Essays

Segmentation and Perceptual Mapping for Family Face Masks

Segmentation is an imperative process for any new marketing opportunity as it involves identifying which parts of the market are most effective to engage with. Moreover, there are a plethora of theories that can be used to effectively segment the market, with one exploring demographics, psychographics, and behavioral components of the market segment being effective. Therefore, these three-key segmentation criteria will be considered in light of creating a new family face mask product for the global marketplace.

The first factor to consider is demographics, with the family face mask product focusing on engaging with young families, with parents aged between 16 and 40. This is because younger families will likely show more enthusiasm for a matching face mask product, as older children will often not want to be associated with their parents in this way. Therefore, targeting a younger demographic profile should help to increase initial sales and traction for the product, whilst also exploiting the family unique selling point behind the products design. These demographics can also be anywhere across the country, although should be focused on more urban living as these are individuals that are more likely to travel to places that have a requirement for a face mask.

From the perspective of psychographic segmentation, the main customer segment will be family orientated and have an active social life. This is because the product must be marketed to users that frequently require a face mask, such as ones that often go shopping or visit restaurants. Moreover, these should be family activities that they mostly complete, as this will help promote the family unique selling point of the product. Another key psychographic component of the customer segment is that they will have strong affinity for being driven by habits, as they likely exhibit other psychographic behaviours that relate to strong familial bonds.

The final segmentation criteria is behavioral, with the main behavioral component that will be acknowledged by the customer segment being price. This is because many families have to live on a very strict budget, and are thus heavily influenced by the price of products when making their purchase. However, it is also expected that the product will have good quality and last a long period, with this amplifying the importance for this product to have an effective quality-price balance. Moreover, there should be an extensive variety in the design of the family matching face masks as this will help appeal to a common theme that all individuals in the family like.

With regards to perceptually mapping this product, it is important that the product is priced in the medium range for face masks, whilst having extremely high quality. This is because the family aspect of the product will likely encourage a slightly higher level of spending, but that this will only be achieved if the product quality matches expectations. Therefore, this would be a mid-range product with regards to other competition in the market, and meet the behavioral and psychographic segmentation criteria of the customers. A budget or premium range could then be released in the future to further diversify the positioning of the brand, although this would need careful considering and planning with respects to when it could be released into the market.