Finding the Right Job for Your Product

Puneet Agarwal (EPGP Roll No: 1914002)

Individual Assignment
 Most companies segment the market along the lines of product characteristics or based on customer
demography. While there’s nothing wrong is doing this, but issue is that these segmentation methods are
static. In an environment where customer needs keep changing and where customer does not conform to
average Joe all the time, these methods don’t always lead to increased business.
 Idea is that marketers need a better way to understand their customer and this is achieved by understanding
the Job customer is trying to do for which he/she hires the product/service of the marketer.
 So, here are some of the benefits that executives can reap when they segment markets by job:
o Identifying relevant attributes – Once marketers understand what job customers are trying to do, it
becomes clear to them which attributes of the product would do better job and are relevant. This in
turn would also help to grow the category. Thus, job defined markets are larger in size than product
defined markets.
o Escape traditional positioning paradigm – Differentiation conscious marketers within conventional
paradigm search for a vacant spot on map but problem with this is that customers often don’t value
differentiation and competitors find it easy to copy. By viewing market structure by Job, marketers
differentiate on dimension of performance which is linked to Jobs customers are trying to do. This
differentiation seems to stick longer.
o Marketing Mix: Promotion – When a product does a job well, it unlocks the potential for marketers
to create a purpose brand. Purpose brand is essentially a product which does job which customer
wants it to do. With this realization promotion activities can be more focused and would
communicate to those people who want the job to be done.
o Marketing Mix: Product – Chances are that people are using the product for a different purpose then
intended. Once marketer realizes that, he can introduce appropriate changes in the product to better
suit the needs of the customer.
o Marketing Mix: Price – By figuring what Job people are trying to do, marketers can benchmark
their price with price of other products which are doing the same Job for customers. Thus, marketers
have chance to make more money by boosting their prices accordingly.
o Marketing Mix: Placement – When marketers have defined the set of experiences in purchase and
use that need to be provided in order to do the Job perfectly, the necessary product placement
becomes obvious.
 Its clear that there are high rewards in using Job for segmentation. However, people still like to use
traditional segmentation techniques because data for that is easily available.
 While all this is fine, there are some methods involved in finding the Job based market structure. Mainly it
has two steps:
o Where to Look – Jobs customers trying to do can’t be deciphered from databases. It requires
participating, thinking and watching. Marketers should follow a hierarchy of steps. First, current
customers who might be using product for a different purpose than intended. Second, customers
who are buying from competitors. Third, non-customers. All these basically give opportunity to
improve the product and compete more effectively.
o How to Look – Marketers seeking to understand Job based market must act like investigative
reporters and use tools like:
 Interviews and Surveys – When Job is knowable, these conventional methods can be used.
Idea is to understand the situation not the customer as situation is more stable than the
customer needs.
 Observation – Customers engage in compensatory behavior when they know what job need
to be done but there is no product designed to do it. In this case marketers need to participate
in the context to see the underlying job beneath the compensatory behavior and work around.
 Coevolution – Sometimes customer can’t even articulate what Job they want to be done. In
this case both customer and marketer should coevolve and discover the product and Job
together.