How market segmentation can extend the maturity stage of your marketing product life cycle was the topic of yesterday’s blog. Today’s blog covers how market segmentation extends the decline stage of your marketing product life cycle and keeps your product producing sales longer.

Just as you want your child to have a long life and live well into senior years, you want your product to extend its life through the decline stage of its marketing product life cycle.

Sales always decline in this stage, but you can extend your sales and profit by using market segmentation.

Sales decline at this stage because:

• the market has become saturated,
• the technology has become obsolete, or
• the trend creating the demand has ended.

The result is that unless your product is perishable or consumable, few customers still want or need your product. Market segmentation can enable you to find those few customers and to out-market your competitors to get those customers’ purchases.

In the decline stage of the marketing product development cycle, product owners lower or discontinue marketing efforts and expenses. The trick is for you to lower your marketing efforts while your competitors discontinue theirs.

Similarly, if you continue to sell your product while your competitors pull their products from the market, you can squeeze out the last few sales for your product.

However, to accomplish this while making a profit, you need to use market segmentation and other marketing research to determine:

• how much you need to lower prices,
• which distribution outlets you should select to continue, and
• how your other products can benefit from brand marketing for the declining product.

Market segmentation can provide extended life to your marketing product life cycle during the decline stage by searching out the last remnants of customers needing the product and by discovering new uses for the product.

To learn more about Marketing Your Small Business, you can get my free report on market segmentation by completing the form below.

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Posted 4-25-08: Decline Stage Of
Marketing Product Life Cycle

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Category: Product

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