Kudler Company Blog to Sell Products Online.

¶ … Kudler company blog to sell products online. Additionally, we will identify a market segment for healthy snacks and attach the blog to this target audience via a social media campaign. Based upon this, we will use findings to create a customer behavior profile. We will use the profile data to develop a message (slogan, catchphrase, or logo) and a unique selling point (USP) that could resonate with the target market. The essay will contain a brief introduction on market segmentation that leads to answers to the following questions:

How is segmentation effectively used to sell products online?

What characteristics of online sales encourage people to buy?

How may a company target a customer for online sales?

The author will explain the steps they took to create the customer profile and how the product message and USP was developed.

Market Segmentation -- an Introduction

A market segment is simply a classification of the potential private or corporate customers by analyzing one or more characteristics. This is done in order to identify the groups of customers that have similar needs and will demand similar products and services that concern the recognized qualities of the products. For example, this could include functionality, price, design or other factors. A customer is then allocated to one or another market segment by that customer's individual characteristics. Often, cluster analysis or other statistical methods are used to analyze those characteristics that can lead to and internally homogeneous and also an externally heterogeneous market segments. While there could theoretically be ideal market segments, there are in every case different ways of imagining the market segments and in the creation of Product differentiation strategies to exploit those segments. The market segmentation and the corresponding product differentiation strategy can then give a firm a commercial advantage (McDonald & Dunbar, 2004, 3).

Customer Profile and How the Product Message and USP was Developed.

The typical Kudler customer is busy, young and eats at their desk. The product message is "eat healthy on the go" and the USP that the author has developed is to market segment for snack kits that give the customer choice in picking their healthy meals. The author created this customer profile by researching the healthy foods market and segmenting the product online in order to maximize customer choice and personalization.

Market Segmentation Online

This simply means attaching a traditional market segmentation strategy to online marketing. This would mean applying the four P's (product, place, price and promotion) to an online marketing environment. With the Internet it is now possible to gain space to discuss the products, as opposed to interruption marketing (such as television commercials)

(Allen & Fjermestad, 2011, 18). Companies can now develop personal relationships with their clients online with blogs and social media dynamically. This one to one relationship allows the company has been given permission by its customers to set up a long-term relationship where the goods can be resupplied as the customers run out of them. They can also adjust the product and customize it more in real time as the customer demands (ibid). This marketing strategy undermines traditional brands and gives newer online grocers a chance to position themselves in the market (ibid., 20).

What Characteristics of Online Sales Encourage People to Buy?

Price and choice is a major reason people buy online. Choice and price comparisons are literally a few mouse clicks away. It is also possible to promote directly to customers via social media and blogs by true stories about the positive experiences people have with the company's brands (ibid., 20-21). This will promote Kudler's brands while undermining its competitors.

How may a company target a customer for online sales?

In terms of using social media, it turns the market process on its head. The traditional approach consists of segmenting a market first, then targeting a potential segment and then selecting a vehicle for reaching that segment with the company's desired content. With social media campaigns such as Facebook, the contact can happen first and the segmentation can happen dynamically and simultaneously after that point on. The information is then shared within the social network and a targeted, market segment emerges organically from the online community that exists around the social media platform or blog updated in real time (Wright & Hinson, 2009, 25-26).