STP marketing may not be a term you’re familiar with so it’s probably best to start by looking at what STP marketing is. It is a three-step strategic marketing approach that helps businesses identify and reach the right customers more effectively through:
- Segmentation
Dividing the market into distinct groups based on shared characteristics.
- Targeting
Selecting the most productive segment/s to focus your marketing efforts on.
- Positioning
Creating the right value proposition and brand appeal in the minds of your target audience.
As STP marketing is an audience-focused rather than product-focused approach to marketing, it helps you deliver more relevant messages to the most appealing audience seams in your audience.
What is the STP marketing process?
Stage 1 is ‘segmentation’.
The reason for splitting a potential target market into smaller, more defined groups is because not all customers have the same needs, nor do they behave in the same way, react to the same messaging or tone of voice or take information from the same channels.
There are a few ways of segregating a market. You can segregate by demographics, by age, gender, income or educational background. You can split your market by location, both in terms of geography (north vs south) or type (city vs suburbs vs countryside). You can get more personal by using lifestyle, interests, hobbies or even personality types. Or you can use past purchase behaviours if you have access to that type of data.
Step 2 is ‘targeting’.
This helps you focus all your marketing efforts on the audience most likely to convert which will make your marketing not only more cost effective but also more productive.
In terms of the different targeting strategies available you could of course choose a one-size-fits-all approach but it’s much more effective to consider using differentiated marketing campaigns to speak to the different segments you’ve picked out or drill down into a specific niche.
Step 3 is positioning.
Success will be made much more likely if you stand out from your competitors. It’ll establish your brand’s value proposition in the minds of your target audience on the basis of price, quality, specificity (if you’re going niche or micro-market) and the personal benefits your product delivers or the issues/problems/challenges it solves.
What are the benefits of Segmenting, Targeting and Positioning?
Using STP is a standard practice for marketers who want to improve the effectiveness of their marketing efforts because the process offers some massive benefits:
- You can personalise
Personalisation can have a significant impact on how likely it is that the consumers your messaging reaches will buy your product because what you’re saying (and how you’re saying it) will talk directly to your audience’s requirements and preferences.
- You can save time
Marketers are always trying to make their creative more effective and more impactful, If you get this right by being more personalised, you will save time and money chasing ‘maybes’ or ‘might dos’.
- You can increase ROI
With more of your audience reacting to your campaigns, you’ll naturally increase your ROI (not to mention revenue and market share).
- You’ll have much more detailed market analysis
Once you build up a deep understanding of your different segments, you can use the insight to make your future campaigns even more productive and inform future product development.
- You’ll be able to allocate your resources more effectively
Focussing your marketing efforts on specific, high-potential segments rather than trying to hit everyone allows you to cut out the noise and concentrate on what you know works and deliver that in the ways you know your audience reacts to. Again, this will save you time (time you can reinvest in doing things even better) and budget.
- You can reinforce your competitive advantage
As your marketing will help stress your points of differentiation because your approaches are totally tailored, it will create a stronger market position by emphasising what makes you genuinely unique within their segment.
If you feel STP marketing could work for you, please get in touch and we can set up a time to chat through how you could use it to your advantage in more detail.
Or, if you’d prefer to talk about any other aspect of your marketing, brand or digital presence, drop us a line and we’ll be happy to help.
