Customer Analysis

Key Questions to be answered:

• How Alpha’s LSTV can identify attractive market segments?
• How and which market targeting strategy is Alpha going to choose?

Alpha’s marketing strategy needs to meet 2 broad objectives:

• carefully select the target market
• design marketing activities to achieve the desired positioning in hearts and minds of
the target market
 Customer Analysis

So to start with, Alpha needs to pinpoint exactly as to:

• Who its customers are?
• What are their needs?
• What drives their decision? 
• How its product meets their needs?
 Customer Analysis : Step 1
Identify as well as conduct research on the customers and their needs
Customer Analysis by the marketing managers of Alpha can include:
• Growth rate of the industry
• Potential market size of the overall market
• Potential market size of the target segment
• Tangible and intangible product features desired by customers
• Core purpose of buying the products
• Frequency of purchase
• Recent purchases
• Industry trends
• Income levels of customers
• Demographics of customers (Age, Sex, Income, Education)
• Lifestyle
 Customer Analysis : Step 1
Identify as well as conduct research on the customers and their needs
Customer Analysis by the marketing managers of Alpha can include (Contd.):
• Geographic location of customers
• Scope (number of potential customers)
• Customer base
• Purchase history
 B2B B2C

• Revenue • Income

• Number of employees • Age range

• Decision-makers’ position in the organization • Lifestyle

• Geographical location • Geographical location

• Scope: How many potential customers • Scope: How many potential customers

• Growing/shrinking customer base • Growing/shrinking customer base

•  Past behavior, e.g. purchase history • Past behavior, e.g. purchase history

• Stated projection of future needs • Future needs/wants

 Customer Analysis : Step 2
Identify your customer's main decision drivers and specific behaviors
Alpha can consider how Customers are affected by a combination of these factors:
• Price of product
• Quality of product
• Existing competition
• Urgency of finding solutions to existing problems
• Product / industry knowledge of customers
• Source of knowledge of the customers
• Current relationship with the customers
• Preferred supplier of the customers
• Product compatibility of the products used by customers
• Effect of product to current operations of the customers
 Customer Analysis : Step 3
Show how the product meets the Customers’ needs
Finally Alpha needs to Check its own position:
• What are its core values and positioning in the market?
• How does that match the customers’ needs?
• Does anything need to be redefined in terms of marketing and branding?

Basically it needs to clearly draw the line between the customers’ needs and its
solution, keeping in mind their decision drivers.
Finally, Alpha can turn its results into a precisely and completely stated value
proposition in the customer analysis marketing plan.
ALPHA CORPORATION - CASE STUDY
Introduction of LSTV
 Customer Analysis
First of all, TV occupied a central place in most Americans’ lives.
1. Customer Demographics:
• Owners’ average age - 44 years
• Owners btw 35-54 - over 60%
• Buying process was gender-biased (Over two-thirds were men) true across all major brands
• Over 54% - Income over 50000$
• Over 80% - Had College education
 Customer Analysis
2. Geographic Locations of Customers:
• Tend to be purchased by customers who live in large population centres
• Only 18% of the owners lived in cities with population less than 50000
• 45% of the owners lived in metros with population more than 2 million
• Sales were split evenly across all regions
• Shares of top brands also did not vary greatly by region
 Customer Analysis
3. Core Purpose/ Reasons for buying:
• Bought as replacement of an existing set
• In majority of the cases, the Replacement decision is made not because the set has stopped working.
Instead it is made based on the feeling that existing set does not offer quality of the viewing experience
that an LSTV buyer desires.
• Most of the owners had bought because they wanted a big/ bigger TV to enhance the viewing
experience.
 Customer Analysis
4. Evaluation Criteria:
• Picture quality was the most important factor which influenced the selection of Brand
• Almost 70% rated Picture quality as the most influential factor
• Second most influential was the screen size followed by Manufacturer’s reputation
 Customer Analysis
5. Price:
• Price was not a particularly important factor.
• For most of the LSTV Owners, the concept of “Bigger is better” applied.
 Customer Analysis
6. Knowledge about the Product:
• Longer the consideration before actually buying, the customers felt that they were
more knowledgeable about the product
 Customer Analysis
7. Time spent gathering information:
• About 37% spent less than a week
• About 35% spent between a month to a year
 Customer Analysis
8. Source of information to Customers:
• Company sources and independent sources
• Salespersons in particular seemed to give out a lot of information
 Customer Analysis
8. Source of information to Customers (Contd.):
• More likely to be exposed to company sources
• However, more likely influenced by non-company sources as the customers felt that
they were unbiased and therefore more credible
 Customer Analysis
9. Shopping behaviour of Customers:
• Customers compares different brands wrt picture quality and other features
• Visits an average of 3 stores
• 37% visit 4 or more stores
• The more knowledgeable customer considers himself, the more he/ she shops
• Mostly purchase in a TV/ Appliance store or a Hi-Fi/ Stereo store
 Customer Analysis
9. Shopping behaviour of Customers (Contd.) :
• Mostly purchase in a TV/ Appliance store or a Hi-Fi/ Stereo store
• Even the customers held back percentage was the maximum in TV/ Appliance store
and Hi-Fi/ Stereo store
 Customer Analysis
10. Purchase Decision :
• About 50% already decided on the brand they were going to buy before stepping into
the store on the day of purchase
• Out of them 95% bought the pre-decided brand
• Rest were still open to suggestions
• Even the percentage of customers the
 Customer Analysis
11. Consideration of Brands:
• Customers considered over 3 brands before actually purchasing one
• Again the top reason for considering a Brand was picture quality followed by desired
features, followed by manufacturer’s reputation and others.
 Customer Analysis
12. Holding on to Customers:
• SHARP was the best of all in terms of holding on to customers who considered it
 Customer Analysis
13. Target Customer Segmentation:
• Based on Screen-size (not an influential factor in terms of Consideration of Brand, but
influential in customer segmentation)
• 3 Segments:
 35-40 inches (come looking for a big screen but settle for a lower one)
 41-49 inches (make quick decision, but mostly consider it as a piece of furniture)
 50+ inches (more focused on big picture/ theatre like experience)
 Customer Analysis
14. Recommending to others:
• Over 90% recommend the brand they bought to their friends and neighbours
• On an average, an LSTV owner recommends the brand he bought to three people
 Final Recommendations based on Customer Analysis
1. Target the segment of middle aged customers (between 35-55)
2. Target the segment of customers opting for 41-49 inch
3. Features most desired by customers - Focus on the critical features for sales (picture quality
followed by screen size)
4. Focus on sound quality
5. Go with aggressive pricing strategy
6. Propaganda through salespersons
7. Maximum let salespersons be the source of Information
8. Focus on how to hold on to the customers who have considered you
9. Give offers (like free services, coupons, etc.) if customers recommend your brand and product
to others
10.Spread the word about your company’s good reputation
11.Focus on sales mainly in TV/ Appliance store and Hi-Fi/ Stereo store
12.Focus on propaganda through Magazine articles, Manufacturer Brochures and Magazine Ads
and the data to be included wrt features in order of priority
 Final Recommendations based on Customer Analysis
13. While explaining about the product to customers focus more on picture quality and screen
size
14. Always show products starting from the biggest screen size if possible
15. Customer Life time Value - Rather than focusing marketing efforts around single purchase,
Alpha should develop marketing strategy that can maximize customer life time value