Finding The Right Consumers For Your Brand: The STP Model Explained

Are you trying to reach everyone with your marketing? Having a little trouble?

Claiming that your product is ‘for everyone’ may sound like the best way to reach your sales targets, but it’s not the most effective route for your marketing strategy. It’s simple, nothing is for everyone, and claiming that your product is, actually works against you with your true target market. By broadening the scope of your marketing efforts to this degree, you miss out on the opportunity to educate your target audience about how your product can help them and end up communicating a generic message to a wider audience that can’t relate.

This is where segmentation, targeting, and positioning come in. Below we discuss these steps to showcase the importance of taking the time to understand your audience and of targeting your marketing accordingly.

Segmentation

Segmentation is simply about breaking up the market into distinct segments. You need to be able to identify a variable to create these groups, groups that have distinct and separate needs requiring a unique marketing approach.

This process helps you to group individual audience members into similar groups so that you can better communicate your products, features, and benefits in a way that they can relate to. Some variables that you can use to create these groups include who they are (demographics), where they are located (geographics), their goals and attitudes (psychographics), or how they make their buying decisions (behavioural).

Targeting

Now that you have identified your audience segments, it is time to identify the best segment(s) to target and tailor your marketing efforts towards. But how do we know which customers to choose? To help make this decision it is important to consider the needs of each segment, which segment you are most capable of serving and which creates the best opportunity for sales and profitability. ‘

When assessing the attractiveness of each segment ask yourself the following: Is this segment big enough to justify targeting them? Will it generate enough profit? Is there a measurable difference between targeting this segment over another? Are you capable of serving the needs of the segment? Are there any barriers that would stop you reaching this segment, or them you?

Taking the time to understand the needs of the different segments, in addition to understanding your own capability to serve them, helps you to decide which segment(s) is the most attractive and which you should target. It takes a lot of research and effort to target a segment of your audience. Whether you have chosen one or multiple to target, don’t feel like you have to target them all at the same time. By focusing on one at a time you can better position your marketing to serve each.

Positioning

Now you should have an understanding of your chosen segment(s), including their motivations, pain points, demographics and psychographics, which provides a starting point to help you position your product. Try to think like them. Why would they choose you over the competition? What features are the most relevant to them based on their needs and pain points? Now you must ensure these customers can find you by highlighting the value that you can offer them relative to the competition.

And finally now you can tailor your marketing efforts to support this position. There are three standard ways you can use your marketing to position your product for a competitive advantage, including:

  • Functional Positioning: Solving a problem your customer has or providing a benefit to them.
  • Symbolic Positioning: Focusing on enhancing the self-image or fulfilling your customers need to fit in.
  • Experiential Positioning: Focusing on creating an emotional connection between your product and customer.

This STP model is an invaluable inclusion to any marketing strategy. It fosters effective marketing by helping you to deliver relevant, relatable and targeted messaging to your ideal customer. By taking such a consumer-focused approach to your marketing strategy, you can ensure that every dollar of your marketing spend is effective in reaching and relating to your audience, therefore increasing the likelihood that they will choose your brand over the competition in a buying situation.

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