'Jobs to Be Done' Marketing Model

Marketing is one of the most important functions of a business in order to remain competitive and profitable. A sound marketing strategy determines the sales graph even more than the quality of the product. The traditional marketing model is characterised largely by the practice of market segmentation. This implies to dividing the market into product categories, which can be a function of price or else dividing the customer base into target demographics based on age, gender, education, income level, etc. Despite many of these sophisticated marketing techniques, it can be seen that most of the products launched are not successful at least to the degree intended.

Prof Clay Christensen from the Harvard Business School suggests an alternative or rather an effective marketing model that can help make products that people really need and hence will see an increase in the sales chart. It is called the Jobs to be one marketing model.

According to this concept, consumers do not by a product just because they belong to a demographic category, but because they need or rather ‘hire’ the product to do a job for them. They are emotional or irrational and take life as it comes. Thus, it is important to know what job people want the product to do for them, rather than just stating the general function of a product, which is largely based on competitors or the employees. He also goes to the end of suggesting that market segmentation should be done on the ‘jobs to be done’ perspective.

Important questions:
• Is the traditional market segmentation model ineffective in the changed global scenario?
• Is the ‘jobs to be done’ marketing model a good enough alternative model for the traditional model?
• Can services also be marketed based on this model?