Ch. 8- Segmenting and Target Market

Business Target Market

When BlackBerry started out in 1999, they were catering to one target market: the businessman and businesswoman of corporate America, who needed a device to be connected to their busy schedule and of course their clients. That’s when they made the two way pagers and the other devices that followed immediately after. This worked out pretty well for them for a while, but with the advantages in technology and people’s needs and wants and things became outdated, they knew something was still missing. They didn’t have multiple segments. So in 2003, BlackBerry extended that bridge to add a new target market: good ole fashion regular America which is the bread and butter of the world. These people who are not all “techi” but have busy lives and want to stay connected to every aspect of their lives.

New Target Market Discovered

Since the popularity of social networks such as HI 5 then FaceBook and Twitter, BlackBerry has used this as their light in the dark tunnel to expand their target market especially that most of those users are of that younger generation. This psychographic segmentation allowed BlackBerry to identify with people’s personalities and lifestyles which is always being in contact with friends and family through social networks or even through BlackBerry Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, AOL Messenger or Yahoo Messenger. To stay connected to those businessmen and women, BlackBerry used demographic segmentation because age is actually one of the most important things in target marketing with BlackBerry main target market is between the ages of 25. These types of people are very busy and love the effectiveness of a BlackBerry added to their lives.

In recent years, BlackBerry’s main sales have come from general consumer market, so they have gone from small segments to a multi-segment company and with addition of their BlackBerry PlayBook, and its capabilities they have continued to extend not only their product line but also their target market.