Organizations are fast adopting modern and advanced management tools. Every business must come up with a strategic operating tool to help overcome the stiff competition found in the contemporary business environment. Customer segmentation acts as a key marketing tool used by organizations to achieve success in the business operation. Organizations’ management should focus on establishing elements of a good strategy starting from the product/service design, pricing, distribution and towards competitive positioning. Technology creates a lot of business opportunities for entrepreneurs wishing to sell their business ideas online. The following analysis provides recommended customer segments for Blendr online dating business.
Blendr’s customer segment analysis
Competing in a narrow segment of the online dating business requires a lot of innovations and execution of unique strategies to capture a big percentage of online users. Blendr.com can easily overcome competition from other online dating sites by implementing the following recommended customer segmentation strategy. Blendr.com should focus on establishing a customer segment that can be measurable, stable, profitable, reachable, internally and externally homogeneous, and consistency.
Characterizing and understanding market segment using information gathered from outside
The online dating business continues to grow. Most emerging online dating sites use modern technologies and ideas that attract a large number of online users. Blendr.com can make use of the information gathered about their business operations to characterize and understand the type of customer segment they should use. The organization should understand that only a small percentage of the general population of online users is likely to buy their services; hence, they should maximize on these few customer groups. First, Blendr should use information gathered about online customers to characterize and understand customer demographics. Demographic segmentation strategy is the best method of understanding and describing customer needs in the online dating business. The information about customer demographics (age, gender, culture, and color) helps Blendr.com come up with the customer profile that supports other online users easily identify the person of interest to them. Customers in the same demographic always express similar needs. The age, gender, color, sex orientation, and race of the person act as the key characteristics that customers look at while looking for partners in the online dating site. Placing the customer profile under these key elements makes it easier for customers to navigate through many options; hence, more traffic on the website.
Second, the information gathered help in understanding customer value. Most online dating sites use different business models to meet their customers’ values. The purchasing behavior of the customer helps define value. Blendr should look at different models used by competitors to meet customer expectations and implement them in a more effective and unique manner. Blendr should concentrate on pricing as the key element while establishing customers’ value. Additionally, Blendr should only focus on market segments that positively influence the purchasing behavior of customers.
Data-gathering changes that Blendr should implement
The type and quality of information gathered when conducting a marketing analysis of a product or service have a lot of influence on the outcome of the marketing strategy recommended. Online businesses, unlike other businesses, are very complicated because there is limited physical contact between the involved parties. One of the most recommended data-gathering technique that Blendr should adopt to develop an efficient customer segment is the feedback from customers. The company uses a phone application that customers download on their mobile phones. Additionally, Blendr has a working website where users freely log in. These tools are very efficient in gathering information about customer demands. Customers will have a platform to write their reviews about the site and recommend any change that would improve services offered by the company. On the other hand, social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, and Whatsup among others are effective methods of data-gathering about customer needs. Blendr should create pages on different social media channels and invite people to provide information about their services.
The use of focus group acts as another effective method of data-gathering when designing marketing segmentation strategies. The Blendr senior executive can select representatives from each of the functional areas in the organization to uncover data. The focus group concentrates on gathering information from customers about the website. Additionally, the group should use their creativity to obtain information from competitors to establish their marketing strategies and define better techniques that help attract more users.
General type of costs and benefits that Blendr may incur upon using the recommended strategies
The determination of the cost and benefit associated with each recommendation helps the company achieve its goals of making profits while at the same time meeting customer demands. The main costs associated with recommended strategies are the cost of conducting research about the business and its competitors. Blendr may undergo a costly process of changing the website to include different customer demographics and values identified during the research and recommended in the new customer segment. Second, the company undergoes the cost of managing new sites such as social media channels that help in gathering data about customer needs. On the other hand, the benefits brought about by the recommended approach outweigh costs. First, implementing recommended approaches leads to more subscriptions that eventually increases the profit margin. Second, because of the improvement in services, the website will receive more positive reviews. More customers will log in to the website leading to a high competitive advantage.
