- Interests
These would include sports, leisure activities and hobbies.
- Attitudes
Markets can be analysed and segmentated by attitude to politics, lifestyle, certain products. For example an example concerning chocolate and food be that some people would be willing to eat non-organic foods others don't.
- Opinions
Identifies group with similar opinions on political and social issues. Opinion polls are used to find the moods and feeligs of the target group and the products can be tailored to appeal to the target audience e.g Iceland appeals to consumers due to its no GM product policy.
- Values
Values are influenced by family and social conditioning and the product can be adapted to reflect values of the product. For example fair-trade chocolate bars may appeal to ethica customers.
- Taste
Products can be catogrised to be in good or bad taste. Bad taste may be seen as bad or offensive to some people but good to others because its entertaining to others. For example a film with 'gross out' images and storylines offends older people but amuses the youth. This portrays how different people have different tastes.
How segmentation has affected the development of DeLights has been incorporated when explaining the marketing mix each of the 4 P's.
Demographic
Demographic segmentation is where a market is analysed and divided into groups based on demographic factors such as age and sex. These factors relate to the social and economic features of the market being segmented. Demographic variables can be closely related to customer needs and purchasing behaviour, this helps producers target their product more effectively.
Age
- Consumer needs and wants change with age although they may wish to sell the same product to different types of people for example targeting a product to both children and adults. Marketers design, package and promote the product to meet the needs of different age groups. For example, Ferro Roche is targeted at a more older, adult target audience rather than children. The UK census 2001 provides broad examples of age groups –0-15, 16-74, 75+. It could be further broken down into 5-year age bands, which will allow more the product to be more specific to the target audience. For example chocolate bars such as the 'Milky Bar' or 'Milky Buttons' are targeted to young children because young children find milk or dark chocolate harder to digest and buttons are easy for the child to eat.
Gender
- A market can be segmented into males and females. Many markets and products have a bias towards one sex or another. This type of segmentation can be useful when the bias is extreme or when a product has been targeted to a certain gender. For example, ‘Yorkie’ the chocolate bar has been targeted to men, with the slogan ‘it’s not for girls’ as a way of encouraging men to buy chocolates. Other times, products are designed to appeal to both males and females. Therefore, gender segmentation will help plan promotion to appeal to either a specific sex or be unbiased so it appeals to both. Furthermore, the market can be further segmented by gender so that it encourage one sex to buy the product for the opposite sex for example Milk Tray was promoted with "And all because the lady loves..." therefore encouraging males to buy the product for females.
Socio-economic
Markets can be segmented using socio- economic groups. There are 6 socio- economic groups, A, B, C1, C2, D and E. Here are the factors that determine the socio- economic groups:
Specific products can be targeted at specific socio- economic groups. For example, ‘After Eights’ are targeted to socio-economic groups A and B who are more sophisticated and professional as ‘After Eights’ have a sophisticated image designed for a more sophisticated social gathering.
Geographic
Geographic segmentation of markets affects the market mix of a product as customers/consumers in different locations have different requirements and so the product may be altered to suit consumer needs. For example climate is different in different locations and the product must be altered to withstand different temperatures. Furthermore, different products are more appealable in different locations, for example chocolate is popular in the UK as it is comforting in the cold climate whereas in hot countries chocolate consumption is lower because it is not as desirable and is inpractical (melts in heat).
