Geo market segmentation and GIS

Amrita Biswas
ORG-MARG, New Delhi

Introduction
With the market for almost all consumer products moving from a sellers Paradise to a buyer-driven one, marketing strategy formulation has also moved from the macro to the micro level. Any micro level marketing needs an abundance of data related to the consumer and trade for decision - Making and planning. The data should not only provide profiling and Potential - related information, but should also be able to zero it down to specific geographic areas and localities.

The Concept
To be able to provide the marketers with micro-level information related to the trade and consumer, in order answer two questions, namely-

1. Who are my consumers?
2. From where do they/will they buy my products?

ORG-MARG is in the process of developing a software for an integration of the retailer profile, consumer demographics and consumption pattern databases with a geographic mapping system. The culmination would be a Windows based system that will place data, analysis, mapping and Segmentation functionally on the marketers desk.

The Process
The process would involve -

1. Collecting consumer information at the electoral ward level



1. Demographic profile
1. Household members profile
2. Life-stage,
3. Life-style
4. Durable ownership
5. Monthly Household Income, etc.
2. Consumption profile
1. Brands purchased
2. Brand loyalty
3. Frequency of purchase
4. Brand overlaps
5. Purchase decision - maker


2. Segmenting the consumer in each geographic area using significant variables such as
1. Family size,
2. Family Type,
3. Life-stage,
4. Affluence measured by Income, Durable Ownership, Type of Residence, etc.


3. Collecting all relevant information related to retail outlets in these geographic areas such as
1. Name and ownership details
2. Type and year of establishment
3. Area of establishment
4. Monthly Turnover
5. Number of Servers
6. Billing systems / Acceptance of Credit Cards
7. Air-conditioning/Cooling systems
8. Product Categories stocked
9. Brand stocked
10. Offtake Volumes
11. Promotional Activities
12. Merchandising
13. Sales visits/Servicing


4. Mapping the above information to geographic areas
5. Providing the integrated database to the marketer using Geographical Information System.

The Benefits.
The marketer thus a common data pool which can be used to analyze variables is conjunction and contrast to each other. The range of analyses can include -

• Category/Brand Profiling
• Brand Positioning
• Geo-demographic segmentation
• Customer Profiling
• Trend Analysis
• Conversion Analysis
• Outlet Ranking Analysis
• Sales Territory Rationalization
• Sales Forecasting
• Distribution gap/overlap analysis
• Sales Promotion Planning
• Advertising targeting
• Market Research Planning and Execution