My Firm's Market and Segments

My Firm: Luxury residential Country Club in Boca Raton

ID the Market - Drop the Pin

At a residential country club, the market has a geographic boundary. The houses are located within an 830-acre property, so customers are located within that range. But for a new person to move in, they would not already be living there, so the potential customers are technically outside of the 830-acre range. The community is known for being the “young club” with average age 49 for adults and one third of its 3,600 residents being children.

ID the Market - Demographic Parameters

The club membership is very expensive, involving several required and recurring payment types, and therefore is only affordable to the very wealthy demographic segment. Beyond that, no other demographic segment is not a potential customer. Housing regulations prevent discrimination, but since “birds of a feather flock together,” I think the existing majority demographic parameters will persist (young families will attract those of similar age, the majority Jewish presence will attract more of the same religion, etc.).

ID the Market - More Than One Market?

I feel there is only one market the product sells in, but there are definitely two segments, which could be viewed as separate markets if desired.

ID the Segments

Since any potential new customers come from out of the area, we only run limited advertising, and it is focused in the luxury magazines circulating in New York and New Jersey, since most of our current residents have roots there and “birds of a feather” make our advertising dollars more appeal. Our other marketing efforts rely on earning recognition and awards within our industry, for example national awards that recognize the best 5% of private clubs in America. This ranking and distinction is critical because our residents sell their homes the usual way, on the real estate market. Target customers who are used to a similar lifestyle outside of Florida but have relocated to South Florida will ask a real estate agent to find them the desired lifestyle here.  Real estate agents can look at available listings and see if there are any homes for sale in the best residential country clubs in the area, including ours. Real estate agents can bring their clients to visit both the house and the country club, since buying a home in the community has a mandatory club membership and therefore comes with the community’s lifestyle.

ID the Segments - Prototypical Customers

There are two typical demographic parameter groups that are attracted to the country club’s product:

Segment 1: 70% of the customers are wealthy NY/NJ Jewish families with school-age children or younger who reside year-round

Segment 2: the remaining 30% are wealthy, NY/NJ Jewish “snow bird” couples who live active lifestyles so do not want to be around “a bunch of old people”

ID the Segments - Which is most valuable?

The most valuable segment is the “young families” segment because there are more people in the household they will spend more at the club, i.e. each person will be enrolled in activities at the Club, dinner for a family is a higher check average than for a couple dining, etc. Moreover, older couples, even if involved in daily sports and activities, still tend to spend less while in retirement.

ID the Segments - How do we target both segments? How does our product fit the needs of both segments?

It’s ironic how the same product “being the young club” meets the needs of both the young families and the old couples. The old couples don’t want to feel old so they live somewhere with young people, but the young people are necessary or else it wouldn’t be a club full of young people! Residents do seem to “age out” of the community as some point, wanting to downsize in home/community/commitments/spending. This creates a natural amount of turnover to bring in the prototypical customers to replace those becoming a-typical.