What's up brand builders Stephen Houraghan here at BrandMasterAcademy.com and in this
video you're going to learn what differentiated marketing is so you can understand how to build
broad brand appeal while staying relevant to specific segments
now if you're new to the channel and you want to build brands that go beyond the visuals using
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brand strategy blueprint it's a free download and the link is in the description now when you build
a brand you start by defining a target market and you then develop the brand to appeal to that
market though some markets are quite broad and there are many different types of people within
a given market to appeal to and that is where differentiated marketing comes in so what is
differentiated marketing well it's a strategy used by brands to appeal to multiple segments of their
target market it provides brands with a means to be more relevant and to expand their reach and
market share while remaining consistent with their brand positioning and messaging and they do this
by tailoring specific offers and specific messaging to specific segments of the market
while staying on brand and in line with the longer term brand strategy now there are many different
ways that a brand can differentiate from their competitors and this is where strategy comes in
there is no one-size-fits-all approach and there are countless different ways that a brand can
engage its audience and achieve its objectives every industry and market is different which
means that brand strategists have to define and analyze the market and then define a best approach
for each circumstance that they come across so what are the pros and cons of differentiated
marketing well differentiated marketing is simply a tool that brands use to get in front
of their audience and like most tools there are advantages and disadvantages to consider so let's
take a look at some of the advantages you can be more relevant to specific market segments you
could be more specific to market needs flexibility to test different market segments as well you can
expand the reach and the revenue of the brand and ultimately increase the market share of that brand
some of the disadvantages include increased research and development costs you have to
research a lot more if you want to get a lot more specific to those segments
and you also have to increase your marketing and your management costs as well and there's
not always consistent results you might have great results in one segment and poor results in
another segment it's not always consistent and of course you have the risk of customer response
as well and the risk of diluting the brand equity that the brand has built so let's take a look
at the difference between differentiated and undifferentiated marketing now differentiated
marketing is about refining offers and marketing messages to be more relevant
to a specific segment of the target audience undifferentiated marketing takes the opposite
approach in that there isn't differentiation across market segments offers and messaging
essentially undifferentiated marketing approaches all market segments in the same way which is
otherwise known as mass marketing so let's take a look at some examples of differentiated marketing
strategy now one of the best brand examples to illustrate differentiated marketing is
nike now nike is a sports and lifestyle brand and they create a variety of products and offers
for many different market segments and for each segment their differentiated marketing strategy
allows them to be more relevant to each of those segments yet each campaign falls in line with the
overarching strategy of the brand for example nike will run campaigns that provide specific products
and messaging to track and field enthusiasts that will be more relevant to their passion for running
they can speak directly to their desires their fears their challenges their goals to appeal more
directly and be more relevant to them likewise nike will run campaigns that will have separate
targeting to football enthusiasts as an example these campaigns will again be more relevant
and they'll consider the athletes the environments the passions and desires of football enthusiasts
which are completely different to those of other market segments so how do you go about
creating a differentiated marketing strategy well developing a differentiated marketing strategy is
all about specificity each and every different market segment is different and the strategy needs
to consider not only what they want and what they need but what messaging will resonate with them
and where they're going to most likely congregate so that the campaign can reach as many of them as
possible so here is a process that you can follow to define yours now before we dive in don't forget
to hit the like and subscribe and the notification bell will let you know when i have new videos
just like this step number one define your audience segments now every brand has a target
market that they want to appeal to yet within that market there may be multiple market segments and
each of them represent a group more specifically so to create an effective differentiated marketing
strategy you need to get clear on the market segments that exist within the market and
the ones that you want to target for example within the sports shoe market you'll find track
and field segments yet you'll also find tennis segments which may or may not be a segment that
you want to target step number two understand each market segment so once you have dissected your
market into segments and the segments that you want to target it's time then to drill down into
each of those segments to get to know them better the more you know about each market segment the
more relevant and relatable that you can be with your differentiated marketing campaigns for each
segment you should understand their circumstances their behaviors their beliefs their passions
fears desires and their hopes and dreams step number three create unique offers for each market
it is possible to create a differentiated marketing strategy for different segments
promoting the same offer though to be fair it really does increase the effectiveness
of your campaign if you have a specific offer for a specific segment so that's ideally
what you want to do you want to promote separate products and services or offers for each of the
segments that you want to target for example nike wouldn't create separate campaigns for
track and field and football only to offer both market segments the same product relevancy is not
just about your messaging it's about the offer and the outcome that you provide to that market
and step number four define a marketing plan for each offer so once you've taken the time to
define your segments and you know which segments that you want to go after and you know
each of these segments individually then you can create compelling offers for each you must
identify the best place to engage these people to engage these segments and that's where you need to
start you need to start with exactly where these people congregate so you can extend your reach
as far as possible now your options here are only limited by where your segments congregate
so again using nike as the over simplified example they're more likely to run football market segment
campaigns during the times and on the channels that you would find the world cup being shown
so campaigns like these can expand across multiple platforms and channels where football fans hang
out now look i know nike is a global brand but i've used this example specifically because we
can all relate we all know nike and we've all seen their differentiated marketing strategies
and campaigns and differentiated marketing strategy is a very important and flexible strategy
that brands can use and it's great to be able to see global brands to use that effectively
and when you see those campaigns you'll now be able to identify how they've differentiated their
marketing from one segment to another as always when it comes to branding every single market
is different through the brand strategy they can align the broad market through their shared
beliefs values and passions and through their marketing strategy they can get much
more granular with their offers their messaging and their drive to action if you want to dive
deeper into differentiation strategy and how to define yours then this video will help you out
until next time brand like a master and i'll see you in the next video
you