Good Samsung Segmentation And Target Market Essay Example

The current business is characterized by intense competition in almost every market or industry. For that reason, most organizations and companies have resorted to business marketing as the only way to compete appropriately with rivals within the marketplace. Marketing of businesses engages various elements that make it a success for most organizations. Among the elements includes, target market, market segmentation, marketing mix, product branding and many others. However, this particular paper objectively describes the market segmentation and targeting of Samsung Inc.
Market segmentation and targeting, in the opinion of Kotler and Keller (2012), helps the organization to reduce certain risks by making vital decisions regarding on who, where, how and when the brand, service, and product may be advertised or promoted to enable the organization achieves its set goals. Logically, it assists in positioning of the product or brand to the specific and accurate targets. The marketing professionals use segmentation and targeting to reach the largest target group by properly controlling costs. Apparently, getting the attention of the right consumers is the main aim or objective of targeting specific markets through directing research efforts in a way that is consistent with the segment characteristics. Targeting and segmentation divide customers into specific groups with same desires by analyzing their geographic, behavioral, psychographic, and demographic features. These are what Kotler and Keller (2011) highlighted to be the main base of segmenting the market for a particular brand or product. Additionally, branding is as well important in the process of market segmentation; however, it is usually described in the positioning statement of the company.

Positioning Statement of Samsung

The customer behavior in the changing business world has changed over a period. Most of the people or consumers have started to take on a healthier living style. The current world customers are very keen on what they consume and in what they incorporate in their daily physical activities. Technology so far has been employed uniquely in different ways to make the life of consumers more comfortable.
Ideally, various companies to innovate new products in the market have used technology. For instance, the technology is utilized in recording burning of calories and measuring the heart rate while exercising or while working out. Majority of the population possess a heart rate monitor that they use to record their heart beat rates and transfer the data manually to other software programs to keep track of their health well-being.
Samsung being one of the technological companies have seen an opportunity in this to meet the customer needs and issues. The company has innovated a smart watch brand called Gear and the Gear Fit that is used with Samsung Galaxy 5. As noted earlier, the new smart watch product automatically transfers information to the Galaxy 5 where the customer can track their physical exercise and workout data. This new product also has many other features that go hand in hand with its smartphone, the Galaxy 5. The company has focused on the marketing of this innovative smart watch initiating a new better way to stay fit and healthier by making it easier to maintain records of all the consumers’ fitness endeavors. “Initiating Samsung’s first smart watches network-connected wearable” (Samsung, 2014). This new gadget enables the customers to make and receive calls when their smart phones are not nearby. The consumer is also able to check and see emails, updates, texts, and stream and listen to music right from their wrists.

The Company’s Background

Samsung as a company follow a very simple business philosophy (Samsung, 2014). This is to devote its effort, talents, and technology in innovating superior high-end brands of products and services, which significantly improve a better global society. Being one of the leading companies in the mobile technology industry, Samsung has remained committed to realizing improved experience to users of its mobile phones. It offers one of the best Android line phones, the Samsung Galaxy.
Even though, there is intense competition in the technology industry especially the communication marketplace, Samsung has found a gap in the technology world in mobile accessories that are wearable. The company produces a range of wearable devices that connect to its other Samsung smartphones and tablet to allow the customers to keep a record of their fitness activities, at the same time, make and receive calls. The new innovated brand can map customer’s run, monitor heart rate, track the exercise steps, count calories burned, and more importantly get vital health information over a period. For instance, the Exercise applications such as Health™ and Nike+Running are products that are specifically designed to support the clients’ track their workout progress.
According to Samsung (2014), the new technology would bring the company to some James Bond Era. Twenty-first century, is an era whereby people can communicate and share with others through what is just regarded as an accessory. In fact, the Gear S can connect to the internet, receive emails, update alerts, allow the customers to make calls, add the application to its 2 inch wide display, and look at Facebook posts.

Segmentation and Targeting

Just as noted earlier, segmentation and targeting of markets plays crucial roles in ensuring the users of the products are reached. Market segments are quite important since they tell the company in which products segments to concentrate or focus on. More importantly, the Samsung smart watch product is focused on four integrated markets.

Demographic Market Segment and Target

There are several ways of targeting customers. Demographic segment is an art of grouping the customers based on the population characteristics. Based on the nature of the new Samsung’s product, it targets customers whose ages range between 18 to 45 years old. This is an aggressive group and very active with their health lifestyle. On the other hand, the company segment this particular market based on gender. The smart watch with its application can fit both women and men. The thinner versions of this product can be marketed to women since it is small, and they can buy the brand. The males are targeted with a little bit fat watches that suits their needs and sizes. Besides, the company targets athletes who will prefer the smart watch while trying to ruffle through their smart phones for their physical fitness and workout progress.
Additionally, the Generation Xers and 21st century buyers are the perfect target group for the item. This generation is quite suitable for the product since they have the technological background in use of computers and cell phones. Another group to target is the echo boomers. This is a group of customers who have been wired since birth, navigating the web, connecting with friends and playing computer games. More significantly, these target groups have a sense of entitlement during the economic boom and are influenced by their boomer parents. They use technology to enable them execute tasks but not as a barrier.
The Samsung Smart watches are water resistant. This can enable the athletes to track and see how many calories they burn, as well as how intense their workout was. The Gear S enables the customers to receive emails, texts, updates and get access to the social network accounts anytime.

Psychographic

Target customers must also be grouped based on their psychographics. The most popular commercially used technique in this approach is the Strategic Business Insight’s (SBI) framework (Kotler & Keller, 2011). The Samsung Gear S suites all four groups of the higher resources. First, this smart watch shall be sold to the innovators group that lives active and successful life. The Gear S helps the innovators in their active life to maintain order in their daily life. It shall enable them to view messages, make, and answer phone calls via the smart watch without having to reach their Samsung smartphones.
Subsequently, this product is quite appropriate for the thinker group. Essentially, this group of target market is usually interested in the functionality and durability of the product they purchase. The smart watch is water resistant, durable and efficient in its functionality. This shall attract the attention and influence the purchase behavior of the thinker group.
Moreover, the brand is extremely suitable for the achievers group who are usually interested in goal-oriented products. The Gear S and any other Gear series product is specifically designed to keep on track with the customer’s fitness goals. They are also able to perform other functionalities using the same gadget including streaming and listening to music. Nevertheless, the experienced group is also targeted with the product line. This segment likes purchasing or buying new innovated products in the market. With the release of the new product in the marketplace, they will be aggressive to buy the Samsung smart watch to test its suitability. In the end, they will constitute the repeating buyers of the product. Lastly, the strivers who are in the lower resource group are a perfect segment for the new product line. The achievers group ideally like emulating the higher order social class and keeping on trend with fashion and new technology. As such, they will like the Samsung product with its inbuilt features.

Behavioral Characteristics

In this segment, the marketing professionals divide the customers based on their knowledge of the product, use, attitude towards, and response to the product (Kotler & Keller, 2011). In this aspect, Samsung focuses on all its customers including the potential users, nonusers, and ex-users. The key concentration goal is how to employ the marketing techniques to bring more customers to purchase the newly innovated product by the company. On a competitive edge, the Samsung clients’ values, appreciate, and owes high positive attitude towards its innovative ideas for introducing new technology in the product line, as well as services. As long as Samsung maintains use of technology in improving the customer experience with its product line, it simply easy to keep the strong reputation that the company has in the perception of the customers.
The focus on the ex-users and nonusers assists the organization with vital information on why they do not embrace the use of the products. This provides the company with an opportunity to improve their products to suit the needs of the customers. However, the behavioral segment consists of four loyalty statuses that must be considered by the company in order to excel in that market. Group 1 consists of the Hard-core loyalties who only consume one brand all the periods. The group 2 constitutes the Split loyalties that purchases approximately 2 to three different brands of product while group 3 includes Shifting loyalties who keep changing from one product to another. Besides, the group 4 segments entails Switchers who have no loyalty to any brand in the market (Kotler & Keller, 2011). The chief goal of the Samsung Company is converting its all customers to become Hard-core loyals with its newly innovated smart watch. Currently, Apple is the biggest competitor in the technology industry with most of its products targeting the higher resource group. Many customers are switching from Samsung brand to the Apple brands. As such, the company needs to listen to the shifting loyals to get to know how to retain them with the Samsung brand. On the other hand, Samsung should carry out a survey to get insights on the reputation and attitude of the consumers towards its products. Ideally, the company should ensure the consumers are enthusiastic, and positive towards their product lines (Kotler & Keller, 2011).

Geographic Segment

This is the segmentation of the market based on the locations of the target customers. Samsung is a multi-national corporation and targets various locations across the world. Specifically, the Gear S is suitable for all the customer locations. The changing world has made people in almost all the locations in the world to keep watch on what they eat, besides, their health life, in general. The smart watch enables the users to track their workout progress as well as performing other functionalities such as seeing emails and receiving texts away from their smartphones.

Conclusion

In summary, Samsung is a company that works towards fulfilling its business philosophy of being the best in the digital world. The newly innovated Smart Watch intends to meet the customer needs, as well as achieving the company objectives. The product can be considered appropriate for nearly all the market segments as suggested by Kotler and Keller (2011). More significantly, the product is extremely appropriate for all the geographic, demographic, psychographic, and behavioral segments.

References

Kotler, P., & Keller, K. (2011). Marketing Management (14th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Kotler, P., & Keller, K. (2012). Marketing Management (14th Ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Samsung Inc. (2014). Values & Philosophy. Retrieved from http://http://www.samsung.com/us/aboutsamsung/samsung_group/values_and_philosophy/