MICRO MARKETING

By: Manushi Kapur

Micro-marketing is a marketing strategy in which advertising efforts are focused on a small group of highly-targeted consumers. Micromarketing requires a company to narrowly define a particular audience by a particular characteristic, such as ZIP code or job title, and design campaigns for that particular segment. It can be a more expensive technique due to customization and lack of an economy of scale.

Essentially, it involves personalization of messages to individual consumers in the context of direct marketing. Micromarketing has come to refer to marketing strategies which are variously customized to either local markets, to different market segments, or to the individual customer.

We all know what mass marketing looks like — grand gestures, splashy creative and big budget media buys designed to reach and appeal to the widest possible audience. The problem? This type of marketing is less likely than ever to actually appeal to anyone at all.

Big companies like Ford, Coke, Wal-Mart and Samsung have used micromarketing because micromarketing is all about doing the right small things to get big results, it’s less about the size of the organization and more about the willingness to think differently and take new approaches.

For instance, in order for the company Ford to move into micro marketing it had to look into specific needs and wants of different individuals and manufacture an automobile that could fulfill them. Thus, Ford could introduce a new idea of allowing consumers to detail/customize a car or in other words create their own car. For instance, if a customer were to choose the silver Ford Focus, he/she is only offered the charcoal coloured interior. Ford could open its horizons and allow consumers to choose from a large number of different interior colours. This would allow individual consumers to have a car made which is fit for them and only them.

With micromarketing, the approach calls for getting to know the client’s needs, likes, and dislikes very well. This makes it easier to match that consumer with the goods or services that are being offered. The approach is often successful because the client receives a sense of being important to the marketer and sees the efforts to connect as being on a more personal level rather than a general one.

Small businesses often use micromarketing as a means of establishing and growing a client base with a defined geographical area. For example, a small grocery store chain with outlets in three different cities could go with the more common approach of carrying the same produce in each store. With a micromarketing approach, each store would carry a core group of fresh produce, but would augment it with other produce that is of particular interest to consumers who frequent those individual stores.

To avoid waste, specific consumer segments must be defined at both macro and micro (targeted) levels to ensure long-term strategic objectives and near-term responsiveness. Marketers must also be able to determine the attitudinal "availability" of consumers, not only for their brands and competitive reputation .

So, put on your marketing caps and look around. You are sure to see some of your favorite companies doing micro marketing ….!