Marketing Management Assignment Help

Assume you work at Mother Care UK whose traditional target market, babies within your region, is shrinking. This segment is projected to decrease over the next ten years. Recommend other potential market segments and discuss the criteria you should consider to ensure that the identified segments are useful.

• Explain in details and give full examples to illustrate your thoughts.

• Each potential target segment must have a name that reflects the content of the target segment.

• Each potential target segment has to be profiled in terms of demographic, geographic, psychographic, and behavioral characteristics.

• Then each potential target segment should be DIRECTLY FOLLOWED by the targeting evaluation criteria:

- The segment size and potential growth

- The segment attractiveness structure (i.e., competition)

- The company resources, objectives, and values

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Introduction

Marketing of any product is highly dependent upon the target segment of the market. The manner in which an organization determines and targets a market, influences its entire marketing process and the eventual sales and profitability earned from the products. Proper market segmentation is the first stage of ensuring successful marketing of the products from which the organization aims to achieve success (Kotler, Burton, Deans, Brown, & Armstrong, 2015). In the following discussion, market segmentation plan for Mother Care plc UK, has been for determining the suitable potential market segment so that company can overcome the issue of decreasing target market in the region.

Marketing Target Segment

Mother Care plc is a retail specialist for parenting and newborn products and has an experience of more than 50 years. It is considered as the pioneer of one stop shop for the parents and the shop specializes in providing the customers all the necessities for the babies and their mothers, under one roof (Mother Care plc, 2018). Although the organization has been maintaining a strong and steady competitive position in the market, however, due to the declining traditional target markets, that is babies, within the region, has been affecting the overall market position of the organization, which would eventually influence its competitive position. Therefore, it is important for Mother Care to identify new target segment that has the potential for growth and would aid in maintaining its competitive position.

As Mother Care has successfully established itself in the digital market and has over 40% of its sales through the online portal with nearly 80% of it via the mobile application, it can be determined that the new target segment should be associated with the online market so as to ensure better success (Mother Care plc, 2018). Therefore, the new potential target segment should include the millennials who are digitally-enabled and depend largely on the internet and mobile technologies for making their purchases. Furthermore, as Mother Care is also associated with the sales of clothes for 0-6 month babies, to gain more attention of the millennials, Mother Care should diversify its clothing range and increase its clothing range age group as this would offer more exposure to the organization. At the moment, the target consumers of Mother Care include expectant mothers, after pregnancy parenting, children up to 8 years, parents searching for diverse range, parents seeking caring and friendly baby care products and baby and pregnancy care products for single mum or carers.

The strategic framework that shall be used for the digital marketing of Mother Care products has been represented using the Figure 1. It details the stages and steps that shall be followed for the digital marketing of the products. The first stage would be the analysis of the market, the second step is selecting and approaching the market. The third stage of the framework is developing an interactive marketing across the consumer lifecycle and based on the same, ROIs shall be developed for the next stage for assessing the marketing and customer relationships.

Figure 1: Strategic Market Framework for Digital Marketing

Target Segmentation

The target segmentation for Mother Care can be determined upon development of segment profile based on demographic, psychographic, geographic and behavioral characteristics.The different market segments have been listed in Figure 2.Based on the same, the segmentation for Mother Care can be developed as follows.

Figure 2: Market Segmentation

Demographic Segmentation: Demographic segmentation is based on the various demographics of the consumers belonging to the target market. Demographics are determined based on age, sex, race, religion, family and so on (Wedel & Kamakura, 2012). The detailed aspects of demographic segmentation can be witnessed in Figure 3.With respect to the case of Mother Care, the demographic segment that have the required potential to be targeted include mostly the mothers and new parents from different regions and races. Furthermore, the age range of the target market ranges from the babies of 0-6 months, which can be extended up to 18 months and the young parents and mothers, while the new target would include the millennials as well who are either parenting or are associated with the parents of target babies (eMarketer, 2017).

Psychographic Segmentation: Psychographic segmentation of the target market is based on the attitudes, values, aspirations and similar other criteria of the consumers. The lifestyle, personality, traits, values and opinions of the consumers impact their purchase decision (Weinstein & Cahill, 2014). The detailed aspects of psychographic segmentation can be seen in Figure 3.With respect to the case of Mother Care, the psychographic segmentation shall be based on the attitude of seeking variety in the product and those who prefer to make their purchases online after gaining the required information regarding the product or company from the different online sources. Therefore, the millennials serve as the most suitable target segment (Medland, 2017).

Geographic segmentation: The geographic segmentation is based on the geographic locations and boundaries of the consumers (Cleveland, Papadopoulos, & Laroche, 2011). The detailed aspects of geographic segmentation can be seen in Figure 3.As Mother Care has been focused on enhancing its sales and operations through the online media, therefore, there is a huge geographic region that that organization can explore through the online media. Therefore, the geographic segmentation for target segment of Mother Care products are not limited or confined to a single geographic location or boundary.

BehavioralSegmentation: Behavioral segmentation segregates the markets by behaviors and the decision making patterns that are employed by the consumers such as purchase, lifestyle, usage and consumption. The classification is primarily based on the behaviors of the customers and encompasses the use or application of technology laggards. The usage, rate, benefit, types, occasion and purchase decision form the basis for the segmentation for targeting the customers(Goyat, 2011). The detailed aspects of behavioural segmentation can be seen in Figure 3.With respect to the case of Mother Care, the behavior of the millennials to rely on the online platform for gaining information regarding any product and thereby make decision for their purchase, make them suitable targets of the market segment for the online platform of the organization (Jankowski, 2018).

Based on the segmentation that has been made on the different parameters, it is evident that Mother Care should target the millennial segment as their potential consumers as this segment presents more opportunities of prospect than the traditional segment of babies of any region.

Potential Target Segment

The millennials form the most suitable target segment in the modern market. This is largely due to the rise in the use and advancement of technologies. As Mother Care has been aiming to enhance its online market presence, the shift towards the digitally enabled millennials from the traditional segment would provide more exposure to the target segment and enable the organization to improve its sales, thereby strengthening its competitive position in the market. The millennials offer a more stable target segment if they are offered with more customized purchase options, which eventually aids to build strong loyalty amongst them, regarding the brand (Oracle, 2015). The major facts related to the millennial population have been detailed in the Figure 4.In addition to the millennials, Mother Care should also raise the age group of its clothing range from 0-8 months to 0-18 months as this would extend the consumer segment primarily from infants to older babies, thereby reducing the reliance on the traditional segment.

Conclusion and Recommendation

Based on the discussion that has been presented above, it is evident that the new potential target segment of Mother Care plc should include the digitally enriched millennials who are more inclined towards making their purchases online after gaining all the required information and reviews regarding the product of their choice. This target segment would provide more exposure for the company in the online world, thereby gaining more recognition in the online market, resulting in increased sales via the website or the mobile application. Furthermore, it can also be recommended to Mother Care to extend the age group of the kids' garment range from 8 months to 18 months, as this would further increase the target segment of consumers.

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