Marketing Management 3(2+1)

Lesson 10 : Market Segmentation

Demographic Segmentation

Some demographic segmentation variables include:

• Age, Gender, Family size
  • Age is another obvious way to divide the market into segments since so many products are based upon “time of life”.
  • Products are gender specific; especially in clothing, cosmetics and magazines.
  • Product requirements change with age. Ex: Beverages relevant to different age groups like Horlicks light, Women’s Horlicks, Pediasure etc.
• Income, Occupation, Education ,Ethnicity, Nationality, Religion
  • Segmenting markets on the basis of income and expenditure patterns
    - The number of single mom families has increased
  • Male single parent families have more income, on average, than Female single parent families
  • Many of these have standard categories –
    • Eg: lifecycle often can be – bachelor, married, DINKS-(Double Income, No kids), full-nest, empty nest, solitary survivor
    • There are different buying characteristics of people in each stage of the family
    • Households are only one, or two people
    • Number of nuclear families is on the increase
    • Many unmarried people, and old widowed people, live by themselves

  Each of these segment’s requirement is different and diversified. Marketers have to be careful when targeting age as segment because people of the same age group may require different unrelated products also. Ex: Some of the old people may be confined to wheelchairs while others may be active in sports.