Customer-Driven Marketing Strategies: the entire process of having customers produce marketing material for a certain brand for free.
So during class today, we went through GoPro cameras website. They have a tab that produces lots of videos from customers who use the product. All of this is considered free marketing material for the brand. How does GoPro encourage people to access the community and be part of it? Here is a 3 min case study.
Segmentation is one of the basic definitions of who to market for. Segmentation can happen by: Geographic, Demographic, Psychographic, and Behavioural segmentation.
Fig 1.0 Four Different Types of Segmentation
Looking at GoPro Hero website and the videos that customers post, Geographic segmentation would not be the direct identifier. The company is not advertising for any people within a specific geographical location. So could it be demographic?
Demographic is the segmentation that is decided based on age, lifecycle stage, income, gender, etc. Also taking that into consideration, it becomes difficult to decide what is the direct factor that is driving this marketing strategy.
Psychographic segmentation is based on people’s lifestyles, social class, and personality characteristics; where as Behavioural segmentation takes place considering occasions, benefits sought, usage rates user status, and loyalty status. Now this starts to sound a bit more closer to reality.
The reason why behavioural tends to be the closer one in this case study is driven from the characteristics that affect consumers behaviour. One element is the social characteristics. People can be classified into three social network groups:
- Membership groups: groups that have direct influence onto the person that belongs to them
- Aspirational Groups: groups that a person aspires to be part of
- Reference Groups: groups that form a comparison or a reference point
Looking at these social consumer behaviour, one can deduce that the community GoPro Hero is created for are for those who are part of the membership; in this case adventurous, and those who are into extreme sport; as well as aspirational groups; those who are new using the product and would want to become as adventurous as those who have posted their videos.
Once segmentation is decided using multiple factors, evaluating the final outcome is needed. Companies should consider the segment size and growth, structural attractiveness and the objective and resources they have.
- How powerful are the buyers?
- How powerful are the suppliers?
- How powerful are the competitors?
- Is it easy to access a market or not?
All of these are questions companies should ask when evaluating their segment. Regulations and legal requirements are also key aspects of the structural attractiveness of a market segment.
Putting the segmentation analysis into context: if GoPro found out that the adventurous people form around 1% of the entire population only, would they continue to cater for this community? or would they change their strategy and product offer?
If you want to watch some videos and see how the discussion was driven in class, click here to access GoPro posted videos.
What do you think of this 3 minutes case study? Please do share your thoughts!
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