Marketing Stacy's Pita Chips

To Stacy, From Stacy

Marketing and Stacy's Pita Chip Company

Marketing is not just about selling and advertising products and services. In general, marketing is associated with identifying the particular wants and needs of a target market of customers, and then working to satisfy those customers better than the competition. This involves doing market research on customers, analyzing their needs, and then making strategic decisions about product design, pricing, promotion and distribution or place (Bethel, 2007). Understanding ways to identify the target market is crucial in developing market strategy. This paper is intended to define target marketing and examine a market analysis of Stacy's Pita Chip Company.

Many factors should be addressed when defining a target market. These factors include market segmentation, product life cycle, and the four "P's" that make the marketing mix. Market segmentation is the process of dividing a total market into market groups consisting of people who have relatively similar product wants and needs. There are four major segmentation variables: geographic, demographic, psychographic, and behavioral. Geographic segmentation includes world region, country region, city, density, or climate. Demographic segmentation can consist of age, gender, income, occupation, education, race, religion, or nationality. Social class, lifestyle, and personality fall into the psychographic segment. The behavioral segment divides buyers into groups based on their knowledge, attitudes, uses, or responses to a product (Bethel, 2007). Once the market segment is identified, that market can be targeted.

The backbone of marketing is the target market (Vest, 2007). Target marketing is the specific group of people that a company is trying to reach with its marketing effort. The target

market is a set of buyers sharing common needs or characteristics that the company decides to serve (Bethel, 2007). When identifying the target market it is important to know who buys your product and who your customers are. Smart targeting benefits the consumer as well as the company. It allows the company to be more efficient and effective by focusing effort toward that segment; therefore maintaining the most profitable outcome. The consumer is rewarded by receiving the product or service that is customized for them.

Target Market

Once the target market has been identified it is important to develop a marketing strategy. In today's fast paced, information overloaded society; conveying a message about a product seems to be more difficult than ever. The consumer is bombarded with advertising everywhere they look. Today advertising not only exists on television, radio, magazines, and newspapers, it can be found on billboards, park benches, in our mailboxes, on buses, taxis, at sporting events, and on clothing.