There are many things to consider and tasks to complete when developing General Electrics (GE) marketing plan for the smart refrigerator. The marketing team must identify the target market of organizational buyers and consumers and the factors that influence their purchasing decisions. Current competitors, their products and, how they market these products must be analyzed. This will help GE to improve the product and ensure that its product has unique qualities. Once these tasks have been completed a strategy can begin that will develop into a marketing plan that will reach the target audience.
Identify the segmentation criteria that will affect your target market selected
To determine the profitability of the GE Smart Refrigerator, GE will need to conduct a preliminary study of the target market. The method behind the study is known as market segmentation. Investopedia defines market segmentation as “a marketing term referring to the aggregation of prospective buyers into groups (segments) that have common needs and will respond similarly to a marketing action” (Investopedia, n/d). This method will allow GE to identify groups of consumers and how they will react to the product and marketing campaign. Therefore, certain criteria must be met for segmentation to be successful. These criteria are substantiality, easily identified, measurability, accessibility, and responsiveness (DeFoe, n/d). To be profitable, there must be a large enough consumer base with a need for this new technology. To engage a wide consumer demographic, multiple variations of the base advertising campaign may be required to ensure the target audiences can identify with the new products. In concert with these multiple variations of the base advertisements, it is also necessary to ensure GE is sensitive to the timing and methods of advertising to ensure the broadest target audience is reached.