Differentiated Vs Undifferentiated Marketing: 8 Key Differences

Differentiated Vs. Undifferentiated Marketing

Differentiated and undifferentiated are two marketing strategies that most companies use to market their products and increase sales. Where differentiated marketing focuses on specific segments of the market. Whereas, undifferentiated focuses on the whole market.

Let’s understand what differentiated and undifferentiated marketing is and the differences between them.

What is Undifferentiated Marketing?

It is a marketing strategy that focuses on the larger market and aims to target as many customers as possible. Companies adopting this marketing strategy aim to sell a single product to the whole market with the same marketing campaign.

Undifferentiated marketing is also called mass marketing. Companies with this marketing operate on a larger scale, and it enables them to produce products at lower costs gaining economies of scale.

This further lets companies set their product price lower. This is the fact that companies selling normal products prefer this mass marketing strategy.

Within this marketing, companies target the mass audience, are involved in mass production, mass promotion, and mass distribution, and the source of profit is also through mass sales.

Related: The Production Concept of Marketing

What is Differentiated Marketing?

It is the opposite of undifferentiated marketing. Under this marketing, companies split the larger market into different segments or consumer groups that share common characteristics and select a market segment to which a company can best satisfy.

Differentiated marketing is also called segment or segmented marketing. Companies using it, design product and marketing programs based on the target market’s preferences.

If companies choose more than one target market, they must have to design marketing strategies with respect to the unique preferences of each consumer group. Companies stay connected with their target markets and do their best to satisfy them.

Companies producing different lines of products choose this marketing strategy. Take an example of a shoe company that produces different types of shoes targeting sports persons, officers, teenagers, daily workers, school shoes, and so on.

Read Also: Niche Marketing

Difference Between Differentiated and Undifferentiated Marketing

The following are the key points that differentiate the differentiated and undifferentiated marketing strategies.

Definition

Undifferentiated marketing is when companies use the same marketing campaign to reach larger markets. In this way, they do not differentiate the market into different consumer groups in terms of income, buying behavior, age, gender, demographics, etc.

Diffentitaied marketing is when companies divide the larger market into different consumer groups and target a specific or two target markets.

Focus

Differentiated marketing is a consumer-focused marketing strategy. It emphasizes companies to produce products that the customers want.

Whereas, undifferentiated marketing is a seller or manufacturer-focused marketing strategy. It generally, aims to sell products that the brand produces.

Read Also: The 6 Marketing Philosophies

Assumption

Undifferentiated marketing assumes that the majority of the customers of the market have the same product choice and it is effective to market and sell the same product to all consumers.

Conversely, differentiated marketing assumes that in a market there exist different consumer groups, and each consumer group has different product choices, so a company should treat differently to different consumer groups.

AKA

Undifferentiated marketing is also known as mass marketing. Whereas, differentiated marketing is also called segment marketing and multi-segment marketing.

Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is high in differentiated marketing as it is a customer-focused marketing approach. On the other hand, customer satisfaction is low in the undifferentiated market as it ignores the fact that different market segments have different tastes and choices.

Cost

With respect to the cost, companies have to pay to adopt these marketing strategies – the undifferentiated marketing strategy is less costly than the differentiated marketing strategy.

Customization

Marketing campaigns under undifferentiated marketing can not be customized as per the changes in the market. Whereas, differentiated marketing is flexible in nature, and marketing campaigns can be modified as per the requirements of the market.

Example

Advertisements on social media, TV, Radio, the internet, newspapers, etc. are some examples of undifferentiated marketing. Whereas, an example of differentiated marketing include is when a company produces different lines of products targeting different consumer groups or market segments.

Read Next: Levels of Market Segmentation