Targeting strategies should be appropriate to fulfill marketing objectives of the business. The three broad targeting strategies that businesses usually employ are Mass Marketing, Niche Marketing and Differentiated Marketing.
What is Mass Marketing targeting strategy?
Mass Marketing is the opposite to Niche Marketing. It is also knows as undifferentiated marketing or market aggregation.
Mass Marketing targeting strategy includes selling the same product for the whole market. The company aims to target all people with one product or one strategy without segmenting them into groups.
Mass Marketing targets a very large non-defined section of the whole market. The firm sells to all customers on the market ignoring individual market segments. Marketing managers assume that all customers will all want the same product. The firm will not divide the market and will not provide different products to each market segment. It ignores the existence of market segments whatsoever.
A business employing Mass Marketing targeting strategy sells the exact same product to the mass market trying to maximize sales volume to millions of customers. The goods are of good enough quality and moderate price. The firm will concentrate on mass production of that one product trying to achieve various economies of scale such as production economies of scale or marketing economies of scale. It will lower the average cost of producing one product.
Examples of Mass Marketing strategy
Example 1: Used to market staple foods such as water, flour, sugar, rice, etc.
Example 2: Also used for social marketing to communicate announcements to the general public such as waste management, anti-drunk driving, etc.
Advantages of Mass Marketing
The advantages of Mass Marketing are viewed as the disadvantages of Niche Marketing.
1. Fully exploiting economies of scale. Very large businesses selling to very large markets allow to benefit from economies of scale to be achieved due to high volume demanded. Mass market requires mass production as a production method. Mass market businesses are able to enjoy substantially lower average costs of production than niche markets which reduces unit costs.
2. Fewer Marketing Mixes than in Differentiated Marketing reduces expenses. In Mass Marketing there is no need to change marketing strategies for different segments. Targeting the entire market with a single marketing campaign saves scarce marketing resources and time.
3. Large customer base and large sales revenue. Selling to millions of customers reduces risk when spending patterns of some consumer change. Mass Marketing is less risky than Niche Marketing because mass markets have much wider customer base. Therefore, losing one or two customers is not a big deal. A much larger market give the firm potential for generating high sales revenue and earning more profits.
Disadvantages of Mass Marketing
The disadvantages of Mass Marketing are viewed as the advantages of Niche Marketing.
1. High barriers to entry. Mass marketing is not suitable for all businesses, especially for small firms and medium firms as there are very high entry barriers. Advanced technology which is very expensive is necessary for mass production. Many smaller firms do not have enough sources of finance to afford it.
2. Very competitive with low profit margins. Fierce competition between multinational firms operating in the mass market lowers down prices, hence profit margins. These days, customers are offered with abundant choices to buy from rival businesses instead of choosing the firm’s products.
3. Marketing campaigns can be very expensive yet inefficient. Targeting all customers with the same Marketing Mix may be a waste of resources. Lack of focus on a particular market segment means that specific customers are not being targeted in the appropriate way. High spending on expensive mass marketing campaign may prove ineffective, if sales do not increase substantially.
4. Not suitable for many products. Mass Marketing strategy requires mass markets. And unfortunately, many markets are just not large enough. Also, many individual customers are always looking for something different than what another person has, hence the scope for Mass Marketing approach is limited.
Marketing strategies are necessary for the firm to achieve marketing objectives. Marketing managers will be looking at appropriate market segmentation, targeting and positioning of the firm and its products.
