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Contemporary Business Studies - Academy of Knowledge Process ...

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International Journal <strong>of</strong> <strong>Contemporary</strong> <strong>Business</strong> <strong>Studies</strong>Vol: 4, No: 2. February, 2013 ISSN 2156-7506Available online at http://www.akpinsight.webs.comDemographic Segmentation and Its Effects onCustomer SatisfactionSamer AzizM-Phil. Scholar, Department <strong>of</strong> Management SciencePreston University, Islamabad, PakistanDr. Zekeriya NasHOD TurkishNUML, Islamabad, PakistanABSTRACTSegmentation by demographic factors is widely used in marketing, despite the fact thatthe correlation <strong>of</strong> such factors with the needs <strong>of</strong> customers is sometimes weak.Segmentation by expected benefits and attitudes could enhance ability to address theconflict between individual service and cost-saving standardization. Using clusteranalysis segments were formed based on combinations <strong>of</strong> customer ratings for differentattitudinal dimensions and benefits <strong>of</strong> products/services. The clusters generated in thisway were superior in their homogeneity and pr<strong>of</strong>ile to customer segments gained by onlyreferring to demographic differences.1. INTRODUCTIONA Market segment is a subgroup <strong>of</strong> people or organizations sharing one or more characteristics that causethem to have similar product needs. The purpose is to increase marketing efficiency by focusingmarketing efforts to a particular group (Green, 1977).Quite recently the concept <strong>of</strong> market segmentationwas presented by Wendell Smith in 1956 again. This concept is significantly impacting many otherestablished concepts in the field <strong>of</strong> marketing. For each and every product the result in which all partiesare interested is called Pr<strong>of</strong>it. And by introducing differences for comparison leads to pr<strong>of</strong>itable situation(Homburg, Schäfer, & Schneider, 2012)Nowadays when there is a lot competition amongst people for their products and where the similaritiesexist, this concept <strong>of</strong> market segmentation achieves the so called rule “Divide and conquer”. This meansthat you target a specific set <strong>of</strong> customers for your products differently each set and win their trust andsatisfaction in an accumulating manner (Shaw, 2012).Market segmentation provides us to do extensive research and analysis to study different types <strong>of</strong>consumer behavior with respect to their preferences and then keeping track <strong>of</strong> the trend so as to fulfilltheir needs and demands thru proper product development that satisfies each type.Segmentation criteriacan be categorized as Geographic, Demographic, Psychographic, Behavioural mostly. In Marketsegmentation process first identify the bases for segmenting the market and then develop pr<strong>of</strong>iles <strong>of</strong>resulting segments (Jones, Shaw, & McLean, 2009).2013©<strong>Academy</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Knowledge</strong> <strong>Process</strong>44

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