STP marketing is a relatively modern

three-stage strategy designed to help build a marketing plan that is targeted to the correct demographic.

1. “S” stands for segmentation.
2. “T” for target.
3. “P” for positioning.

Together, carrying out this research help companies formulate an effective strategy for marketing a product by segmenting the audiences, targeting segments according to their preferences and positioning their brand into the best place in the market for targeting new potential clients.

Market Segmentation -> Targeting your target market -> Position your product -> Implementation & market breakthrough

Going through this process allows a business owner and marketing consultants or employees to formulate a marketing strategy that helps marketers to prioritise segments and then develop and deliver personalised and relevant messages to engage with the right audiences.

The STP model is an audience rather than product focused approach with regards to digital communications, which has opened up a world of new audiences with whom to deliver your message, this model tailors that media to the relevant market.

 

1. Segment or separate your market

The segmenting step is essentially a brainstorming a list of all the potential market segments you wish to target in a marketing campaign. If your line of business is in specialist industry or a niche, companies can have only one target market, while other companies may have several others, up to 10 segments.
You can segment your existing markets based on nearly any variable, as long as it’s effective as the examples below show:

• Demographic: By personal attributes such as age, marital status, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, education, or occupation.
• Behavioural: By observing how the product is used, whether buyers have tendency to repeat-purchase etc.
• Geographic: By country, region, city, or neighbourhood.
• Psychographic: By personality, culture, values, or lifestyle.

2. Target these segments

When you have multiple, distinct market segments, the next stage is to customise marketing campaigns that would appeal to each group in a tactile way. As the STP process continues, typically the strategy would be to narrow your segments to a more specific market once you have particular success with a previous campaign.

Typically, the more data obtained about specific market segments, the better they can be targeted by the use of language, media channels and keywords that appeal to their preferences.

• Criteria Size: The market must be large enough to justify segmenting. If the market is small, it may make it smaller.
• Variables: Measurable differences must exist between segments.
• Funding: Anticipated profits must exceed the costs of additional marketing plans for all initial segments.

3. Position your brand

Positioning how companies align their brand or products with their target market. The goal is to offer something that is bigger, better or more valuable than what your competitors offer to a particular market segment.

Your positioning serves as your big-picture guide in building your marketing campaign. The key to positioning is to examine the relationship between your values as a company and what you offer as it relates to the customer segment you want to target.

Create a placement map with the current competitors for different demographics, such as a scatter graph this should show where there is a gap in the market and a subsequent easy entrance for your product or service.

 

4. Implementation of your product or service

After the strategising process has yielded clear results, the next stage is to implement marketing tasks in order to achieve the intended goals.

Using segmentation allows marketers to:

• Identify niches with specific requirements.
• Mature markets to reach out to new clients.
• Deliver more focused and effective marketing messages.

The needs of each segment are the same, so marketing messages should be designed for each segment to emphasise relevant benefits and features required rather than one size fits all for all customer types. This approach is more efficient, delivering the right mix to the same group of people, rather than a scatter graph approach as mentioned above.

If companies are looking to increase brand awareness within an emerging market, an effort should be expended on the creation of ads that introduce your brand and develop an image by picking channels commonly used by their target demographic.

Contact us to learn more about how Eltoma-Marketing can help you implement Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning (STP) for your business today!