MT219 Unit 3 Segmentation Exercise Example

Same Median Age, Five Different Buyers: A Unit 3 Segmentation Exercise for a Cleaning Tablet Brand

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

MT219: Marketing

Unit 3 Segmentation Exercise

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

Brightdrop Home, its order records and every share and figure are composite and illustrative; the sources cited are real.

Why Segment by Behavior

Brightdrop Home's first marketing plan described its customer as an urban woman aged 25 to 40 with a college degree and an interest in sustainability. A year of order records shows that description fits about half of buyers and predicts almost nothing about who stays. Smith (1956) framed segmentation as an alternative to differentiating one product for everyone: the seller studies how demand splits into groups and shapes its offer to fit them, and Yankelovich and Meer (2006) argued that segments should be chosen for what they reveal about buying behavior rather than for convenient demographic labels. This exercise follows their advice.

The Data

The records cover about [41,000] buyers who bought a starter kit in the brand's first twelve months. For each buyer they show the number of tablets bought, the formulas chosen, whether the buyer subscribed, the dates of every order and, for about a third, the answer to a one-question survey at checkout: what are you hoping to fix? Shipping addresses give approximate household type.

Five Segments

The first segment is committed refillers, about [18] percent of first-year buyers. They subscribe, reorder every four to six weeks and buy two or three formulas. The basis is loyalty status and usage rate. Most answered the survey with a phrase about plastic or waste.

The second is lapsed triers, about [38] percent, the largest group. They bought a starter kit and at most one small reorder, then stopped. The basis is loyalty status. Their survey answers varied widely, and many skipped the question. A follow-up email asking why they stopped drew answers about streaking on glass, a scent they disliked and forgetting to reorder.

The third is heavy-use households, about [14] percent of buyers but about [31] percent of tablets sold. They go through four or more bottles a month, mostly the all-purpose and floor formulas, and their addresses suggest families with children and often pets. The basis is usage rate. Their survey answers mention grease, muddy floors and cost.

The fourth is gift buyers, about [11] percent, whose orders spike in November and December and who often ship the kit to a different address. The basis is purchase occasion. Few reorder for themselves. Some recipients do become customers, but the records cannot yet link a gift recipient's later order to the gift, so the segment's true value is uncertain.

The fifth is bottle collectors, about [19] percent, who buy extra bottles in new colors and relatively few tablets. The basis is benefit sought: they want the bottles to look good on an open shelf. Many are renters in small apartments without cabinet space. For them the bottle is part of the decor, and a new color can sell even when they have plenty of tablets left.

The Demographic Column

When the five segments are compared on median age, the figures run from about [33] to [37], and median household income varies by less than [$9,000]. Committed refillers skew slightly younger and heavy-use households slightly older, but the differences are too small to target with. A campaign aimed at women aged 25 to 40 would reach all five segments in roughly equal proportion and could not tell a family going through four bottles a month from a renter who bought a pink bottle for her shelf.

The heaviest users and the lapsed triers are the same age; they just clean very different kitchens.

Evaluating the Segments

Each segment can be judged on size, value, reachability and fit with what the brand can offer. Committed refillers are valuable and already served; the brand mainly needs to keep them. Lapsed triers are large but hard to win back, since their reasons for leaving vary. Gift buyers are seasonal and add little lifetime value. Bottle collectors bring revenue from bottles but buy few tablets.

The lapsed triers deserve a second look before they are set aside. They are the largest group, and their stated reasons, a streaky glass formula, a scent and forgetting to reorder, are mostly fixable. A better glass tablet and a reminder email at the four-week mark might bring some back at little cost. But they are spread across every kind of household, which makes them hard to reach with any single message.

Heavy-use households stand out. They are a modest share of buyers but nearly a third of tablet volume, their needs are clear and consistent, and the brand's current messages about plastic do not speak to those needs. Kotler and Armstrong (2021) note that an attractive segment should be measurable, accessible, substantial and actionable, and this one meets all four tests.

Recommendation

Brightdrop should choose heavy-use households as its primary target for the coming year, keep committed refillers as a protected secondary segment and stop designing campaigns around the demographic profile. Later units can then test whether the product, price, channels and promotion fit a family that goes through a bottle a week.

References

Kotler, P., & Armstrong, G. (2021). Principles of marketing (18th ed.). Pearson.

Smith, W. R. (1956). Product differentiation and market segmentation as alternative marketing strategies. Journal of Marketing, 21(1), 3-8. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224295602100102

Yankelovich, D., & Meer, D. (2006). Rediscovering market segmentation. Harvard Business Review, 84(2), 122-131.