Tthe level of segmentation in Slim Fit Singapore

Author: Iloka Benneth Chiemelie

Published: 16th of March 2014

Introduction

A number of firms in the modern business setting has recognized the need to keep customers satisfied and it is centered around the understanding that customer satisfaction has a strong influence on their level of loyalty which will directly influence their repurchase intention. On that account, it can easily be argued that the need to keep customers satisfied has a direct influence on the performance of the company because the more customers are satisfied, the better they will be in terms of being loyal towards the brand and it will directly influence the performance of the company as a result of the high influence it will have on the overall repurchase intention from the customers. Weinstein (2002) is one of the authors that have written on the need to keep customer satisfied and his write-up is centered on understanding that there are differences in the market in terms of customer share, which is a measure of the level of customer retention, and it is based on the understanding that companies will be able to perform higher is they are capable of renting their customers as these customers will improve the performance of the company through their repurchases for the same brand. In order to improve the level of customer retention, it has been discussed that company initiate a number of activities such as on customer satisfaction (Rust &Zahorik, 1993), complaint management (Fornell&Wernerfelt, 2003), and loyalty (Reichheld, 2000). Speed and Smith (1992) advocate the use of segmentation as a way to improve customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and customer retention.

On that account, the purpose of this paper is designed to understand the level of segmentation in Slim Fit Singapore. The paper will look into understanding the business operations of the company, how they go about their business, core values, and perceived customer satisfaction level. Additionally, the paper will look into the core objective which is to understand the approaches to customer segmentation adopted in the company.

Slim fit Singapore: a business review

Slim fit was founded in 1997, and since the foundation, the company has been successful in serving the health and beauty segment of the Singapore market  by meeting the exclusive needs of females in the market for over 15 years (Slim Fit, 2013).

Initially, the company started with its business focus being on pigmentation treatment, but gradually expanded its business scope into range of natural beauty therapies that now include stretch mark removal, body massage and customers’ weight-loss programs. However, the most significant business setting of the company is that it has now become a pioneer in natural bust enhances in Singapore and have ever since been useful to women in solving their breast problems (Slim Fit, 2013). The breast enhancement section has been the most successful of its business and the rise in demand meant that the company had to expand its business operations into Malaysia, in 2004.

Since inception, Slim Fit has been successful in establishing an unparalleled reputation not only as a result of the effectiveness of its breast enhancement scheme, but also as a result of the professionalism of its team, consultancy and therapeutic services. This is patrolled by the level of privacy and exclusivity that the guest experience while in the company as a result of the cuss design that it boost in all of its outlets (Slim Fit, 2013).  On that account, the focus of this paper is to understand the factors that have helped the company become so successful in relation to the market segmentation and positioning approaches adopted by the company.

The concept of market segmentation

Market segmentation has been discussed in numerous literatures, but the focus has been on understanding how important it is in marketing as to how it can be used to enhance the marketing activities of a company and increases sales in the process. Segmentation basically involve division or grouping of factors, which in the case of marketing deals with grouping customers according to their individual needs and this is normally done through factors such as demographic, geographic, psychological and behavioral. It is understood that by so doing, the marketing will be able to have a more clear understanding of their target audience and as such adopt a more effective marketing  (Gunter and Furnham, 1992: 1). The reason for such has been accounted as being due to the fact that by putting the customers in the front view, the marketer will be able to get more satisfied customers and on that case gain a greater advantage of competitors. (Dibb and Simkin, 1996: 3). Market segmentation can be described in different ways and it depends on the preference of customers and one of such ways is: homogenous preference, which is used to described customers that have roughly similar preferences. The second classification is diffused preference, which is used to describe customers that have variation in preferences and the final is clustered preference, which is used to describe the situation in which the natural market segment is gotten from shared preferences of the customers (Kotler and Keller, 2009: 249).

When discussions on market segmentation emerge, it is considered important to touch little hands on three areas of marketing which is normally taken into consideration when marketing products. The first of such is mass marketing, and it is an area which covers mass production, mass distribution and mass promotion to all buyers (Gunter and Furnham, 1992: 2). In any case, differences in individual needs and styles have been recognized as having a high influence on their demand and this has led to a new dimension of marketing in the form of customized marketing in which the needs of customers are meet individually (Dibb and Simkin, 1996: 4). A good example of such is Dell Computers, who makes products based on customizations provided by customers on their website and other super brands such as Rolls-Royce that roles out their car brands based on customized orders by customers.

Another area comes in the form of product differentiated marketing, which is used to describe the situation in which the marketer produces two or more products that comes with different features, styles, quality and size. The third aspect comes in the form of target marketing, which is used to describe a situation in which marketers distinguishes their products amongst different market segments, an chooses one  or more of these market segments and develop products with marketing mix that are customized to meet the needs of this segment (Gunter and Furnham, 1992: 2).

Based on the discussions above, the need arises to understand the different forms of segmentation and this section of the paper will look to elaborate on it. The first comes in the form of demographic segmentation and as Armstrong and Kotler (2005: 187) described it, it is a form of segmentation in which the customers are divided based on demographic values like their age, gender, family size, family cycle, income, occupation, education, religion, race, generation, social class and nationality (Kotler and Keller, 2009: 257).

Pickton and Broderick (2005: 376) presented an understanding of the second form of segmentation which they described as geographic and it deals with the customers being segmented based on the places they live such as their country, state, religion, counties, cities or neighborhood. In this form of segmentation, the company can choose to target one of more of these segments.

Psychographic segmentation is the third form of segmentation and it involves segmenting customers based on their psychological variables, which is driven from two principles as personality and lifestyle (Gunter and Furnham, 1992: 26). This form of segmentation is normally used as a support for the demographic and geographic segmentation and it narrows the customers down to smaller segments.

Another form of segmentation is based on the customers’ behavior and this is referred to as behavioral segmentation which is a form of segmentation in which the customers are grouped based on their attitude towards a brand, use of brand, or response to the given product or services. In this form of segmentation, the marketers seeks to understand the needs of loyal customers as they are considered priority in the business growth (Kotler and Keller, 2009: 263).

Market targeting

In the process of segmentation, the second stage involves targeting customers according to their needs. The marketer makes a clear identification of the segment that they want to target and decides on how many and which customers in that particular segment to target. With respect to that decision, the marketer will decided on whether to adopt a differentiated or undifferentiated targeting (Dibb and Simkin, 1996: 15-16), in which differentiated targeting involves targeting the customers based on the segments described above, while undifferentiated targeting involves targeting all the customers in the segment.

Positioning

Positioning is the third and final step in market segmentation. Once the marketer has clearly identified the segments and chosen the appropriate segment to target, the final step involves the decision of what position the product or services should be put to occupy in the market. Positioning is concerned with how the customers view the given product or services in relation to their perceived value obtained from using the product (Kotler and Keller, 2009: 308). It is very important to understand the position occupied in the market because customer make use of this information to differentiate brands and as such it influences their decision on which of the brands to choose.

The best approach to measure the market position of  a brand is through the position mapping, which is a map used to describe where a brand currently stand in relation to given variables and functions. For instance, a brand can be positioned as high quality and low price, or high price and high quality. However, the market needs to ensure that the actual position occupied by the brand is such that the brand has been designed to occupy and this is done through market survey.

Segmentation in Slim Fit Singapore

Having presented a clear understanding of the concepts of segmentation, this section of the paper will look to understand how slim fit has been able to segment its services in the Singaporean market. From the above description of the company, it can be noted that the company has expanded into Malaysia and as such the descriptions will also cover their practices in the Malaysian market.

The first element that can be discovered from the above analysis is that the company adopts a demographic form of services. This is because their services are tailored only for women and they also focus on breast enhancement. Additionally, it can be seen that the company segments its customers based on geographic segmentation in the sense that they operate only in Malaysia and Singapore and have their adverts mainly target to this market segments. The most interesting of arguments comes in the form that company segments it market psychologically by communicating the need for breast enhancement in their adverts as shown in the figure1 below, which actually contains a woman with enhanced breast being watched around by other women with non-enhanced breast and admired by numerous men in the settings of the advert.

Targeting in slim fit

From the above description, it is clear that slim fit mainly target women who seek for breast enhancement as this is their core business offering. However, the company is also involves in beauty and health services, and Spa, but specifically targets its services to women.

Positioning

This is probably the most complicating element of the company’s service offering when discussing about segmentation, but this will be described with the theories discussed in this paper. The positioning elements are hacked from their advertisement and information contained in the company’s website and it can be stated that they position their services as being natural breast enhancement for women, and quality services at the conform of privacy and confidentiality which is provided in their Spa outlets. On that account, the focus of this paper is to understand the factors that have helped the company become so successful in relation to the market segmentation and positioning approaches adopted by the company.

This is probably the most complicating element of the company’s service offering when discussing about segmentation, but this will be described with the theories discussed in this paper. The positioning elements are hacked from their advertisement and information contained in the company’s website and it can be stated that they position their services as being natural breast enhancement for women, and quality services at the conform of privacy and confidentiality which is provided in their Spa outlets. This can be demonstrated in the

From the above figure, it can be seen that the company positions itself as offering natural breast enhancement that comes with high quality and privacy for the customers. The value that they are communicating is that the customers will not have to worry about the side effects of artificial services such as surgical and pill aided breast enhancement.

 Conclusion

The conclusion presented in the above analysis is that segmentation is very imtegral in the business process and companies need to ensure that their products and/or services are well positioned in their customers segments. The need for proper segmentation has been identified to be related to the fact that since customers are different in their personality and views about given situation, differences will exist about how they live their lives and what they order or need in order to meet their daily wants. As such, companies can no longer afford to be too general in their business settings, but are advised to instead look into understanding the individual needs of these customers and applying necessary approaches in order to ensure that these needs are meet individually. This increases business success greatly because the companies are now be more sure that their products and services will be ordered by these customers because they have tailored their production towards meeting their individual needs.

This is the account from which the analysis about Slim Fit was developed, and earlier discussions showed that the company has enjoyed tremendous success since its inception and it becomes necessary to understand the reasons behind such success. From the analysis, it was noted that one of the reason is because the company has successfully segmented its market and targeted this market by carefully positioning its services to meet the identified needs of this market segment. On that note, it will be concluded that market segmentation is very important in the business process because it helps the company to clearly identify its customers and tailor its services towards meeting the needs of these customers. The outcomes of such are increased customer satisfaction, retention, loyalty and repurchase behavior, which will increase the performance of the company significantly.

References

Armstrong, Gary &Kotler, Philip (2005) Marketing: An Introduction Upper Saddle River, N.J. Prentice Hall, 7. Edition.

Dibb, Sally and Simkin, Lyndon (1996)  The market segmentation workbook: Target marketing for marketing managers  Routledge, London.

Fornell, C and Wernerfelt, B (2003).‘’Defensive marketing strategy by customer complaint management: A theoretical analysis’’. Journal of Marketing Research, vol. 24, Pp 337-346.

Gunter, Barrie and Adrian Furnham (1992) Consumer profiles: An introduction to psychographics Routledge, London, 1992.

Kotler, Philip & Keller, Kevin Lane (2009)  Marketing Management  Pearson Education International, 13. Edition.

Pickton, David & Broderick, Amanda (2005) Chapter 17: Identifying target audiences and profiling target markets In Pickton, David & Broderick, Amanda: Integrated marketing communications, 2.edition, pp.371-398

Reichheld, F and Sasser, W. (2000). ‘’Zero defections: quality comes to services’’. Harvard – Business Review, September-October, pp 105-111

Rust R and Zahonik, A, (1993).‘’Customer satisfaction, customer retention, and market share’’.Journal of Retailing, 2(69), Pp193-215.

Slim Fit (2012), “get a beautiful busty breast.” Available at: http://www.slimfitspa.com/index.php [Accessed on: 25/06/5023].

Speed, R. and Smith, G. (1992).“Retailing financial services segmentation”.The Service Industries Journal.Volume 12, July, Pp 368-83.

Weinstein, A. (2002). ‘’Customer-specific strategies- Customer retention: A usage segmentation and customer value approach’’, journal of Targeting Measurement and Analysis for Marketing, 10(3), 259-268.American Marketing Association.

Youtube (2013), “Slim Fit Advert for Breast Enhancement.” Avialable at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnmDRBwSZyA [Accessed on: 25/06/2013].