MARKET

PLANNING

Chapter 4.2
 2

MARKET PLANNING

AGENDA
Intro to Market Planning
Market Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning
Niche vs Mass Markets
Unique Selling Point
Differentiation
Marketing Plan
• A plan a business creates in order to identify and meet their objectives related to
marketing. This plan includes the Marketing Mix (Chapter 4.5).
• The main elements of a marketing plan usually include:
• A SWOT analysis
• Market analysis: looking at the competition in the industry
• Market research (Chapter 4.4)
• Target market(s) and market segments (Chapter 4.2)
• Marketing Mix (Chapter 4.5)
• Marketing objectives and strategies : Challenges and solutions to potential
issues
• Marketing budgets (Chapter 3.3 and 3.9)
3
 MARKETING PLANNING PROCESS

Process
• Marketing audit (an overview of all the marketing mix
and SWOT factors for a business) happens, which in
turn…
• Facilitates the Marketing Objectives…
• Those inform the Marketing Strategies…
• After which, we Monitoring and Review progress
toward those strategies…
• And at the end, we evaluating the progress so far

4
MARKET SEGMENTATION,
TARGETING, &
POSITIONING
Market Segments
• A market segment is a group of customers with similar characteristics
and similar wants/needs.
• Businesses break the market into segments in order to analyze and sell the
better.
• Think: businesses can sell the same product
to different market segments:
• Water bottles
• Gogo-squeez bottles

6
Market Segmentation
• Targeting: Having a specific marketing mix
for different market segments.
• Referred to as the target market

• In order to do effective targeting, businesses

build customer profiles, which include
demographic, psychographic, and geographic
information

7
Demographics
• The variables looking at a population within a certain area, region, or
country.
• These factors include:
• Age
• Gender
• Race and Ethnicity
• Marital Status
• Religion
• Languages
• Income and Socio-economic classes

8
Psychographic
• Focuses on people’s lifestyles:
• Status
• Religion
• Values
• Culture
• Hobbies and Interests

9
Geographic
• Geographic factors include:
• Location
• Climate

10
 WHAT ARE YOUR
IDENTIFYING
FACTORS?
Once you have your factors listed down, try to break yourself into “market segments”.
PERCEPTION MAPS
This is a review! (we also call them positioning maps)
Positioning Maps
• Strategies to achieve market positioning success:
• Cost leadership – offering low cost supplier of economy
products (ex. Costco, Walmart)
• Differentiation – having a unique or distinct selling point
to make your product different from competitors (ex.
Samsung’s foldable phones, IB schools)
• Focus – Paying close attention to a particular market (ex.
Dog sled racing products, MMA gloves)
• We will cover this more in BMT – Porter's Generic
Strategies

13
Positioning Map
• Premium product: high quality and
high price items
• Economy product: low quality and Cowboy Premium
low price items
• Bargain product: high quality and
low price items – not a sustainable Economy Bargain
strategy
• Cowboy product: poor quality and
high price – also not a sustainable
long term strategy
14
NICHE VS MASS
MARKETS
Niche Markets
• A small and specific part of a larger market
• Can be high-end goods or uncommon interests
• OR smaller, low price stores that attract a small section of lower-income
groups (consignment, dollar stores)
• Advantages
• More focus on their customers
• Highly specialized
• Less competition

16
Mass Markets
• Products are standardized and sold in large quantities
• No attempt to target specific groups in the market
• Same approach to all segments of the market with selling
• Advantages:
• High potential economies of scale
• Standardized marketing means saving time and resources
• Larger potential customer base

17
 USP
Unique Selling Point
Unique Selling Points
• What differentiates your product from the competitors?
• Tells us why a customer buys our product instead of the competitors’ product
• Can include low costs, high quality, or new innovations
• Identify some unique selling points of the following phones:
• Samsung
• Apple
• Oppo
• Huawei

19
DIFFERENTIATION
Differentiation
• How you distinguish yourself from your competitors
• What about your company gives customers the perception that you are better
than other choice?

21
Differentiation
• Ways to differentiate:
• Low prices: Better deals, lower prices mean more potential customers
• Example – Walmart Great Value brand
• Trust: Perceived high quality – trust the company to make good products
• Example – Canada Goose Jackets
• Ethical Stances/CSR: Customers prefer to buy from somewhere that holds the
same values as they do
• Example - Patagonia’s fair trade/environmentally conscious decisions
• Convenience: People want things quickly and easily
• Example - Amazon 2 Day shipping
• Product Features: patents and innovations
• Example - Apple patented round pizza boxes

22
CLOSING ACTIVITY
Identifying Market Segments
1. Choose any company and product
2. Identify if it practices niche or mass marketing
3. Identify the target market for one of their products/services:
1. Specifically note the demographic, psychographic, and
geographic factors needed
4. Consider what type of advertisement would be the best way
to reach those people/segment.

24
 25

END
Now onto 4.3 Sales Forecasting!