Use STP (Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning) for Your Marketing Strategy

STP or segmentation, targeting, and positioning is an approach to marketing communications that focuses on the consumer.  This model targets audiences by delivering more focused and relevant messages.

STP is one of the most commonly used marketing models in modern marketing practices.  The popularity of its use is fairly recent where previously, marketing strategy was based predominantly around products rather than the consumer.

STP is important for producing marketing communications since it allows you to prioritize propositions then create personalized messages to engage with specific audiences.

Segmentation

Segmentation is the process of dividing your audience based on certain characteristics into smaller groups.  This will allow you to group your potential customers into similar groups in order to better communicate your relevant products, features, and benefits to them.

Here are some criteria you can use to segment your audience:

• Demographics – This is who your buyer is based on age, gender, education, location, profession, and other categories.

• Psychographics – This answers the question of why your customer makes certain purchases. This includes their priorities, personality traits, and location.

• Lifestyle Traits – This category includes hobbies, entertainment preferences, as well as non-work activities.

• Behavior – Brand loyalty, channel preferences, and shopping habits are included with this criteria.

Targeting

Once you have your audience segments established you can move on to the next phase of Targeting.

Here is where you decide which of your groups or segments are worth targeting with your marketing strategy and communications.

Here are some questions to consider to determine this:

Does this segment contain enough potential customers who may convert and yield enough profits to justify targeting?

Is this segment notably different from other groups?

Is this segment accessible to all members of the Marketing and Sales teams?

Is my company ready to engage and serve this segment by overcoming any physical, legal, social, technological, or other barriers to prevent that?

Decide which segments to move forward with and target strategic decisions that require planning and analysis to better understand the viability of each one.

Targeting segments takes a lot of work and research so don’t feel the need to do so many at once.  Targeting one at a time may be better for your overall marketing efforts.

Positioning

After you have an understanding of the demographics, motivations, and pain points of your segments that you have selected to target you can start the phase of positioning your business product or service.

You should analyze your product or service through the lease of a specific segment.  You need to see things from their perspective to see why they would choose your product over a competitor’s and which features are relevant to them based on the criteria you used.

This is vital in having a clearly defined brand position and seeing how it compares to your competitors.

The different criteria you used in the first two stages of STP should make it easier to find your niche in the marketplace.

Here are the three positioning factors that will give you an edge over your competition:

• Symbolic positioning – This includes enhancing the self-image or ego of your customer in order to boost their image and self-esteem.
• Functional positioning – You provide customers with real genuine benefits and solve their problems directly.

• Experiential positioning – This deals with focusing on the emotion and connection your segment members having with your brand, product, or service.

In order to be successful, you should have a strong combination of all three factors.  By focusing on what is important to your customers you are sure to have a leg up on the competition.

By using STP marketing your business can discover the most valuable customer segments in order to create marketing communications that successfully target those people.  It definitely will help you form a marketing strategy that is engaging, personalized, and create high conversions for your company.