Text 3: the market segmentation function

Because no one seller can satisfy all buyers, and no one buyer can satisfy all sellers, a marketing activity is needed to narrow the market. As a consumer, you select a few stores here you shop and choose a few doctors and other service organizations and people to meet your needs. The seller goes through a similar process.

For the seller, market segmentation helps target marketing efforts toward those people. Who are the right place at the right time and who most want the product in question. In a market, the seller has three targeting options: (1) Introduce only one product, hoping to get as many people to buy as possible. This is called undifferentiated marketing. (2) Go after one particular group and develop the ideal product for them. This is called concentrated marketing. (3) Introduce several product versions, each appealing to a different group. This is called differentiated marketing. Note that the determination of market segments and the selection of market targets are separate problems.

Market segmentation is the process of dividing the total market into several sub-markets (segments) that have similar characteristics. Market targeting is the process by which an organization decides which market segments to serve.

Text 4: marketing research

If the goal of marketing is to "Find a need and fill it", then a major function must be to do research to find needs and to determine the most effective and efficient ways to satisfy those needs. Marketing research performs those tasks. Although marketing research can take many forms, it is helpful to review certain steps when conducting such studies. The steps are:

• Study the present situation. How does the public perceive the company and its products? What products are profitable? These are the kinds of questions that determine the present situation.

• Define the strengths and weaknesses of present programs. It is important to know what an organization does well as what it does not do well, and marketing research should report both sides.

• Define the problem(s) to be solved. Marketing researchers should be given freedom to help discover what the problems are, what the alternatives are, what information is needed, and how to go about gathering and analyzing it.

• State research objectives in writing.

• Determine the scope and estimated costs. Research can get quite expensive, so some trade-off must be made between information needs and cost.

• Exhaust secondary data. Secondary data means already published research results from journals, trade associations, the government, information services, libraries, and other sources.

• Gather primary data. Primary data refers to results from doing your own research. Many good books are available on research techniques. Interviews and questionnaires are two other ways to gather primary data.

• Analyze and process the data.

• Prepare a report.

• Suggest alternative solutions.

• Recommend a course of action,

• Follow up the implementation.

• Redefine the situation (that is, evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the new situation).