Marketing 500 - Examination 1

Date:                2/23/2016

From:                Bassam Kaaki

Subject:        Marketing 500 - Examination 1

1. Explain the roles of market segmentation, market targeting, differentiation and positioning in implementing an effective marketing strategy. Imagine you are the vice president of marketing at McDonalds. What would you recommend as a market segmentation, primary target, and differentiation and position strategy for the quick service restaurant today? Be sure to supply examples to support your recommendations.

In order to build an effective marketing strategy, it is very important to look at the make up of the particular market that the marketing efforts will be focused upon. A good marketing strategy needs to be drawn from effective market research techniques and a market oriented mission to create value for customers, win customer relationships and have a competitive edge in the market place they are operating in. The elements that contribute to having a well-devised marketing strategy involves, market segmentation, the selection of the appropriate target segment, differentiation and positioning.

The first step that needs to be done when market segmentation is being considered is understanding the needs, wants and demands of the market. Here a marketer can identify what is required, missing, craved by the market place in which they need to promote for profitability. After identifying the needs and wants it is very necessary to design a customer driven market strategy. This involves targeting a specific segment of the market, whereby the marketer checks for demographic (age, gender, income distribution, geographic region) and caters the right marketing mix to attract this particular segment by appealing to their characteristics. Having an effective customer driven strategy, the company must go through the decide, divide, select, differentiate and position roles.  Once the company decides on who it chose to market to, it is time to divide, using market segmentation and cultivate these markets chosen called target marketing. The differentiation aspect of the market strategy focus on how the company is different in terms of providing the value exceeding that of its competitors (unmatched superior value that competitors cant meet). What would make a customer choose one company and not the other? Is the company a cost-leader, has a product that cannot be imitated, has a rare product, and has no substitute to it? Finally, positioning the product is a very important aspect as it sets a clear and distinctive place to the product being marketed to compete in the market place. How do your customers view the product? What makes it so special that it is the selected from all the rest on the shelves? An example of great positioning in my opinion is the Tresemmé brand, which positions its product as “Just stepped out of the salon”. The shampoo is so luxurious that once used, will enable you to feel fabulous, as you would have when you were just leaving your hairdresser.