Business planning & development: Positioning strategies & marketers plan

When crafting your business plan or giving it an overhaul, it’s critical to thoroughly understand your target customers. Understanding your target customers’ demographics helps you determine exactly what your products or services will be, and what kind of customer service tactics work best.Smart marketers know there are many subsets of every group targeted; not every message will work on every person. However, despite consumers’ resistance to stereotyping in media, demographics certainly aren’t becoming obsolete. It’s still useful to get the big-picture view of your target consumers. If you know, for example, your product will be geared toward seniors, then your research will tell you the font on your website should be easy to read, with a white or light-colored background and that it should avoid excessive use of Flash.

As the boundaries between categories begin to blur, and consumers no longer like to be singled out based on income, gender, ethnicity or education, one of the keys to keeping your marketing cutting-edge is customization, and personalization–essentially letting your customer know you think of them as an individual and understand their lifestyle. If you don’t speak to their lifestyle, a customer will tune you out. Get a firm grasp on the lifestyles of the five very distinct generations:

Gen IAlso called Gen Z, the internet generation or iGeneration, they’re the children of the youngest boomers. Because this generation is still very young, marketing and demographics theories are still developing. One huge distinction, however, can be made: This generation is the only one to be born entirely in the internet era, and to parents who are generally more accepting and knowledgeable of such technology. This differs from the next generation, Gen Y, which sometimes dealt with tensions stemming from their parents’ lack of technological savvy or acceptance.

Gen Y

Also referred to as millenials or “echo boomers,” they are the children of boomers, ages nine to 27. Because of higher costs of living or, in some cases, the over-protective nature of their boomer parents, many are choosing to live at home. University of Michigan economics and public policy professor Bob Schoeni told Time magazine that the percentage of 26-year-olds living with their parents rose from 11 percent to 20 percent between 1970 and 2004. They’re 75 million strong and they have disposable income because of their parents’ support. Growing up with computers means this generation is especially responsive to internet campaigns. They process information quickly and are especially brand loyal. Gen Yers like innovative marketing approaches and advertising that uses humor or is “outside the box.”Gen X

They are perhaps the most overlooked generation, falling in the shadow of the powerful baby-boom generation. But the 44 million Gen Xers born between 1965 and 1975 are entering their peak earning and buying years. They’re tech-savvy and love to shop. They have a high value for education and knowledge. Unlike Gen Yers, brand prestige alone won’t woo this generation–let them know why your product is a good value. They are independent and like to save.

Boomers

Until the boomer generation hit age 50, marketers generally forgot consumers once they passed that age mark. Today, however, they’re awakening to the buying power of this 76 million-strong group. On average boomers spend $400 billion more per year than any other generation. They’re at many life stages: empty nesters or full nesters, boomer grandparents, single or married, etc. What they have in common is exceptional drive and the ability to evaluate advertising and determine its value to them. Between 2005 and 2030, the over-60 group will grow by 80 percent–as they age, be careful not to label them as “old.” This generation has a Peter Pan complex–play up their youthfulness in marketing.

The Greatest GenerationBorn between 1909 and 1945, today’s octogenarian has seen it all when it comes to advertising, resulting in a particularly savvy consumer segment. They are more careful about whom they do business with, and they want to know more about your business before they choose to patronize it. Having been born during, or lived through, the Great Depression, World War II and many economic recessions, they’re keen on value and in general don’t “shop for fun” as other generations tend to do. They have pensions to rely on that other generations won’t have as they become senior citizens, so concentrate on communicating the value of your product or services. A practical bunch, they also tend to be extremely loyal customers.

Seniors like to spend money on their grandchildren. Seventy-five percent of the over-50 crowd are grandparents; they buy 25 percent of all toys sold in America.

Today’s senior is living longer than ever before, and they’re dealing with fewer acute illnesses and more chronic ones as their lifespans increase due to science and medicine. They want products to help them stay active, learn and be independent. There’s plenty of room in the marketplace for products and services to help them achieve this lifestyle.

It’s a mistake to think octogenarians aren’t using the internet. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, people over the age of 65 spend more than $7 billion per year online.

Positioning StrategyPositioning strategies can be conceived and developed in a variety of ways. It can be derived from the object attributes, competition, application, the types of consumers involved, or the characteristics of the product class. All these attributes represent a different approach in developing positioning strategies, even though all of them have the common objective of projecting a favorable image in the minds of the consumers or audience. There are seven approaches to positioning   strategies:

(1) Using Product characteristics or Customer Benefits as a positioning strategy

This strategy basically focuses upon the characteristics of the product or customer benefits. For example if I say imported items it basically tells or illustrate a variety of product characteristics such as durability, economy or reliability etc. Let’s take an example of motorbikes some are emphasizing on fuel economy, some on power, looks and others stress on their durability. Hero Cycles Ltd. positions first, emphasizing durability and style for its cycle.

At time even you would have noticed that a product is positioned along two or more product characteristics at the same time. You would have seen this in the case of toothpaste market, most toothpaste insists on ‘freshness’ and ‘cavity fighter’ as the product characteristics. It is always tempting to try to position along several product characteristics, as it is frustrating to have some good characteristics that are not communicated.

(2) Pricing as a positioning strategy – Quality Approach or Positioning by Price-Quality – Lets take an example and understand this approach just suppose you have to go and buy a pair ofjeans, as soon as you enter in the shop you will find different price rage jeans in the showroom say price ranging from 350 rupees to 2000 rupees. As soon as look at the jeans of 350 Rupees you say that it is not good in quality. Why? Basically because of perception, as most of us perceive that if a product is expensive will be a quality product where as product that is cheap is lower in quality. If we look at this Price – quality approach it is important and is largely used in product positioning. In many product categories, there are brands that deliberately attempt to offer more in terms of service, features or performance. They charge more, partly to cover higher costs and partly to let the consumers believe that the product is, certainly of higher quality.

(3) Positioning strategy based on Use or Application – Lets understand this with the help of an example like Nescafe Coffee for many years positioned it self as a winter product and advertised mainly in winter but the introduction of cold coffee has developed a positioning strategy for the summer months also. Basically this type of positioning-by-use represents a second or third position for the brand, such type of positioning is done deliberately to expand the brand’s market. If you are introducing new uses of the product that will automatically expand the brand’s market.

(4) Positioning strategy based on Product Process – Another positioning approach is to associate the product with its users or a class of users. Makes of casual clothing like jeans have introduced ‘designer labels’ to develop a fashion image. In this case the expectation is that the model or personality will influence the product’s image by reflecting the characteristics and image of the model or personality communicated as a product user. Lets not forget that Johnson and Johnson repositioned its shampoo from one used for babies to one used by people who wash their hair frequently and therefore need a mild people who wash their hair frequently and therefore need a mild shampoo. This repositioning resulted in a market share.(5) Positioning strategy based on Product Class – In some product class we have to make sure critical positioning decisions For example, freeze dried coffee needed to positions itself with respect to regular and instant coffee and similarly in case of dried milk makers came out with instant breakfast positioned as a breakfast substitute and virtually identical product positioned as a dietary meal substitute.

(6) Positioning strategy based on Cultural Symbols – In today’s world many advertisers are using deeply entrenched cultural symbols to differentiate their brands from that of competitors. The essential task is to identify something that is very meaningful to people that other competitors are not using and associate this brand with that symbol. Air India uses maharaja as its logo, by this they are trying to show that we welcome guest and give them royal treatment with lot of respect and it also highlights Indian tradition. Using and popularizing trademarks generally follow this type of positioning.(7) Positioning strategy based on Competitors – In this type of positioning strategies, an implicit or explicit frame of reference is one or more competitors. In some cases, reference competitor(s) can be the dominant aspect of the positioning strategies of the firm, the firm either uses the same of similar positioning strategies as used by the competitors or the advertiser uses a new strategy taking the competitors’ strategy as the base. A good example of this would be Colgate and Pepsodent. Colgate when entered into the market focused on to family protection but when Pepsodent entered into the market with focus on 24 hour protection and basically for kids, Colgate changed its focus from family protection to kids teeth protection which was a positioning strategy adopted because of competition.

If you wantBusiness development & management Assignment Help study samples to help you write professional custom essay’s and essay writing help.

Receive assured help from our talented and expert writers! Did you buy assignment and assignment writing services from our experts in a very affordable price.

To get more information, please contact us or visit www.myassignmenthelp.Com