Many businesses are not very effective with their marketing efforts, because they attempt to appeal to all people. The most effective marketing efforts are successful because the companies invest time and money to properly develop a marketing strategy, and one of the most important components of the marketing strategy is called Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning (STP).
The University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business describes STP as:
Segmentation is the art of defining your customer segments with data in as many ways as possible. For example, you can segment your clients by age, ethnicity, gender, income, type of pet, number of pets, and many other ways. This process is performed every day by thousands of marketers. Yes, profiling is very common and important in marketing, because in business, resources are limited. You can further segment them by segmenting those categories, such as dogs. Dogs can be segmented by breed, age, gender, location, medical condition, and many others. By segmenting your customers you can identify underserved and valuable niches to which you can target specific programs and services. When you identify a niche to target, you then develop a message and plan for reaching this segment with your message.
By using STP, you become much more effective and efficient at reaching an audience that has a higher likelihood to like your message and offering. This translates into higher conversion and purchase rates, which improves sales and the outcome of the practice. Use segmentation, targeting, and positioning to grow your practice!
