Conducting an environmental scan and identifying, segmenting and understanding the audience were our next topics of conversation. These classes focused on how to set the stage for developing a social marketing approach to public health problems by understanding the important marketing issues.
You are a marketer not an epidemiologist.
Without understanding the micro and macro environment of a region or country in which the product or behavior is being promoted, marketers would lose valuable insight.
Define what “culture” means in social marketing.
Yankelovich and Meer advise to broaden segmentation from simply generating characters people can identify with so that the “segmentation ethos” pervades the entire marketing process. Perhaps this is like a total quality management program for marketers.
We need to broaden the use of Market Segmentation not only to advertising, but also pricing, product innovation, and distribution channels.
Segmentation is one of the most important strategies to marketing because a failure to narrow down exactly who should respond positively to the campaign means setting up one’s project for failure… As Craig Lefebvre emphasized: trying to create a message for everyone often means nobody can hear the message. Tailored messages will resonate more with specific segments of the population that a single generic message that’s so broad that nobody can identify with.
We should be able to “talk to” and visualize the target audience, not just list demographic characteristics.
Target audience segmentation and finalizing the target audience are the hardest decisions to make.
When segmenting, we MUST get into the habit of being more specific and targeted. Until then, we aren’t being specific enough even when we think we are!
• Define what your target audience is and what your behavior objectives are
• Work with what is realistic
• Do what will effect your audience
• Seek who is open to change
• Seek who is critical to success
If you can not imagine having a conversation with the target audience, you do not have a target audience.
It truly is apparent to me (now) even in commercial marketing when this is skipped and segmentation hasn’t been utilized.
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