Segmenting Business Markets free essay sample

In this lesson, we will discuss concepts and applications related to Business to Business (B2B) market segmentation. Market segmentation involves breaking down a large heterogeneous market into smaller homogeneous markets. Separate marketing programs – the marketing mix can then be developed to meet the needs of each segment. Concentration of marketing solutions is the key component of all marketing plans, and market segmentation is the tool that allows marketers to achieve this focus. Segmentation also helps marketers to satisfy customers while meeting their organization’s objectives. A segmentation base is a characteristic or variable of individuals, groups, or organizations that is used to divide a total market into segments. Markets can be segmented using a single or multiple variables. The five bases of segmentation commonly used in the B2C marketplace we learned are: 1. Geographic is based on region, size, density, and climate characteristics. 2. Demographic is based on age, gender, income level, ethnicity, and family life-cycle characteristics. We will write a custom essay sample on Segmenting Business Markets or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page . Psychographic includes personality, motives, and lifestyle characteristics. 4. Benefits segmentation identifies customers according to the benefits they seek in a product. 5. Usage segmentation divides a market by the amount of product purchased or consumed. Bases for Segmenting Business Markets: We know that the business market consists of four broad segments described as producers, resellers, institutions, and governments. However, just as with consumer markets, further segmentation can help B2B marketers to better refine their marketing mix. Company characteristics, such as geographic location, type of company, company size, and product can be used as segmentation variables. Customer type allows business marketers to customize their programs to the unique needs of particular types of organizations or industries. Information from sources such as Statistics Canada , U. S. Census Bureau and the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) are used by many marketers to tailor programs to specific business sectors. Firmographics is a term often used to describe this segmentation based on various characteristics of an organization. What demographics are to consumer markets, Firmographics are to organizations. Commonly-used firmographics include employee size, revenue size, industry, number of locations and location of headquarters. Marketers typically combine several variables to define a Firmographics profile of their target market customers. Food for thought: Jeffrey Henning, Founder VP, Strategy at Vovici (Voice of the Customer technology solutions) provides historical notes on the introduction of the concept of Firmographics and its uses in B2B marketing including a template that you might find useful! How they buy segmentation is another variable that can be very useful to marketers developing programs for the business buyer. The descriptors of these high level attributes are: a. ) Satisficers usually contact familiar suppliers and place an order with the first to satisfy product, delivery requirements or other purchase criteria the organization might establish. b. ) Optimizers consider numerous suppliers, both familiar and unfamiliar, and then solicit bids and analyze options. Governments and Non profit organizations generally utilize this approach. Size of the order or cost will also factor in to whether the buying organization will be a satisficer or an optimizer. For this reason marketers must be careful not to oversimplify when assigning this segmentation base. A growing trend in business marketing is the development of market segments based on the characteristics of the individual buying influencers found in the target customer organizations that have been identified through Firmographics. The Buyers personal characteristics or psychographics can influence their buying behavior and therefore offer a viable basis for segmenting in many business markets. These characteristics include: * Demographic characteristics * Decision style * Tolerance for risk * Confidence level * Job responsibilities Psychographics are extremely useful data to gather, but not essential for all businesses. Obviously more critical in the consumer space it can also help in B2B businesses by defining potential customer attitudes to the products/services offered. Many marketer’s have taken this concept further with the development of buyer personas to facilitate and fine tune the marketing messages directed at their most sought after customers. Adelle Revella, a thought leader on product and marketing strategies delivers further insights on this topic in her Buyer Persona Blog. Other B2C market segmentation bases such as Benefits sought and Usage rate may also be applied in business markets. The aim of market segmentation is to arrive at clusters of like-minded companies to allow marketing programs to focus on the subset of prospects that are most likely to purchase. There is a very strong pressure to use segmentation in B2B markets to win a competitive advantage where there is little to differentiate one product offering from another. Segmentation therefore links strongly with a firm’s marketing strategy to achieve a sustainable differentiated position. Market Strategies for Business Market segmentation is the first step in determining whom to approach about buying a product. The next task is to choose one or more target markets – the group of people or the organizations for which the firm will design, implement and maintain a marketing mix. This stage is the Target Market strategy or Targeting strategy and is characterized by the marketer’s decision about market approach. There are three distinct strategies that may be elected. Let’s refresh our memories. A. Undifferentiated Marketing Strategy This means the market is treated as if it were one similar market segment. It focuses on the common needs of the group rather than the differences. Its advantage is that it keeps costs down for marketing and similar related efforts. It works best with organizations that offer stable type products such as gasoline. An undifferentiated targeting strategy is essentially a mass-market philosophy—viewing the market as one big market and using one marketing mix. It is the least successful B2B targeting strategy a marketer can adopt. B. Multisegment Marketing Strategy Is a strategy that chooses two or more well defined market segments for which the organization will develop and maintain a unique marketing mix. Often the core product will remain the same but the firm develops separate marketing messages, pricing, promotion material and so forth. An example of this strategy is found at Halogen Software, the human resources or talent management solution providers. Halogen has developed core software components. By packaging the core software with additional resources Halogen can appeal to different B2B market segments. Halogen Software has â€Å" optimized† solutions (product/services) for human resource professionals in healthcare, financial services, education, and manufacturing and maybe more. C. Concentrated Marketing Strategy The concentrated targeting strategy is a marketing approach based on appealing to a single segment of a market. It focuses a firms marketing efforts on a single segment or market niche. A firm can concentrate on understanding the needs, motives, and satisfactions of the members of one segment and on developing and maintaining a highly specialized marketing mix.

Seaborgium Facts - Sg or Element 106

Seaborgium Facts - Sg or Element 106 Seaborgium (Sg) is element 106 on the periodic table of elements. Its one of the man-made radioactive transition metals. Only small quantities of seaborgium have ever been synthesized, so theres not a lot known about this element based on experimental data, but some properties may be predicted based on periodic table trends. Heres a collection of facts about Sg, as well as a look at its interesting history. Interesting Seaborgium Facts Seaborgium was the first element named for a living person. It was named to honor contributions made by nuclear chemist Glenn. T. Seaborg. Seaborg and his team discovered several of the actinide elements.None of the isotopes of seaborgium have been found to occur naturally. Arguably, the element was first produced by a team of scientists led by Albert Ghiorso and E. Kenneth Hulet at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in September, 1974. The team synthesized element 106 by bombarding a californium-249 target with oxygen-18 ions to produce seaborgium-263.Earlier that same year (June), researchers at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia had reported discovering element 106. The Soviet team produced element 106 by bombarding a lead target with chromium ions.The Berkeley/Livermore team proposed the name seaborgium for element 106, but the IUPAC had a rule that no element could be named for a living person and proposed the element be named rutherfordium instead. The American Chemical Society disputed this ruling, citing the precedent in which the element name einsteinium was proposed during Albert Einsteins lifetime. During the disagreement, the IUPAC assigned the placeholder name unnilhexium (Uuh) to element 106. In 1997, a compromise allowed that element 106 be named seaborgium, while element 104 was assigned the name rutherfordium. As you might imagine, element 104 had also been the subject of a naming controversy, as both the Russian and American teams had valid discovery claims. Experiments with seaborgium have shown it exhibits chemical properties similar to  tungsten, its lighter homologue on the periodic table (i.e., located directly above it). Its also chemically similar to molybdenum.Several seaborgium compounds and complex ions have been produced and studied, including  SgO3,  SgO2Cl2,  SgO2F2,  SgO2(OH)2,  Sg(CO)6,  [Sg(OH)5(H2O)], and [SgO2F3]−.Seaborgium has been the subject of cold fusion and hot fusion research projects.In 2000, a French team isolated a relatively large sample of seaborgium: 10 grams of seaborgium-261. Seaborgium Atomic Data Element Name and Symbol: Seaborgium (Sg) Atomic Number: 106 Atomic Weight: [269] Group: d-block element, group 6 (Transition Metal) Period: period 7 Electron Configuration:  [Rn] 5f14  6d4  7s2 Phase: Its expected the seaborgium would be a solid metal around room temperature. Density: 35.0 g/cm3 (predicted) Oxidation States: The 6 oxidation state has been observed and is predicted to be the most stable state. Based on the chemistry of homologous element, expected oxidation states would be 6, 5, 4, 3, 0 Crystal Structure: face-centered cubic (predicted) Ionization Energies: Ionization energies are estimated. 1st:  757.4  kJ/mol2nd:  1732.9  kJ/mol3rd:  2483.5  kJ/mol Atomic Radius: 132 pm (predicted) Discovery: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, USA (1974) Isotopes: At least 14 isotopes of seaborgium are known. The longest-lived isotope is Sg-269, which has a half life of about 2.1 minutes. The shortest-lived isotope is Sg-258, which has a half-life of 2.9 ms. Sources of Seaborgium: Seaborgium may be made by fusing together nuclei of two atoms or as a decay product of heavier elements. It has been observed from the decay of Lv-291, Fl-287, Cn-283, Fl-285, Hs-271, Hs-270, Cn-277, Ds-273, Hs-269, Ds-271, Hs-267, Ds-270, Ds-269, Hs-265, and Hs-264. As still heavier elements are produced, it is likely the number of parent isotopes will increase. Uses of Seaborgium: At this time, the only use of seaborgium is for research, primarily toward the synthesis of heavier elements and to learn about its chemical and physical properties. It is of particular interest to fusion research. Toxicity: Seaborgium has no known biological function. The element presents a health hazard because of its inherent radioactivity. Some compounds of seaborgium may be toxic chemically, depending on the elements oxidation state. References A. Ghiorso, J. M. Nitschke, J. R. Alonso, C. T. Alonso, M. Nurmia, G. T. Seaborg, E. K. Hulet and R. W. Lougheed, Physical Review Letters 33, 1490 (1974).Fricke, Burkhard (1975). Superheavy elements: a prediction of their chemical and physical properties. Recent Impact of Physics on Inorganic Chemistry. 21: 89–144.  Hoffman, Darleane C.; Lee, Diana M.; Pershina, Valeria (2006). Transactinides and the future elements. In Morss; Edelstein, Norman M.; Fuger, Jean. The Chemistry of the Actinide and Transactinide Elements (3rd ed.). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer ScienceBusiness Media.

Racist Skinhead Subculture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Racist Skinhead Subculture - Essay Example The racial skinhead subculture is similar to neo-Nazi ideologies in the sense that aggression is mainly targeted to certain racial groups. In this case scenario, the most hated are often Jews, since the skinheads view them as the ones who have taken all the economic privileges in the country. They also abhor blacks and other races, whom they consider as inferior races to the white race. Over the past three decades, the racist skinhead subculture has continually evolved to be more sophisticated in the way it uses the internet to spread its propaganda. Though various extremist skinhead activities were weakened after 9/11 attacks in the US due to another of issues such as arrest of some leaders and death of another (Sinderbrand, 2004:38), since 2004, and over the past five years most of the groups have been regrouping, getting integrated and increasingly carrying out race motivated attacks on people (Anti Defamation League, 2012a:1). Since such groups often surge during times of economic distress and seek to put blames on various racial groups for taking away all jobs in the economy, I contend that it is probably due to the recent economic recession that most of these racist skinheads have regrouped. It is due to this reason that this paper finds it important to study the intricacies of the brand community of the skinhead subculture, and specifically the racist skinhea ds.... It is due to this reason that this paper finds it important to study the intricacies of the brand community of the skinhead subculture, and specifically the racist skinheads. The study will use subculture theory to understand why the skinhead group is a subculture and to tease out specific elements and themes concerning a specific example of racist skinhead: Hammerskin Nation. It will also analyze empirical studies as to attributes of this group in order to understand their practice. To this end, the key research questions will be what the main characteristics of the brand Hammerskin Nation are, why they have these characteristics and why they are a subculture based on clear themes concerning their movements that have been teased out and highlighted theoretical attributes. Literature review Historical perspective of the racial Skinhead The start of the skinhead head movement can be traced in the UK back in the 1950s and the 1960s. During this time several young people defined themsel ves separately by adopting a high stylish lifestyle bordered on mainly styles adopted by the British rock bands, US R$B, as well as movie stars. Brown (2004: 175) observes these earlier young people known as mods, who were less inclined to violence, became known for their devotion to music, fashion, scooters and their general consumerism. Since not all of the fashion trendy adhering to mod subculture could afford to have the latest trends in fashion, the group split off into two, the well off referred to as the smooth mods and the working class mods who could less afford the fashion trends. Nordstrom and Robben (1995:87) show that due to this the hard mods preferred to be sported in suspenders, boots and straight legged jeans. The hard mods mainly enjoyed he hard rock,