SEGMENTATION, TARGETING AND POSITIONING

Running head: SEGMENTATION, TARGETING AND POSITIONING
SEGMENTATION, TARGETING AND POSITIONING
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SEGMENTATION, TARGETING AND POSITIONING1
Introduction
The main aim of this paper will be to discuss about the concept of market segmentation,
targeting and positioning of the goods and services that are offered and sold by various business
houses across the world. Evaluation as well as critical analysis will be done on the concepts and
theories of segmentation, targeting and positioning, which is known as STP Analysis, which
plays an integral part in the overall business operations that are performed by the companies
globally. Three sectors has been selected from where the examples will be provided, which are
oil and gas industries, chain supply of food and restaurants. Recommendations will also be
provided through which the analysis of segmentation, targeting and positioning can be made
better by various companies across the world.
Thus, it can be stated that the main objective of this paper will be to discuss about the
concept of STP, which stands for segmentation, targeting and positioning; which helps the
marketers to design their messaging approach along with developing and delivering tailored and
relevant messages that possess the power to engage the segmented and target audiences. This
approach is also treated as one of the most important and widely used marketing tool, which
helps in designing digital strategies required for content marketing, and marketing archetypes
and personas that help in developing targeted and applicable digital communications. This can
also be regarded as customer and audience approach to marketing (Armstrong et al 2018).
Literature Review
Segmentation
The concept of market segmentation helps the management of the business entities to
classify or segregate the people into divisions or groups who will possess same characteristic.

SEGMENTATION, TARGETING AND POSITIONING2
This will help to identify the needs and requirements of the people of these groups, and can offer
their products and services accordingly by strategizing different plan of actions for different
groups (Huang and Choi 2017). Each of these groups possess different features or characteristics,
which help the owners and management of the organizations to plan accordingly and target them
to sale their products or services. This has to be done efficiently as the features of the people
within the same group need to match and cannot be differentiated, so that an effective launch of a
particular good or service can be done by the management of the business entities who has
segmented the market place or places (Chang et al 2017).
Management segments their target market based on four main variables, which are
demographic, psychographic, geographic and behavioural. There are factors under all these
variables which helps the organizations to classify their target group and select the one or two to
be targeted in order to sale their particular product or service (Bajaj 2017). Strategies are
designed and implemented based on all these factors, but the management often fails to identify
the proper targeted segment. Many people might be present in more than one variable, which
will make difficult for the management of the business companies to segment efficiently and
effectively, and this leads to the failed launch of their product or service for which they have
segmented or divided their identified market place. Market research is required to segment an
identified market place across the world by a company to start their business operations or
launch a good or service in that market (Dolnicar, Grün and Leisch 2018).
Targeting
Targeting, on the other hand, involves the process of evaluation of each of these
segments, so that the attractiveness of these segments can be evaluated and one or more
segments can be targeted by a particular organization to enter that market where the

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segmentation has been done. It plays an important part targeting the proper segment will help the
company to increase both the market share and revenue earning for that particular product or
service for which the market has been segmented into different groups. Improper target will
hamper the flow of business operations of the companies who has segmented the market
(Barabash et al 2017). There are mainly five factors that helps to evaluate the commercial as well
as potential attractiveness of each of the market segment, the names of which are discussed
earlier in this paper.
The five factors are criteria size, difference, money, accessible and focus on different
benefits. All these factors help to identify the segment properly so that the market share for the
product or the service can be launched in the market place and a market share can be possessed.
Measuring tools and techniques have been identified as the major requirements in order to
identify the segmented target group and target them to sale a particular product or service (Wu,
Buyya and Ramamohanarao 2018). Often the wrong group is targeted by the management of
business entities and instead of making profits from these segment, they start to make loses.
These leads in closure of many business start-ups, along with taking back the unsuccessful
product or service from the market places after they failed to possess an impression there. The
potentiality along with the amount of profitability that the companies can meet need are
identified by the research team from various organizations before launching their product or
services in global market places (Kaul 2019).
Positioning
Positioning of a product or a service can be regarded as the process of arranging them in
a desirable, distinctive and clear place, so that it can attract the customers and increase the desire
to purchase that particular product or service. This stage helps to determine the process of