12A

1) Pick a segment. In class, we have discussed how you might intuit the existence of segments that might exist in your venture's market. For this exercise, you must pick one segment. 

For this portion of the project we will be focusing on Demographics; age groups, gender, life cycle and income. There will not be inclusion of race/religion due to the “all-inclusion” goal for the company.

2) Find three people who would fit that segment and arrange to interview them. These interviews, if conducted properly, should take about 10-15 minutes. Any less, and you won't be able to obtain adequate information.

Swim parent: Single- Middle Class

Student Athlete: Age 18- upper class family income

Student athlete And Parent (for parental consent to use their words in an interview): Age 14 - Middle class family income

3) Begin with need awareness. In earlier exercises, you have identified an unmet need and developed a solution. If the person you are talking to does not have the same unmet, then you need to move on. You may not include this as one of your three interviews. If the person you are talking to does have the problem, then you're on the right track! For need awareness, we need to figure out at what times, situations, places, contexts, etc., their need becomes the most salient. The questions you ask should be related to determining exactly when, how, and where their need awareness occurs.

All are included in the interview portion below.

4) Move to information search. When the person you are interviewing becomes aware of their need, what is the very first thing they do to find a solution to their problem? What sources of information do they look for? When they search in Google, what are their search terms? Do they talk to friends and family.

Single parent- Middle Class: Once prompted, the first series of questions were the cost, the exact location, if we would be participating with USA Swimming, or a separate entity altogether, the times and what the websites name would be. I informed them that a good research tool when searching for our new team would be to include the terminology “Elite” to shorten their listings. When questioned once more about the use from this particular family for the option of a new swim team it became apparent that there was a focus on their particular situation and how the team could benefit them specifically. We told them the times would be alternating between the school year to better suit the parents needs during work hours, allowing an opportunity for this parent to have the ability to pick up their child during lunch breaks, which was a concern initially. Because this particular parent is single, the need became obvious that working around a schedule would become more problematic for these situations.

Student Athlete (Age 18): Introduced to the program, and primary focus was the location. This athlete travels 45 minutes to a team for a program that has more of a coach to athlete ratio. When told the location of this new club, the interest in the team peaked. The first things that were asked was when the club would be established, the costs of the club, the costs of private lessons and the technology behind the club. As a younger generation member, the interest in apps for videos to be viewed was more of a concern, after the location and cost. Due to the athlete being older and the program being introduced after his graduating year, he was more so concerned with the ability to train individually. When prompted if he would be interested in bringing any of his friends to the club he listed a few people that would be interested in the younger age group program with a group swimming.

Student athlete and parent: Age 14 - Middle class family income: Being the youngest age group, the parent was concerned with the amount of kids in the program and the growth expansions that are expected. She, and the student athlete, were concerned with the amount of kids their age given the closeness of the Davidson College. There was a major concern for ensuring with the status “Elite” that there would be the younger generation available to compete with. The next standards would be the amount of traveling that would partake. With the club fees being addressed last. When asked what they would use to look up the program they informed us that they would attempt to look through USA swimming, and brought up that there would be a need for those registrations due to the championship series being all qualifiers.

5) Report the findings of your research. Simply summarize what you learned in the interviews.

The main focus of location and cost are the biggest concerns throughout the multiple demographics. The age groups coming in second as the next concern, which was something we were not aware that should be advertised as much.

6) Draw conclusions. Based on what you know about this segment and what you learned in your interviews, how would you succinctly describe this segment in terms of need awareness and information search?

Regarding information search, I think it would be in the company’s best interest to partner with USA swimming and become recognized through that program. The amount of users and athletes familiar with this program will ultimately look into competitions sanctioned by them, as well as clubs qualified and accredited through their program. Next concern would be address that there is a strict difference between college athletes and age group athletes, given the proximity to Davidson College. Addressing the parents concerns about costs seemed to be the less of the focus, as much as the location was. Ensuring the proper age group is brought in to the program and highlighting the location seem to be the utmost concern to the guidance and future accomplishments of the company.