In STP marketing model, research was conducted to determine the communication strategy for the targeted customer’s group.
It involves three steps process as the following:
Segmentation:
Marketing segmentation is one of the most vital elements for the market plan to be formed.
It’s the process of segmenting a group of potential and existing customers in the market into subgroups according to a set of characteristics.
That can vary from age, gender, income, social class, family size, occupation, interests, etc.
According to how you segment your potential customers to the proper basis, you can optimize the media, channel, and the marketing communication plan need.
Most of these segments will have some overlaps in one or more of the characteristics.
Types of segmentation:
Demographic segmentation
It’s how the segment can be differentiated by its demographics like age, gender, race, family size, nationality, occupation, etc.
Which is one of the most helpful methods for marketers to distinguish a segment in the market and the most used as well.
It can be very helpful in almost all marketing situations you might face, from beauty products, the car industry to real estate business.
You may consider it as the answer to “who is buying your product?”.
Geographic segmentation
Since the need for some products or services can vary from region to another, it’s very helpful for the marketer to understand the location of the target market closely.
That’s how you can customize what you are offering according to where the market is located, like offering a 4X4 cars in snowy and desert regions can make perfect sense due to the obvious need for it.
Physiographic segmentation
That’s mostly how the customers live their lives and how they take their purchase decision.
As the customers are mostly affected by their lifestyle when they decide to buy a product or service.
It varies from lifestyle, social class, attitude, etc.
Behavioral segmentation
That’s where you can identify the customers according to their knowledge and usage of your product.
For example, the customer can be identified as one of the following when it comes to how far they know your brand/product:
Current user, ex-users, potential user, first timer, etc.
Also, the customers may use your products for different reasons, the same product like a four-wheeled car can be used for its power in the desert or off-road regions, while the same car can be used near the beach to drag the jet skeet.
Evaluating and Targeting segments:
The core function of segmentation is to identify the similarities within the segment and the differences between the segments.
In fact, you would need the customers in the same segment to be very similar and each segment to be very different from the other.
You can use one or more bases to segment a market as long as it’s identifiable, substantial, responsive, actionable and stable.
Identifiability: the segment must be recognizable enough to be identified in the marketplace.
Substantiality: the segment size must be at a big enough scale where the customers in that segment represent a profit for the business.
Accessibility: the segment must be reachable through a promotion or distribution effort.
Actionable: the data provided by the segment must be supportive enough for the marketer to set a marketing plan.
Differential response: the segment should respond differently to a marketing strategy to be easily distinguished in the market.
You would target a segment that’s big enough to make you a profit, and reasonably reachable and identifiable.
Positioning what you’re offering:
The last step before going to market is to set the marketing mix for the segment you’re targeting.
Identifying your unique selling proposition to differentiate yourself from the competition and focusing on your competitive edge while clarifying the value proposition of your offering.
That’s will exactly answer the main question of why we would follow any marketing model or approach which is
Why would the customer buy your product or idea?
Summary
STP is one of the best-known and used marketing models.
It consists of 3 main processes: Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning.
Segmenting your potential or existing customers is very helpful in understanding who you are going to sell your product or service to.
Targeting is an evaluation of the segments and setting your marketing plan to target a profitable set of potential or existing customers.
After identifying your customers, you will position your business to meet the targeted customers base according to a planned and optimized marketing plan.