Pro Marketing

The product adoption curve is a tool used by marketers to segment customers based on their willingness to try new products. There are five distinct groups within the product adoption curve: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards. Innovators are the first to try new products and are willing to take on the risk of buying something that may not be a success. They only represent 2.5% of all consumers. Early adopters are the second wave of consumers to try new products. They are even more risk-averse than innovators and will only buy a new product if it has been proven to be successful. They represent 13.5% of all consumers. The early majority are the third wave of consumers to try new products. They are even more risk-averse than early adopters and will only buy a new product if it has been widely accepted by other consumers. They represent 34% of all consumers. The late majority are the fourth group to adopt new products. They are even more cautious than...

Knowledge of market break-down is useful for market planning. The following are productive ways to break down the market: The potential market is the set of consumers with a sufficient level of interest in a market offer. However, their interest is not enough to define a market unless they also have sufficient income and access to the product. The available market is the set of consumers who have interest, income, and access to a particular offer. The target market is the part of the qualified available market the company decides to pursue. The penetrated market is the set of consumers who are buying the company’s product. If the company isn’t satisfied with its current sales, it can try to attract a larger percentage of buyers from its target market. It can lower the qualifications fro potential buyers. It can expand its available market by opening distribution elsewhere or lowering its price, or it can reposition itself in the minds of its customers.   

Harvard's Michael Porter has proposed the value chain as a tool for identifying ways to create more customer value. According to this model, every firm is a synthesis of activities performed to design, produce, market, deliver, and support it's products. The firm's success depends not only on how well each department performs its work, but also on how well the company coordinates departmental activities to conduct core business processes . The processes include: The market-sensing process: All the activities in gathering and acting upon information about the market. The new-offering realization process: All the activities in researching, developing, and launching new higher quality offerings quickly and within budget. The customer acquisition process: All the activities in defining target markets and prospecting for new customers. The customer relationship management process: All the activities in building deeper understanding, relationships, and offerings to individual cus...