What is STP (segmentation, targeting, positioning)?

The three stages

1. [Segmentation](/resources/glossary/segmentation). Divide the market into groups with meaningfully different needs or behaviour.
2. Targeting. Choose which segments to pursue, based on size, accessibility, competitive position and fit with what you actually do well.
3. Positioning. Define how you want the chosen segments to perceive you relative to alternatives, and make everything consistent with that.

Why the second stage is the hard one

Segmentation produces a map. Targeting requires choosing, which means declining segments — and that is where most STP exercises quietly fail.

An organisation that segments its market and then decides to pursue all of the segments has done analysis without strategy. The positioning that follows has to appeal to everyone, which means it appeals distinctively to nobody.

The test of a real targeting decision is whether it excluded something valuable. If not, no decision was made.

STP on conversational surfaces

The framework survives; its second and third stages change form.

Segments defined by persistent audience attributes cannot be targeted on a surface with no durable identity. What replaces them is situational: describing the moment and the need rather than the person — see synthetic audience.

Positioning matters more rather than less. When an assistant is choosing which two or three options to name, it is making exactly the comparison positioning was invented to influence. A brand with a clear, consistent, corroborated position is far easier for a model to place in an answer than one whose description varies by source — see trust graph.