Marketing Essentials © 2009
Chapter 2
I-Study
A SWOT analysis identifies a company's internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as
external opportunities and threats. Internal strengths and weaknesses are assessed through
an analysis of the company, its customers, and its competitive position. External
opportunities and threats include political, economic, socio-cultural, and technological
factors. Analysis of those four factors is also called an environmental scan. A marketing
plan is a written document that directs the marketing activities of a company for a
specific period of time. Market segmentation classifies people in a given market into
smaller groups. Four methods of segmenting a market and identifying a target market are
demographics, geographics, psychographics, and buying behavior. Demographics relates
to age, gender, income, marital status, ethnic background, education, and occupation.
Geographics relates to similarities among people who live in a certain area.
Psychographics groups people with similar lifestyles, attitudes, values, and opinions.
Mass marketing is using a single marketing strategy to reach all customers, while market
segmentation allows marketing to target specific groups of consumers.