Application of \PROMETHEE" for Market Targeting: A Case Study on the TV Market in Iran

A decision for selection of a target market is one of the most important issues in strategic marketing. To tackle this issue, an appropriate segmentation of the "available market", as well as the determination of market attractiveness criteria, are defined in the marketing process. Therefore, determining the best position in the market can be decided through the process of segmenting, targeting and positioning analysis. By using the market attractiveness criteria market targeting can be supported by multi-criteria decision-making methods. The objective of this research is to introduce the application of PROMETHEE as a multi-criteria decision making approach for ranking preferential alternatives and for determining the best target market. The proposed approach is examined in a case study on the TV market in Iran. To do this, the ideas of consultants, specialists and experts in the TV market, as well as existing research and statistical analyses on the TV market, have been gathered to determine market attractiveness criteria, in order to evaluate possible alternatives in the target market. Then, the Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment Evaluations (PROMETHEE), which is one of the most efficient methods for solving the problems of multi attribute decision-making, has been used, in order to rank alternatives and to determine the target market. This paper focuses on the application of PROMETHEE in determining the target market, which also supports the marketers in their decision for optimum allocation of organizational resources to the marketing mix. A bridge from an important problem area in marketing management to a quantitative approach for solving the problem, using a multi-criteria decision making method, is the main contribution of this research to the area of marketing science.