What is Mass Marketing? Definition, Features, Examples, and Pros/Cons

What is Mass Marketing?

Mass marketing is a marketing strategy in which a business aims to offer the same product to the whole market and attract as many customers as possible through a single marketing program. It is also called undifferentiated marketing.

Mass marketing does not divide the larger market as a segment or niche marketing does, instead, it targets the whole market regardless of differences in customers’ tastes, references, demography, purchasing behavior, etc. Thus, it is called undifferentiated marketing.

Undifferentiated marketing believes that the majority of the customers share common characteristics, so it is effective to offer the same product to all of them.

This marketing approach is largely applied by large companies that produce in huge quantities and aim to target larger markets. Adopting this marketing, companies do mass production, mass promotion, and mass distribution and earn profits through an increased number of sales.

Characteristics of Mass Marketing

Mass marketing is one of the levels of market segmentation. Let’s understand some characteristics of mass marketing that will further help us to better understand what it is.

Focused on Big Market

Mass marketing does not focus on a small segment of the larger market as other marketing such as segment marketing. Instead, it focuses on the larger market. It aims to capture as many markets as possible.

Related: The Production Concept

Low Price

Companies usually adopt undifferentiated marketing for normal products whose price is affordable. For example, advertising shampoo, toothpaste, and other normal products consumers commonly use. And, it addresses the general requirements of people.

Mass Production

Marketing firms adopting this strategy are involved in mass production. They aim to get production efficiency and economies of scale. The high levels of production enable companies to offer products at lower prices.

Profit Through Increased Number of Sales

Companies adopting this strategy earn profit through the number of sales. The higher the number of sales will be the higher profit the company will generate and vice versa.

Examples of Mass Marketing

For mass marketing, companies use a number of mediums to reach a vast number of customers such as social media, TV advertisements, radio advertisements, newspapers, magazines, etc. Some examples may include as:

Print Media Ads

I am sure we all have read any of the companies’ advertisements in print media. Before the existence of the internet, print media like magazines, newspapers, etc. were the main mediums companies used to reach mass markets.

Ads On TV/Radio

Advertisement on TV/Radio is also a great way to reach a large number of customers. Take the example of brands like Colgate and Coca-Cola that advertise products on different TV commercials and channels.

Online Advertising

Nowadays, online advertising has been a great tool for companies to reach a mass audience. This can be done by placing ads on different social media, websites, search engines, etc.

Read Also: What is Differentiated Marketing?

Advantages and Disadvantages of Mass Marketing

A major advantage of undifferentiated marketing is that it lets your business reach the mass audience easily and also provides the cost efficiency of operating on a larger scale. Whereas, its major drawback is that it does not consider the needs and desires of different categories of markets.

Advantages:

Your business can have a number of benefits by adopting this marketing strategy. Some are mentioned below:

• Wider Customer Reach – Mass marketing will help your business to reach wider customers and increase brand awareness.
• Cost-Effective – It is a cost-effective marketing strategy. Operating on a large scale provides cost efficiency. Your business can further use the same advertisement and marketing campaigns for all customers. This also reduces the cost and efforts that are required to design new marketing strategies.
• Lower Priced Products – As it is cost-effective, it results in both lower production costs to manufacturers and lower priced products to consumers.
• Increased Sales – Since it reaches wider customers, the product price is low, and the products are normal which people commonly use, it increases the sales of the company and so the profits.

Disadvantages:

Despite many advantages, mass marketing may not be a good strategy for your business because of the following reasons.

• High Competition – One of the major cons of mass marketing is that there exists high competition. Since it operates in a broader market there exist other various companies that may prevent your business from achieving the desired goals.
• Not Suitable For Small Businesses – This marketing strategy is not suitable for small businesses. Such businesses lack the capital for mass production and serving a variety of customers.
• Ignores Different Market Segments Interests – It focuses on the whole market and ignores the fact that there also exist various market segments that have different needs, tastes, and preferences.

Read Next: Differentiated Vs. Undifferentiated Marketing