Sep 30, 20215 min read

Market Research

Updated: Nov 1, 2021

Image Source - Falmouth Online University Canvas

Here I will outline some of the Market research I have done in the lead up to the business plan. I first start by breaking down the customer segments and what each one means before looking at games similar to the one I am making for this module.

Geographic Segmentation:

Geographic segmentation might be the simplest form of market segmentation, but there are still plenty of ways it can be used that we never think about.

The size of the area we target should change depending on the business needs. Generally speaking, the larger the business the bigger the areas I'll be targeting. After all, with a wider potential audience, targeting each postcode individually simply won’t be cost-effective.

In total, there are six factors that pertain to geographic segmentation and can be used to create customer segments:

⦁ Location (country, state, city, ZIP code)

⦁ Time zone

⦁ Climate and season

⦁ Cultural preferences

⦁ Language

⦁ Population type and density (urban, suburban, exurban or rural)

Easy to implement

Geographic segmentation is different from the other types of market segmentation (especially psychographic and behavioural) because it requires fewer data points.

As a result, it offers a quick and effective route into personalized marketing and can offer tangible ways to reach potential customers using only their location as a starting point.

Higher product relevancy

This helps not only to improve sales but also creates a better relationship between customer and business. Presenting relevant items to customers improves user experience, reducing the amount of effort they need to put in to find what they want.

Improved advertising effectiveness

By presenting more targeted ads, I can guarantee that more of my marketing budget is spent reaching relevant customers, and less wasted on those who have no need or interest in my product.

This isn’t to say that geographic segmentation is always the best strategy to employ. It has specific uses for specific businesses and industries. Small businesses working in localized areas will benefit immensely from targeting their marketing to just these areas. Big businesses with products that will have consumer hotspots in specific regions will also benefit.

An international manufacturer of big four-wheel drive vehicles will achieve more sales targeting customers in rural areas than those who drive congested city streets.

But businesses that sell products that do not depend on region-specific patterns won’t benefit as much from geographic segmentation. Consumers of Corn Flakes are likely to be as common in one region as the next.

Demographic Segmentation:

It’s an accessible form of market segmentation, as it requires fewer data points to implement than psychographic or behavioural segmentation, whilst offering more selective nuance than geographic segmentation. There are plenty of ways to segment markets using demographics.

The most commonly used demographic segmentation factors are:

⦁ Age

⦁ Gender

⦁ Ethnicity

⦁ Income

⦁ Level of education

⦁ Religion

⦁ Occupation

⦁ Family Structure

The simplest way to adopt demographic segmentation is by using factors like age gender income, but there are many non-character traits that you can focus on. Income and family structure are particularly useful factors for retailers, allowing them to single out certain groups that might be interested in purchasing a specific product or service.

Business-to-business (B2B) marketers, however, are much more likely to rely on occupational segmentation to ensure they are pitching their products to the people who actually make purchases for their company, and not an intern who has no purchasing power.

Behavioural Segmentation:

Behavioural segmentation refers to a process in marketing that divides customers into segments depending on their behaviour patterns when interacting with a particular business or website.

These segments could include grouping customers by:

⦁ Their attitude toward your product, brand or service;

⦁ Their use of your product or service,

⦁ Their overall knowledge of your brand and your brand’s products,

⦁ Their purchasing behaviour & tendencies, such as buying on special occasions like birthdays or holidays only, etc.

⦁ Going beyond the traditional demographic and geographic segmentation methods and utilizing behavioural data allows for the execution of more successful marketing campaigns.

At the very least, if you use behavioural segmentation as a marketer and business owner you’ll have a more complete understanding of your audience, thus enabling you to tailor products or services to specific customer needs.

Below we take a look at four more benefits of behavioural segmentation.

Why is behavioural segmentation so important?

Identifies the most engaged users. Being able to filter existing customers and potential prospects that display highest levels of engagement – for example, those regularly opening your emails, or spend the most time on your product pages – enables marketers to make more informed decisions on how and where to best allocate time, budget, and resources.

In return, this makes your marketing more cost-effective, as you’re not burning through budget trying to warm up predominantly cold leads. You can focus on those most likely to make a purchase.

Improves messaging accuracy.

Behavioural segmentation allows marketers to optimize their positioning and marketing messages toward the customer data at hand. Imagine you’ve already identified that 24-35-year-olds are the most active segment on your fashion eCommerce store.

Behavioural segmentation allows you to enrich this demographic data by splitting the segment based on their interests and preferences, such as “interested in activewear” vs “interested in formal attire,” or “one-time shopper” vs “wardrobe over-hauler.”

Provides refined personalized experiences.

To provide a sense of brand persona and uniqueness, deeply analysing your audience and resonating with customer needs, wants, concerns, and demands can make noticeable differences. Specifically, personalized approaches, such as displaying complementary products on the website or sending an upsell email after a recent purchase can not only lower bounce rate, reduce cart abandonment, or speed up the purchasing process, but also cement customer loyalty.

Builds brand loyalty.

Customers who feel they are being attended to throughout their customer journey will instinctively favour the brand over competitors. Behavioural segmentation enables eCommerce businesses to reach extraordinary levels of customer satisfaction & retention, increase customer lifetime value, and boost long-term revenue. All due to increased targeting accuracy and higher levels of personalization.

Psychographic Segmentation:

Psychographic segmentation is focused on your customers’ personalities and interests. Here we might look at customers and define them by their:

⦁ Personality traits

⦁ Hobbies

⦁ Life goals

⦁ Values

⦁ Beliefs

⦁ Lifestyles

Compared to demographic segmentation, this can be a harder set to identify. Good research is vital and, when done well, psychographic segmentation can allow for incredibly effective marketing that consumers will feel speaks to them on a much more personal level. Grouping customers based on their personalities and interests, including beliefs, hobbies, and life goals.

Firmographic Segmentation:

Whilst the above marketing segmentation strategies mainly focus on B2C organizations, Firmographic segmentation can be extremely useful to those in the B2B world.

Firmographic segmentation is the process of analysing and classifying B2B customers based on shared company or organization attributes & characteristics.

This segmentation strategy allows B2B companies to better understand and target their audience and marketing campaigns. This process is very similar to the way B2C marketers would use demographic segmentation.

This type of market segmentation predominantly uses 7 factors to identify customer segments.

⦁ Industry

⦁ Location

⦁ Company Size

⦁ Status

⦁ Number of employees

⦁ Performance

⦁ Executive Title

⦁ Sales Cycles Stage

This market segmentation process can help form an effective B2B marketing strategy by identifying target customers and tailoring marketing efforts to these specific customer segments.

The Games: Teardown

Short Description: Prepare the perfect heist in this simulated and fully destructible voxel world. Tear down walls with vehicles or explosives to create shortcuts. Stack objects to reach higher. Use the environment to your advantage in the most creative way you can think of.

Revenue Estimate: ~$8.9 million. Using the Boxlieter Method, we can assume the game has made approximately 8.9 million dollars based on it's reviews and some of the other data available on the web through usual searches about the game along with developer interviews. Tags: