What is segmenting and target audience?

As many products, services and events do not appeal to all types of audiences. So therefore it is essential for businesses and organisations to identify the consumer segments that matches the product, service or event experience. Morgan (1996) said that the market segments that are chosen must be measurable within the characteristics of the segment. Also a substantial enough size to be worth targeting and to be accessible by normal marketing communication channels that are consumed. Morgan (1996) also highlighted that it must be a segment that is actionable by business and organisations given the marketing budget and resources that they have. There are 4 different area's of audience segmentation, these are; Geographic, demographic and behavioural. For example the Pembroke Festival 2004 had a range of products which were all categorised into arts, drama, music, dance, food, family and youth. All of these categories offered something different so appealed to different audiences.

Once segmenting has been established the next crucial step is creating a target audience. A target audience is a selected group of people that are within the target market that the marketing communications are developed, created and aimed at. The target audience is established through different forms of research methods. Quantitative research which looks a sites such as Mintel or internal sales data, qualitative research which is methods such as one to one interviews or focus groups. Another form of target audience research is profiler research which uses primary research methods such as Day In the Life Charts and Media consumption. This will then be analysed and created into a target audience profile, which generates an overall look on the target audience that will be focused on taking into account, age, gender, demographic and many other specific factors.

References

Bowdin,G. Allen, J. O'Toole, W. Harris, R. McDonnell, I. (2011) Events Management Third Edition. Great Britian. Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann.