9 Factors to Consider Before Building a Strategic Segmentation Targeting and Positioning ( STP) Marketing Process

Marketing is not an easy process, many times, you must try out a couple of strategies before finding a winning one. Even then, you can’t fold your arms and assume the work is done because every strategy requires constant tweaking. STP marketing is one of the most effective marketing strategies used today. It enhances customer personalization and if executed well, it results in high returns on investment.

There are several other reasons why professional marketers prefer the STP marketing model to most traditional marketing strategies. Customer behaviors have evolved over the years, and how people interact with products and services today is different from the way it was several years ago. People are not just looking for a product, they want to have an experience. It’s not about glorifying the product or service, it is about helping customers to connect with the product or service, most times on personal levels.

What is STP Marketing?

Everyone in the marketing circle is talking about STP, which may be confusing for people hearing it for the first time. STP stands for segmentation targeting and positioning, it is one of the most common marketing strategies today. Small and large organizations across sectors have discovered the effectiveness of the STP process in promoting products and services, and also maintaining customers.

It involves carrying out deeper customer research, which leads to dividing clients into small groups depending on factors such as demographics, geography, and the behavior of customers. The idea is to create a segment of customers who share similar traits such as where they are located, beliefs or values, lifestyles, age, and financial status. After separating customers into relevant segments, you create marketing messages that resonate with these groups. Although STP is an effective marketing strategy, there is no guarantee it will work. There are factors you must consider while planning the process to ensure its success. Some of these factors include:

1. Define Your Market Segment

Trends come and go, but some things are stable, such is what should define your market. The process of defining your market involves understanding your actual customers. It could require separating them into ages, location, beliefs they espouse, lifestyle, and other characteristics. Once the market is defined, it becomes easy for you to set strategies to effectively reach them.

2. Get a Detailed Overview of Target Groups

After segmenting customers into special groups, there is still more work to do. You should do more in-depth research about selected customer segments to learn more about the customers. What are the special traits that separate your target customers from others in the market? What makes them tick? What do they need? Does your product or service offer everything these customers are searching for? A good understanding of your customer goes a long way in enhancing the STP marketing process.

3. Commercial Value

Marketing, regardless of the model you are employing, is an intensive time consuming, and expensive process. It is important to do due diligence to ensure your efforts are not going to waste. Research the monetary value of the product or service you seek to promote. Does your target market have the ability to afford the product and give you desired commercial returns from your investments? If you discover that the cost of reaching the customer is greater than what you could get in return, change strategies or stop the entire process so that you don’t lose money.

4. How Large is the Market

Finding out the size of the market is an important step in building a successful STP marketing process. It is one of the key indicators of the potential of the business. After determining the size of the market, it is important that also find out the percentage of the market that is available to you. Some marketers are saturated that there is little to no space for other businesses. And, is the target market reachable? Whether you have a small or large business, it is important to determine beforehand the percentage of customers you can reach through different marketing channels.

5. What Does Your Target Audience Need?

The success of any business largely depends on how well you satisfy customers’ needs. Regardless of whether you run a B2B (businesses to business) or B2C (business to customer), you cannot afford to be indifferent to the needs of your target audience. If you can accurately identify and fulfill the needs of your target audience, you are sure they’ll be loyal to your business. If you discover that few customers make repeated purchases, check to be sure your product or service meets the needs of the target customers. Even the best marketing strategy cannot redeem a product that doesn’t speak to customers’ problems.

6. Position or Set Yourself Apart From Your Competitors

Every industry you can imagine has competitors. Even if you carve out a specialty niche for yourself, there are high chances someone will start a similar business along the way. You must find ways to uniquely position your business so that customers can always separate you from everybody else. It is not enough to have different colors from your competitors, your product or service should solve customers’ needs in unique ways compared to your competitors.

7. What is Your Product or Service?

You must have a clear description of what your product or service is. What value do you provide to customers or bring to the market? What are the key traits and functionalities that define your product? If you know what you are offering, it becomes easy to develop marketing strategies.

8. Evaluate the Different Components of the Process

The STP marketing model is a complex system, especially if you don’t carefully study the different processes involved. There are several ways you can segment the market, however the model you choose largely depends on the kind of business you operate.

9. What is Your Brand Identity?

Regardless of whether the market is crowded or not, you must take keen note of what people say about your business. What is it that customers use to refer to your product or service? If there is nothing special that separates you from everyone else, you have a lot of work to do. You shouldn’t let the market define or name your brand, you must intentionally communicate how you want people to identify your business or organization.

Conclusion

The success of any marketing campaign is greatly determined by how well you know and understand your brand, the target market, and the strength and weakness of your competitors. Segmentation targeting and positioning marketing model is popular among marketers because takes you through processes that help you identify the brand, understand target market, and learn other factors that are critical for creating winning marketing messages.