Page 251 - Marketing Management

228 PART 3 CONNECTING WITH CUSTOMERS

by the entire family. Different people are playing different roles, but all are crucial in the decision
process and ultimate consumer satisfaction.

USER AND USAGE—REAL USER AND USAGE-RELATED VARIABLES Many marketers
believe variables related to various aspects of users or their usage—occasions, user status, usage rate,
buyer-readiness stage, and loyalty status—are good starting points for constructing market segments.
Occasions Occasions mark a time of day, week, month, year, or other well-defined temporal
aspects of a consumer’s life.We can distinguish buyers according to the occasions when they develop
a need, purchase a product, or use a product. For example, air travel is triggered by occasions related
to business, vacation, or family. Occasion segmentation can help expand product usage.

User Status Every product has its nonusers, ex-users, potential users, first-time users, and regular
users. Blood banks cannot rely only on regular donors to supply blood; they must also recruit new
first-time donors and contact ex-donors, each with a different marketing strategy. The key to
attracting potential users, or even possibly nonusers, is understanding the reasons they are not
using. Do they have deeply held attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors or just lack knowledge of the
product or brand benefits and usage?
Included in the potential-user group are consumers who will become users in connection with
some life stage or life event. Mothers-to-be are potential users who will turn into heavy users.
Producers of infant products and services learn their names and shower them with products and
ads to capture a share of their future purchases. Market-share leaders tend to focus on attracting
potential users because they have the most to gain. Smaller firms focus on trying to attract current
users away from the market leader.

Usage Rate We can segment markets into light, medium, and heavy product users. Heavy users are
often a small slice but account for a high percentage of total consumption. Heavy beer drinkers
account for 87 percent of beer consumption—almost seven times as much as light drinkers.
Marketers would rather attract one heavy user than several light users. A potential problem,
however, is that heavy users are often either extremely loyal to one brand or never loyal to any brand
and always looking for the lowest price. They also may have less room to expand their purchase and
consumption.

Buyer-Readiness Stage Some people are unaware of the product, some are aware, some are
informed, some are interested, some desire the product, and some intend to buy. To help
characterize how many people are at different stages and how well they have converted people from
one stage to another, marketers can employ a marketing funnel to break down the market into
different buyer-readiness stages.
The proportions of consumers at different stages make a big difference in designing the marketing
program. Suppose a health agency wants to encourage women to have an annual Pap test to detect
cervical cancer. At the beginning, most women may be unaware of the Pap test. The marketing effort
should go into awareness-building advertising using a simple message. Later, the advertising should
dramatize the benefits of the Pap test and the risks of not getting it. A special offer of a free health
examination might motivate women to actually sign up for the test.
Figure 8.2 displays a funnel for two hypothetical brands. Compared to Brand B, Brand A
performs poorly at converting one-time users to more recent users (only 46 percent convert for
Brand A compared to 61 percent for Brand B). Depending on the reasons consumers didn’t use
again, a marketing campaign could introduce more relevant products, find more accessible retail
outlets, or dispel rumors or incorrect beliefs consumers hold.

Loyalty Status Marketers usually envision four groups based on brand loyalty status:
1. Hard-core loyals—Consumers who buy only one brand all the time
2. Split loyals—Consumers who are loyal to two or three brands
3. Shifting loyals—Consumers who shift loyalty from one brand to another
4. Switchers—Consumers who show no loyalty to any brand 51
A company can learn a great deal by analyzing degrees of brand loyalty: Hard-core loyals can
help identify the products’ strengths; split loyals can show the firm which brands are most com-
petitive with its own; and by looking at customers dropping its brand, the company can learn
about its marketing weaknesses and attempt to correct them. One caution: What appear to be