Meredith Video Case Study

The Meredith Corporation is an American media conglomerate which based in Des Moines, Iowa, USA. The company consists of two divisions, National Media and Local Media. The Corporation has a long history that began in 1902 by Edwin Thomas Meredith when he began publishing Successful Farming magazine. After that, the company produced a lot of different magazines that are focused on housework. Since then, Meredith has introduced numerous other female-oriented consumer brands and has strategically expanded its reach, through acquisitions and strategic partnerships, to become the leading media and marketing company serving the adult female audience in the United States. In addition, the Company has extended its media and marketing platform around the Globe, through acquisitions and strategic licensing relationships.
The Meredith Corporation has developed an expertise in building customer relationships through segmentation, targeting, and positioning. The uniqueness of this corporation is that they correctly identified the target audience, namely the female part of the Population. Their success lies in the fact that issuing journals and books, they were able to pinpoint the needs and desires of women.
With 30 million readers Meredith has 14 magazines and more than 200 special interest publications. Among the Meredith magazines there are those for which that corporation is known. These magazines are Better Homes and Gardens, Family Circle, and Ladies’ Home Journal. By focusing on core categories of home, family, and personal development, Meredith has developed a product mix designed to meet various needs of women. 1. Main variables that Meredith has focused on to segment its markets.
Meredith Corp. uses a combination of decision trees, linear and logistic regression, and other data-mining techniques to segment customers on the database, using of regression and database analysis to find the best prospects.
According to their Data Base, Meredith segmented the markets according to Gender, and Female that became it's targeted section. Then according to life stages, Behavioral segmentation. To be more precisely, they segment their customer according to demographic regions, to illustrate higher income, lower income because they believe that segment the customers the right way will give consumers what they want. Meredith Corporation became the leading media and marketing company serving American women. 2. Which target marketing strategy best describe Meredith's efforts? Support your choice.

Of the four main targeting strategies covered in the text (undifferentiated, differentiated, concentrated, and micromarketing), Meredith clearly pursues a differentiated strategy. Meredith clearly targets several market segments and designs separate offers for each. For its print magazines alone, Meredith publishes hundreds of titles. Each of these is crafted to appeal to a certain kind of customer. 3. Do you think Meredith uses one positioning strategy for all its products, or do you think each product has its own positioning strategy?
I think that the company has a common for all products positional strategy that defines a ideology such as the identification of the needs and desires of the reader. Overall, Meredith’s extensive database gathers as much information as possible about a customer so that various customer needs can be met. The idea is not just to sell a person one magazine, but to create a link with a customer and then become the go-to source for multiple interest areas.
Focusing on long-term investments, hiring direct marketing experts and sharing lessons learned across promotional groups, staying true to the original founder’s vision by following comprehensive customer service goals helps retain customers and enhance cross-selling opportunities. Consumers gravitate toward companies that make day-to-day living easier, Meredith Corp. distinguishes itself by addressing problems immediately and working to ensure customers are satisfied, not just placated.
Working to create solutions that serve customer needs and staying in touch with those needs through surveys and phone calls, Meredith Corp. maintains the original founder’s vision while keeping pace with current trends in the marketplace.

References

1. Meredith official website: http://www.meredith.com/ 2. Wikipedia, article “Meredith corporation” : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meredith_Corporation 3. Lippincott, “Meredith” : http://www.lippincott.com/work/meredith 4. Hoovers, a D&B company, Meredith Corporation Company Information : http://www.hoovers.com/company-information/cs/company-profile.Meredith_Corporation.b4bae334f2564b62.html