From Tourism Marketing for Cities and Towns: Using Branding and Events to Attract Tourists
Undifferentiated, Concentrated, and Differentiated Targeting Strategies
Segmentation refers to the process of dividing the market of consumers into groups based on one or more shared internal or external characteristics. After the segmentation process is complete, the next step is targeting, which involves the tourism marketer's choosing a segment or segments to which to communicate the promotional message. There are three different targeting strategies that a tourism marketer can implement. The tourism marketer must make the important decision as to whether he or she wishes to use an undifferentiated, concentrated, or differentiated targeting strategy (Table 5.1).
| Strategy | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Undifferentiated | Sending the same promotional message to everyone | Promoting the city as a historic destination by placing ads in widely read newspapers |
| Concentrated | Designing a promotional message that communicates the benefits desired by a single specific segment | Promoting the city as historic by targeting elderly members of historical societies by placing ads in their newsletters |
| Differentiated | Designing more than one promotional message, with each communicating different benefits | Also targeting families by communicating a promotional message about the importance of children learning history |
Undifferentiated Strategy
An undifferentiated targeting strategy is used when a company decides to communicate the benefits of its product by sending the same promotional message to everyone. For an undifferentiated strategy to be successful, the company's product must be readily available and affordable and must provide the same benefits to all consumers. Very few companies with consumer products meet these criteria. However, very large companies...
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Topics of Interest
Segmentation Methods Segmentation is the process of dividing potential consumers into groups based on shared characteristics. There are probably as many methods to segment consumers as there are...
Summary After conducing external environmental scanning, product analysis, and a SWOT analysis, segmentation is the next step in the marketing process. Since the city cannot change as a product,...
Integrated Marketing Communication One of the early tasks undertaken by tourism marketers was to analyze their city so as to understand the features and benefits it can offer to tourists. They then...
Trade Promotion MIX The five promotional mix methods by which any company can promote their product to consumers include advertising, public relations, sales incentives, direct marketing, and...
Psychographic Segmentation While demographic segmentation groups people based on characteristics that are external, psychographic segmentation groups people on characteristics that are internal.
