smart entrepreneur consider launching a “hunky handyman” service?

© 2010 Jupiterimages Corporation

In addition to segmenting by gender, market researchers might couple people’s genders along with their marital statuses and other demographic characteristics. For, example, did you know that more women in America than ever before (51 percent) now live without spouses? Can you think of any marketing opportunities this might present?Thomas Barry, Mary Gilly, and Lindley Doran, “Advertising to Women with Different Career Orientations,” Journal of Advertising Research 25 (April–May 1985): 26–35.

Family Life Cycle

Family life cycleThe stages families go through over time and how it affects people’s buying behavior. refers to the stages families go through over time and how it affects people’s buying behavior. For example, if you have no children, your demand for pediatric services (medical care for children) is likely to be slim to none. But if you have children or adopt them, your demand might be very high because children frequently get sick. You will be part of the target market not only for pediatric services but also for a host of other products, such as children’s clothing, entertainment services, and educational products. A secondary segment of interested consumers might be grandparents who are likely to spend less on day-to-day childcare items but more on special-occasion gifts for children. In fact, many markets are segmented based on the special events in people’s lives. Think about brides (and wannabe brides) and all the products targeted at them, including Web sites and television shows such as Platinum Weddings, Married Away, Whose Wedding Is It Anyway, and Bridezilla.

Figure 5.7

Many markets are segmented based on people’s family life cycle needs.

© 2010 Jupiterimages Corporation

Resorts also segment vacationers depending on where they are in their family life cycles. When you think of family vacations, you probably think of Disney resorts. Some vacation properties, such as Sandals, exclude children from some of their resorts. Perhaps they do so because some studies show that the market segment with greatest financial potential is married couples without children.Brian J. Hill, Carey McDonald, and Muzzafer Uysal, “Resort Motivations for Different Family Life Cycle Stages,” Visions in Leisure and Business Number 8, no. 4 (1990): 18–27.

Keep in mind that although you might be able to isolate a segment in the marketplace, including one based on family life cycle, you can’t make necessarily make assumptions about what the people in it will want. Just like people’s demographics change, so do their tastes. For example, over the past few decades U.S. families have been getting smaller. Households with a single occupant are more commonplace than ever. But until recently, that hasn’t stopped people from demanding bigger cars (and more of them) as well as larger houses, or what some people jokingly refer to as “McMansions.”

But like the trend toward larger cars, the trend toward larger houses appears to be reversing. High energy costs, the credit crunch, and concern for the environment are leading people to demand smaller houses. To attract people such as these, D. R. Horton, the nation’s leading homebuilder, and other construction firms are now building smaller homes.

Segmenting by Geography

Where will your customers come from? Suppose your great new product or service idea involves opening a local store. Before you open the store, you will probably want to do some research to determine which geographical areas have the best potential. For instance, if your business is a high-end restaurant, should it be located near the local college or country club? If you sell ski equipment, you probably will want to locate your shop somewhere in the vicinity of a mountain range where there is skiing. You might see a snowboard shop in the same area but probably not a surfboard shop. By contrast, a surfboard shop is likely to be located along the coast, but you probably would not find a snowboard shop on the beach.

Geographic segmentationSegmenting buyers by where they are located. explains why the checkout clerks at stores sometimes ask you what your zip code is. It’s also why businesses print codes on coupons that correspond to zip codes. When the coupons are redeemed, the store can then find out where its customers are located—or not located. GeocodingThe process of plotting geographic marketing information takes on a map. is a process that takes data such as this and plots it on a map. Geocoding can help businesses see where prospective customers might be clustered and target them with various ad campaigns, including direct mail, for example. One of the most popular geocoding software programs is PRIZM NE, which is produced by a company called Claritas. PRIZM NE uses zip codes and demographic information to classify the American population into segments. The idea behind PRIZM is that “you are where you live.” Combining both demographic and geographic information is referred to as geodemographicsCombining both demographic and geographic information for marketing purposes.. To see how geodemographics works, visit the following page on Claritas’ Web site: http://www.claritas.com/MyBestSegments/Default.jsp?ID=20.

Type in your zip code, and you will see customer profilesThe description of a type of customer based on market segmentation criteria. of the types of buyers who live in your area. Table 5.4 "An Example of Geodemographic Segmentation for 76137 (Fort Worth, TX)" shows the profiles of buyers who can be found the zip code 76137—the “Brite Lites, Li’l City” bunch, Home Sweet Home” set, and so on. Click on the profiles on the Claritas site to see which one most resembles you.

The tourism bureau for the state of Michigan was able to identify different customer profiles and target them using PRIZM. Michigan’s biggest travel segment are Chicagoans in certain zip codes consisting of upper-middle-class households with children—or the “kids in cul-de-sacs” group, as Claritas puts it. The bureau was also able to identify segments significantly different from the Chicago segment, including blue-collar adults in the Cleveland area who vacation without their children. The organization then created significantly different marketing campaigns to appeal to each group.

City size and population densityThe number of people per square mile. (the number of people per square mile) are also used for segmentation purposes. Have you ever noticed that in rural towns, McDonald’s restaurants are hard to find? But Dairy Queens are usually easy to locate. McDonald’s generally won’t put a store in a town of fewer than five thousand people. However, this is prime turf for the “DQ”—for one, because it doesn’t have to compete with bigger franchises like McDonald’s.

Figure 5.8

Virgin Mobile is helping stores capitalize on proximity marketing by sending text messages to Virgin Mobile users when they opt to receive them. Billboards outside stores tell Virgin Mobile users to “switch your Bluetooth on to get free stuff here!” (Who wouldn’t want free stuff?)

© 2010 Jupiterimages Corporation

Proximity marketingThe process of segmenting buyers geographically and target them within a few hundred feet of a business businesses using wireless technology. is an interesting new technology firms are using to segment buyers geographically and target them within a few hundred feet of their businesses using wireless technology. In some areas, you can switch your mobile phone to a “discoverable mode,” while you’re shopping and, if you want, get ads and deals from stores as you pass by them. And it’s often less expensive than hiring people to hand you a flier as you walk by.“Bluetooth Proximity Marketing,” April 24, 2007, http://bluetomorrow.com/bluetooth-articles/marketing-technologies/bluetooth-proximity-marketing.html (accessed December 2, 2009).

In addition to figuring out where to locate stores and advertise to customers in that area, geographic segmentation helps firms tailor their products. Chances are you won’t be able to find the same heavy winter coat you see at a Walmart in Montana at a Walmart in Florida because of the climate differences between the two places. Market researchers also look at migration patterns to evaluate opportunities. TexMex restaurants are more commonly found in the southwestern United States. However, northern states are now seeing more of them as more people of Hispanic descent move northward.

Segmenting by Psychographics

If your offering fulfills the needs of a specific demographic group, then the demographic can be an important basis for identifying groups of consumers interested in your product. But what if your product crosses several market segments? Take cereal, for example. The group of potential consumers could be “almost” everyone. However, there are groups of people who have different needs with regard to their cereal. Some consumers might be interested in the fiber, some consumers (especially children) may be interested in the prize that comes in the box, other consumers may be interested in the added vitamins, and still other consumers may be interested in the type of grains. Associating these specific needs with consumers in a particular demographic group could be difficult. Marketing professionals often desire more information about consumers than just demographic data. You want to know why consumers behave the way they do, what is of high priority to them, or how they rank the importance of specific buying criteria. Think about some of your friends who seem a lot like you. Have you ever gone their homes and been shocked by their lifestyles and how vastly different they are from yours? Why are their families so much different from yours?

Psychographic segmentationSegmenting people by their activities, interests, opinion, attitudes, values, and lifestyles. can help fill in some of the blanks. Recall that we first mentioned psychographics in Chapter 3 "Consumer Behavior: How People Make Buying Decisions". Psychographic information is frequently gathered via extensive surveys that ask people about their activities, interests, opinion, attitudes, values, and lifestyles. One of the most well-known psychographic surveys is VALS (which originally stood for “Values, Attitudes, and Lifestyles”), developed by a company called SRI International in the late 1980s. Thousands of Americans were asked by the California company the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with questions similar to the following ones: “My idea of fun at a national park would be to stay at an expensive lodge and dress up for dinner” and “I could stand to skin a dead animal.”James H. Donnelly, preface to Marketing Management, 9th ed., by J. Paul Peter (New York: McGraw-Hill Professional, 2002), 79. (Which category do you fall into?) Consumers were then divided up into the following categories, each characterized by certain buying behaviors.

• Innovators. Innovators are successful, sophisticated, take-charge people with high self-esteem. Because they have such abundant resources, they exhibit all three primary motivations in varying degrees. They are change leaders and are the most receptive to new ideas and technologies. Innovators are very active consumers, and their purchases reflect cultivated tastes for upscale, niche products and services. Image is important to Innovators, not as evidence of status or power but as an expression of their taste, independence, and personality. Innovators are among the established and emerging leaders in business and government, yet they continue to seek challenges. Their lives are characterized by variety. Their possessions and recreation reflect a cultivated taste for the finer things in life.
• Thinkers. Thinkers are motivated by ideals. They are mature, satisfied, comfortable, and reflective people who value order, knowledge, and responsibility. They tend to be well educated and actively seek out information in the decision-making process. They are well informed about world and national events and are alert to opportunities to broaden their knowledge. Thinkers have a moderate respect for the status quo institutions of authority and social decorum but are open to consider new ideas. Although their incomes allow them many choices, Thinkers are conservative, practical consumers; they look for durability, functionality, and value in the products they buy.
• Achievers. Motivated by the desire for achievement, Achievers have goal-oriented lifestyles and a deep commitment to career and family. Their social lives reflect this focus and are structured around family, their place of worship, and work. Achievers live conventional lives, are politically conservative, and respect authority and the status quo. They value consensus, predictability, and stability over risk, intimacy, and self-discovery. With many wants and needs, Achievers are active in the consumer marketplace. Image is important to Achievers; they favor established, prestige products and services that demonstrate success to their peers. Because of their busy lives, they are often interested in a variety of timesaving devices.
• Experiencers. Experiencers are motivated by self-expression. As young, enthusiastic, and impulsive consumers, Experiencers quickly become enthusiastic about new possibilities but are equally quick to cool. They seek variety and excitement, savoring the new, the offbeat, and the risky. Their energy finds an outlet in exercise, sports, outdoor recreation, and social activities. Experiencers are avid consumers and spend a comparatively high proportion of their income on fashion, entertainment, and socializing. Their purchases reflect the emphasis they place on looking good and having “cool” stuff.
• Believers. Like Thinkers, Believers are motivated by ideals. They are conservative, conventional people with concrete beliefs based on traditional, established codes: family, religion, community, and the nation. Many Believers express moral codes that are deeply rooted and literally interpreted. They follow established routines, organized in large part around home, family, community, and social or religious organizations to which they belong. As consumers, Believers are predictable; they choose familiar products and established brands. They favor American products and are generally loyal customers.
• Strivers. Strivers are trendy and fun loving. Because they are motivated by achievement, Strivers are concerned about the opinions and approval of others. Money defines success for Strivers, who don’t have enough of it to meet their desires. They favor stylish products that emulate the purchases of people with greater material wealth. Many see themselves as having a job rather than a career, and a lack of skills and focus often prevents them from moving ahead. Strivers are active consumers because shopping is both a social activity and an opportunity to demonstrate to peers their ability to buy. As consumers, they are as impulsive as their financial circumstance will allow.
• Makers. Like Experiencers, Makers are motivated by self-expression. They express themselves and experience the world by working on it—building a house, raising children, fixing a car, or canning vegetables—and have enough skill and energy to carry out their projects successfully. Makers are practical people who have constructive skills and value self-sufficiency. They live within a traditional context of family, practical work, and physical recreation and have little interest in what lies outside that context. Makers are suspicious of new ideas and large institutions such as big business. They are respectful of government authority and organized labor but resentful of government intrusion on individual rights. They are unimpressed by material possessions other than those with a practical or functional purpose. Because they prefer value to luxury, they buy basic products.
• Survivors. Survivors live narrowly focused lives. With few resources with which to cope, they often believe that the world is changing too quickly. They are comfortable with the familiar and are primarily concerned with safety and security. Because they must focus on meeting needs rather than fulfilling desires, Survivors do not show a strong primary motivation. Survivors are cautious consumers. They represent a very modest market for most products and services. They are loyal to favorite brands, especially if they can purchase them at a discount.“U.S. Framework and VALS™ Type,” Strategic Business Insights, http://www.strategicbusinessinsights.com/vals/ustypes.shtml (accessed December 2, 2009).

You can take a VALS survey at http://www.sric-bi.com/vals/surveynew.shtml to find out which category you’re in. VALS surveys have been adapted and used to study buying behavior in other countries, too. Note that both VALS and PRIZM group buyers based on their values and lifestyles. But PRIZM also overlays the information with geographic data. As a result, you can gauge what the buying habits of people in certain zip codes are, which can be helpful if you are trying to figure out where to locate stores and retail outlets.

The segmenting techniques we’ve discussed so far in this section require gathering quantitative information—data, in other words. Quantitative information can be improved with and qualitative information you gather by talking to your customers and getting to know them. (Recall that this is how Healthy Choice frozen dinners were created.) Consumer insightAn understanding of consumers that results when both quantitative and qualitative information are gathered about them. is what results when you use both types of information. You want to be able to answer the following questions:

• Am I looking at the consumers they way they see themselves?
• Am I looking at life from their point of view?

Best Buy asked store employees to develop insight about local consumer groups in order to create special programs and processes for them. Employees in one locale invited a group of retirees to their store to explain how to make the switch to digital television. The store sold $350,000 worth of equipment and televisions in just two hours’ time. How much did it cost? Ninety-nine dollars in labor costs plus coffee and donuts.

Intuit, the company that makes the tax software Quicken, has a “follow me home” program. Teams of engineers from Intuit visit people’s homes and spend a couple of hours watching consumers use Quicken. Then they use the insights they gain to improve the next version of Quicken. Contrast this story with that of a competing firm: When a representative of the firm was asked if he had ever observed consumers installing or using his company’s product, he responded, “I’m not sure I’d want to be around when they were trying to use it.”Eric Nee, “Due Diligence: The Customer Is Always Right,” CIO Insight, May 23, 2003. This company is now struggling to stay in business.

To read about some of the extreme techniques Nokia uses to understand cell phone consumers around the world, click on the following link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/magazine/13anthropology-t.html?pagewanted=all.

Segmentation in B2B Markets

Many of the same bases used to segment consumer markets are also used to segment B2B markets. Demographic criteria are used. For example, Goya Foods is a U.S. food company that sells different ethnic products to grocery stores, depending on the demographic groups the stores serve—Hispanic, Mexican, or Spanish. Likewise, B2B sellers often divide their customers by geographic areas and tailor their products to them accordingly. Segmenting by behavior is common as well. B2B sellers frequently divide their customers based on their product usage rates. Customers that order many goods and services from a seller often receive special deals and are served by salespeople who call on them in person. By contrast, smaller customers are more likely to have to rely on a firm’s Web site, customer service people, and salespeople who call on them by telephone.

However, researchers Matthew Harrison, Paul Hague, and Nick Hague have theorized that there are fewer behavioral and needs-based segments in B2B markets than in business-to-consumer (B2C) markets for two reasons: (1) business markets are made up of a few hundred customers whereas consumer markets can be made up of hundreds of thousands of customers, and (2) businesses aren’t as fickle as consumers. Unlike consumers, they aren’t concerned about their social standing, influenced by their families and peers, and so on. Instead, businesses are concerned solely with buying products that will ultimately increase their profits.

According to Harrison, Hague, and Hague, the behavioral, or needs-based, segments in B2B markets include the following:

• A price-focused segment composed of small companies that have low profit margins and regard the good or service being sold as not being strategically important to their operations
• A quality and brand-focused segment composed of firms that want the best possible products and are prepared to pay for them
• A service-focused segment composed of firms that demand high-quality products and have top-notch delivery and service requirements
• A partnership-focused segment composed of firms that seek trust and reliability on the part of their suppliers and see them as strategic partnersMatthew Harrison, Paul Hague, and Nick Hague, “Why Is Business-to-Business Marketing Special?”(whitepaper), B2B International, http://www.b2binternational.com/library/whitepapers/whitepapers04.php (accessed January 27, 2010).

B2B sellers, like B2C sellers, are exploring new ways to reach their target markets. Trade shows, which we discuss in more detail later in the book, and direct mail campaigns are two traditional ways of reaching B2B markets. Now, however, firms are finding they can target their B2B customers more cost effectively via e-mail campaigns, search-engine marketing, and “fan pages” on social networking sites like Facebook. Companies are also creating blogs with cutting-edge content about new products and business trends their customers are interested in. And for the fraction of the cost of attending a trade show to exhibit their products, B2B sellers are holding Webcasts and conducting online product demonstrations for potential customers.