Customers and Market Segmentation
Customer needs, market orientation, segmentation and targeting as foundations for a coherent marketing decision.
How to study for GCSE Business
Learn each concept as a cause-and-effect chain, practise calculations with units, apply evidence from the case and justify decisions against the business's objectives.
Core concepts
Concept 1
Marketing begins with understanding and anticipating customer needs rather than simply promoting an existing product.
Exam cue: Name the customer need and show how it influences a product or service decision.
Concept 2
Segmentation divides a broad market into groups with shared characteristics or needs so a business can target decisions more precisely.
Exam cue: State the segmentation variable and describe the resulting group rather than using a vague label.
Concept 3
A useful target segment should be identifiable, reachable and sufficiently attractive relative to the business's objectives and resources.
Exam cue: Judge a target by expected demand, competition, access, cost and fit.
Risk pitfalls and guardrails
Treating customers as one uniform group.
Guardrail: Do not stop at a generic advantage or disadvantage: use the case, check the calculation and keep board-specific paper claims separate from the common core.
Confusing a segmentation variable with a promotional method.
Guardrail: Do not stop at a generic advantage or disadvantage: use the case, check the calculation and keep board-specific paper claims separate from the common core.
Assuming the largest segment is automatically the most profitable or suitable.
Guardrail: Do not stop at a generic advantage or disadvantage: use the case, check the calculation and keep board-specific paper claims separate from the common core.
Memory anchors
Customer need
A problem, desire or requirement a buyer seeks to satisfy.
Market segmentation
Dividing a market into groups with shared characteristics or needs.
Target market
The customer group a business chooses to serve.
Market orientation
Basing decisions on researched customer needs and market conditions.
Segment test
Identifiable, reachable, attractive and compatible with the business.
Checkpoint rule
Do the check-up only after you can summarize each concept in one sentence and identify one dangerous pitfall from memory.
Knowledge Check (after reading)
Short check-up to confirm understanding of this module.
Check-up Questions
What is a customer need?
A commuter chooses a grocery app mainly because it delivers within 30 minutes. Which need is most evident?
Answer all questions to submit.
Next step personalized recommendations
Continue learning
Move forward only after this module is stable.
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