Strategic Marketing Management

For developing an effective targeting strategy, a company should first identify the reason behind customers purchasing its products. Customers can purchase the products to fulfill basic needs, to resolve their problems, or for the feel-good factor associated with the products. There are three types of strategies to target the markets, namely the undifferentiated strategy, the concentrated strategy, and the differentiated strategy.

While targeting a segment, the marketer must ensure that ethical decisions are taken and customer vulnerability is not taken as an advantage. The four types of markets include the emerging, growth, mature, and declining markets. A company should use different targeting strategies depending on the market in which it operates.

‘Positioning'is a term introduced by Jack Trout and Al Ries in 1969. It means creating an image in the perception of the buyer in the target market about the product or service of a company with an advantage over the competition.