Segmentation

According to The Marketing Plan Handbook, market segmentation is the process of grouping customers within a market according to similar needs, habits, or attitudes that can be addressed through marketing. A smaller segments with distinct needs or benefit requirements within a segment is called niches. Segmentation facilitates consumer obsession as marketing campaign is directed to the specific needs/benefits of the consumers, it is not one model for all or one size fit all.

There are four factors which firm need to consider when segment a consumer market, they are listed below:

• behavioral and attitudinal variables: this is the best way to identify a consumer group for marketing purposes. Examples include benefits required or expected, usage occasion and status, loyalty status, technological orientation etc.
• demographic variables: these are common and easily identified consumer characteristics. Examples include age, gender, household size, income etc.
• geographic variables: this may cover a single neighborhood or an entire continent. Examples include location, distance, climate etc.
• psychographic variables: helps to gain a deeper understanding of what and why consumers buy. Examples include lifestyle, activities, interests etc.

Three out of the four factors above should be consider when applying segmentation to business markets, they are behavioral and attitudinal variables, demographic variables and geographic variables.

When thinking of an academic library, the following three factors seem to be useful when applying segmentation:

• behavioral and attitudinal variables: graduate students look for a quiet place to study; undergraduate students look for group study rooms for group work. Faculty look for convenient way to get journal articles.
• demographic variables: age, gender
• geographic variables: residential students, commute students, international students

HBR: Market Segmentation, Target Market Selection, and Positioning

I learned a few concepts related to market segmentation, target market selection and positioning in this article. The two types of segmentation are (i) segmentation based on benefits sought by customers; (ii) segmentation based on observable characteristics of customers. Differentiation is the key to target market selection, and the five areas which includes (1) ability to conceive and design; (2) ability to produce (quality and quantity); (3) ability to market; (4) ability to finance; (5) ability to manage/execute is completely new to me. In term of differentiation, horizontal differentiation uses the fact that consumers differ in their tastes. Identifying group(s) whose need(s) are not sufficiently served by a competitor should be a strategy which a firm pursue for horizontal differentiation. In vertical differentiation, it assumes consumers consumer's is willing to pay for quality. As a result, firm pursuing vertical differentiation should position products to customers with a specific level of willingness to pay for quality that is not sufficiently served by a competitor.

In order to find out whether any of the concepts discussed in the HBR article been applied to the field of library and information sciences, I performed an internet search and found a whitepaper by CIVICTechnologies . Part of the paper stated how market segmentation can be useful for libraries:

• To offer their small businesses, entry-level entrepreneurs, and non-profits a tool to find new customers, retain existing customers, improve profitability, find the best location for their business, and develop new products and services appropriate to their market.
• For use by students to support research and class projects and to prepare students to use market segmentation in their chosen profession.
• For use by the public library itself to improve services by better engaging library users and those who don't yet use the library.

While it is beneficial to learn about how the concepts applied to libraries in general, I would like to learn more on it's application to medium size academic libraries.

Data collection for marketing plan

Since the U.S. government is one of biggest data collector and publisher, I will start looking up data and statistics through the usa.gov website. Other than the federal government, I will also look at state and local government website to explore data that is related to a local population. Gapminder.org by Dr. Rosling will be a good place to look for data and statistics around the world, and also see the trend throughout different time period. Besides, some public and academic libraries also offers subscription databases like Simmons, which contain data sets. I will see if I will be able to gain access to those resources through my local public or academic libraries. Depending on the scope of the marketing plan, it is also possible to conduct online survey in order to collect data from the users.

To understand and learn about the types of customers in the market that I have been assigned, I will research on their cultural value and explore related subcultures. Also, I will find out how each type of customers connect with others within their social circles. As opinion leaders can have a powerful influence on consumer's buying decision, I will also identify opinion leaders within the social circles. Besides, I will pay attention to the lifestyle, perception, attitudes and motivation of the customers.

Once data are collected and analyzed, I will convey and provide insights about my findings through a visual presentation. The presentation will includes the followings components, based on the characteristics of the target audience:

• The believe
• The benefit
• The statistics
• The implementation
• The results

As demonstrated by Dr. Rosling, statistics can be presented in a non-boring ways. Charts, graphics, or even interactive graphics helps convey the messages behind the statistics.

Rosling and Gladwell

There are a few things I got out from Dr. Rosling’s video. First, social changes occur before economic changes. Second, there are differences between different areas even though all the areas belong to the same country. Third, it is dangerous to use average database and made generalization conclusion, because there are a lot of differences within a country. The Gapminder software that Dr. Rosling works on is an eye opener. You would think that such interactive tool to view statistical data will be super expensive and there will be limited number of people who will be able to afford it. It’s good that tools like that are available to everyone. Besides, visual presentation of data helps me a lot to see the relationship and trends, especially over a certain time period. I think having the visual representation helps to bring up the importance of the data.

In the video by Gladwell, he talked about horizontal segmentation, idea of universal, and variability. He also used a few examples to demonstrated that people don’t know what they want, and people can’t always explain what and why they want something. I think his speech tied well with the reading for this week, segmentation and neuromarketing. Instead of focusing on finding the prefect product to produce in order to make the customers happy, we may want to segment the customer, find out what they want, and provide the product accordingly in order to make them happy. Studying the mind of the people will be one way of doing it.

In order to find out the impact of neuromakreting on non-profit organization, I did some research. In the article Is it right for charities to use neuromarketing?, the author listed some pros and cons of using neuromarketing by charities.

Pros

- a new way to increase funding and resources

- the best charities aren’t rewarded or given funding as it is

Cons

- charities should win donors based on their mission, evidence of outcomes, etc., not ‘tricks’

- neuromarketing could create a battle among charities, ability to get funding and resources may depends on budget and psychology expertise of a charity

Another thing I found out is the history of neuromarketing. While neuromarketing is a concept that is new to me, the term neuromarketing was actually coined in 2002 by Ale Smidts. Hence the concept have been around for over a decade! :-O

Understand customers through research

In chapter 3 of The Marketing Plan Handbook, primary and secondary research is discussed. Secondary research is defined by research that use data already collected for another purpose. As for primary research, it is conducted to address a specific marketing question or situation. The three primary research methods that getting increasing attention is ethnographic research, online research and neuromarketing. At the end of the chapter, one concern that brought up by the author related to marketing research is privacy.

At the academic library I work at, we conduct a lot of secondary research. We utilized websites (that provide statistics) and journal databases (that provide trends) in order to understand the research and learning needs of our faculty and students. Primary research is conducted when a need arise.  For example, the Web Services department conducted ethnographic research in order to find out how users use the library website. Another example is the Public Relations department post question as Facebook status in order to seek feedback of users about library services.

Even though the Library does not conducted primary research frequently, the Office of Communications and Marketing for the campus do conduct primary research on both potential and current students. Several years ago, the Office of Communications and Marketing hired a consulting firm to find out student's needs in all areas, which includes but not limited to, campus resources, student life, food services etc.

While I aware of ethnographic and online research, neuromarketing is new to me. I would like to learn more about how nonprofit utilized neuromarketing and its findings.

Needs of customers

There are several needs that an academic library try to satisfy for our patrons, they are listed below:

• Information needs: we provide books, periodicals, and subscription databases to fulfill information and/or research needs of faculty and students.
• Computing needs: we provide computers, printers and scanners for students so that they can complete their course work.
• Study space needs: we provide individual study area and group study rooms for students, so that they can have a space to study.
• Research needs: we provide instruction to students on how to perform research.
• Employment opportunities: we hire student workers, which provide an opportunity to fulfill their needs of getting work experience.

Reflection on macro & micro environment

Below are macro and micro environment examples for the organization that I am working now.

Micro
A supplier - Ebscohost, a database vendor which provides a broad range of full text and bibliographic databases designed for research.
A channel partner - Faculty. Faculty is a channel partner of the library, as they help us to introduce the resources that the library have to their students.
A competitor - Google. Google provide user-friendly interface and indexed a lot of information available on the Internet.

Macro
Technology 
- mobile device. As increasing number of patrons have smartphone, the Library need to investigate development of mobile friendly website or app.
- social media. This will impact how we can reach out to the students.
- e-readers. The change in reading behavior of patrons will impact how the Library build it's future collection. What kind of services we provide and how we market our materials and services.

Politics
- law and legislation related to higher education.
- funding from state to higher education will have direct impact of campus funding, which also impact material budget of the Library.

Consumer behavior

Got a few things out of the short video that John did for week 2

• Influences and stimuli: Peers is a very powerful influences
• The R's & P in response to purchase behavior: Predict, Plan, Prepare, Respond
• Buyer decision processes: Recognize need, information search, evaluation of alternative, purchase decision, and post purchase behavior. To me, the importance of post purchase behavior is demonstrated by the number of people who post their user experience of a product on companies website. One good example is Amazon.
• Consumer nowadays is pretty forgiving, a company need to admit their mistake instead of hiding it.
• Marketing execution involves suppliers, investors, public, customers, competitor, and channel partners.
• Micro-environment is all about value creation
• Marketer focus a lot of their effort in trying to influencing innovators and early adopters

Missions

When reading the mission of the five different companies from five different industries, I found one thing in common, all the mission statement have wordings like guests, customer service, customers, and people. This definitely demonstrated that their missions are consumer focused, they all aimed to increase value/services which customers can obtain by doing business with them. One major problem of having a product based focus mission is it neglect the need of consumer. While you are focusing on developing, producing and/or enhancing a product based on your knowledge, you may ignore what the consumer's need and wants are. Since the consumer didn't see a benefit and/or value from your product, they will not be interested in buying your product.

Out of the five mission statements, I think the best two are Target and Southwest Airlines. Their mission statement clearly indicated how they will add value to the shopping and flying experience of their customers. Besides, both of them committed to their mission. As stated in the mission of Target, they will fulfill their "Expect More, Pay Less" brand promise. As for Southwest Airline, they mentioned their company spirit.

As the organization that I work at, we do have a mission statement. The mission statement usually being brought up during retreat and/or strategic planning once in awhile, but it is not usually being reference to. As we have a mission that included a lot of different things, most of us focus on one or two components that directly tied to our responsibilities. So, I feel that the mission is playing a very minor role in leading the culture of our organization.

Analyzing external environment for an academic library

I work at an academic library, which serves over 8400 students and 1500 faculty and staff. 65% of the student population is 24 and under, with 35% of the students aged 25 and up. As a regional campus within a big university system, the library enjoy the benefit of resources sharing among different campuses. Below is the analyze of external environment for my library.

Economic trends:

• Slow economic recovery increase number of community patron whom utilize library services and resources
• Subscription price for electronic materials (i.e. serials and databases) continues to increase
• Economic recovery will increase funding for the campus and funding for library resources

Demographic trends:

• Increase number of traditional students, who grow up in the digital environment
• Digital divide between junior and senior faculty; junior faculty is more tech savvy and prefer electronic resources, while senior faculty prefer print materials.

Technological trends:

• Digital born is comfortable with information being available on the Internet, they tend to bypass the library when they look for information to fulfill their information need.
• Increase number of students process the latest technologies like smartphone, e-readers etc.

Ecological trends:

• Concerns about books that being weeded or withdraw from the collection, will they be dumped or recycled?

Social-cultural trends:

• Addition of student housing increase the need of leisure/recreational reading materials.
• Increased diversity in students and faculty body requires acquisition of materials in different languages.
• Research preference of students and faculty gears toward electronic resources

Political-legal trends:

• Copyright law have direct impact on faculty and students use of electronic resources subscribed by the Library
• Complexity of licensing for journals and databases increase due to merger of vendors
• Change in state education requirement impact degree programs which the Library support

Competitive trends:

• Online search engines continue to improve search capability and enhance user interface
• The new Education and Arts building provide the latest technologies and an attractive environment for students and faculty to study

Bezo's video

After reading Levitt's article and watching Bezo's video, I found they have one thing in common, they both put great emphasis on customers. John mentioned that Amazon is in book industry, but to me I think they are in e-retail industry. You can buy many different thing from Amazon, not only books. From the video, JB mentioned they focus on innovation on behalf of the their customers. By focusing on what customer's need and want are, then implementing services based on what customers is looking for, this helps to keep amazon from becoming obsolete. To me, I think the 1-Click ordering feature that Amazon offering shown that they focus on their customer's need. Instead of typing in payment and shipping information every time a customer order a product, 1-Click ordering speed up the ordering process and save time for the customers. When trying to research on how Amazon's effort to stay relevant, I come across this article: Why Amazon Prime Could Soon Cost You Next to Nothing. The article not only explained how switching cost play a role in customer loyalty to Amazon through the Prime program, but also how Amazon is starting to encroach on the territory of general merchants and grocery stores. It will be interesting to see how Amazon Prime lead Amazon or even the online commerce industry in the next few years.

CH 1: Marketing planning: New urgency, new possibilities

Marketing trends focus on citizen  marketing, consumer increasingly demanding transparency, and they prefer to buy from companies that have credibility and positive image. The definition of Marketing from AMA emphasizes the importance of value, the difference between the perceived benefits received (to satisfy a want or need) and the perceived total price. Regardless of what type or size of an organization, a marketing plan is needed to chart paths to their goals. In this chapter, the 6 steps on how to develop a marketing plan and the four marketing-mix tools is briefly discussed. The 4 guiding principles for creating a marketing plan that will provide value, building relationships and make a difference are (1) anticipate change, (2) engage everyone, (3) seek alliances, and (4) make marketing meaningful. Thinking of the organization that I am working at, below are ways which I think the guiding principles can be apply.

Simon Sinek's TED talk

I just watched the Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action TED talk. While his foucs is on how leaders inspire others, he used a lot of examples which related to business and marketing. He pointed out people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. Companies who success and stand out because they sell people on what they believe, not their product. To me, this seems to tied in what John and Jeff mentioned, we need to focus on the customers, not the product.

What is marketing?

Just like most of the people, my impression of Marketing is an activity to promote and sell a product/services. However, after I watched the Prezi from John and the video by Jeff Bezos, I recognized that Marketing is not about the product, it is about the customer.

- "Customers only care about benefit they got, but not what we do."
- "Marketing's role is to sense the unfulfileed needs and wants of people and invent attrative solutions."

Two concepts that I found interesting from Jeff's video is about invention on behalf of the customers and a long term view. When I took C522 Information Technology in summer, we talked about how important it is for IT leaders to have a long term view, a good strategic plan for a company. It looks like it is also important for Marketing too. I am still working on finishing up the reading on Marketing Myopia, by then I will put my thought up about the questions raised by John in the Prezi.

Self Introduction

My name is Vincci Kwong, I work at an academic library as Librarian. I look forward to learn about Marketing and how it might helps us to reach out to our clients, who are faculty, staff and students on our campus.