Promotion strategies
This section of the paper examines potential promotional strategies for two product/market combinations. The first combination is fitness/exercise products (home training equipment) and African-American females aged 18-30 as target market. The second combination is non-lethal personal security products and handgun owners as target market.
The first product/market selection is based upon the notion that 7.6 million African Americans say they exercise at home, which opens up possibilities for home exercising gear producers (Lamb et al., 2011). A promotional mix typically consists of advertising, public relations, sales promotion, and personal selling. Since the majority of African-Americans use television as their primary media channel (Lamb et al., 2011), it is logical to employ television advertising in order to promote exercising equipment. The message that has to be delivered through this channel has to be based upon the fact that the target market according to a study by Lattimer Communications (2009) is to be segmented into the following psychographic types. The first type is achievers, who make up approximately 23% of the target market, (confident and capable caretakers) who need to hear or see the message that the promoted equipment is going to deliver the best results. Visual advertising in magazines would also be suitable for this group. The second type is cynics at 21% (sceptical and complacent) who will need to know the numbers and statistics as well as hear real measures of effectiveness of the promoted equipment. The third type is “traditionals” at 20% of the target market (spiritual and respectful) who are likely to pick up the trend as well as another type – “tag-a-longs” (women that are risk averse and insecure). It is also important to target self-sufficient African-American females (14% of the target market) who enjoy shopping.
It is also possible to employ age-based market segmentation or segment the market based upon family status. For example, when segmenting the market based upon family status it is possible to differentiate women who have little children and are limited in possibilities to attend the gym. Thus, the message of the advertising and public relations strategy would be that the promoted equipment gives them the opportunity to exercise at home and save their time.
The second product/market combination was selected based upon the notion that many people buy hand guns for self-defence; however, they are not morally prepared to injure somebody lethally while defending themselves. Most gun owners in America are white males aged 18 to 44 living in the south-eastern part of the USA while female gun owners are typically aged 24 to 44 living in eastern part of the United States. Since it is possible to use gender segmentation, it is also possible to select target segment, in particular, a young working woman aged 24 to 35 who owns a handgun that was bought primarily for self-defence. The key message of the promotion campaign has to be delivered through social networks and magazines. The message should be based upon two factors. First of all, it should …