Segment the Target Market in Your Business Plan
By: Tim BerryPublished December 1999
The market segmentation concept is crucial to market assessment and market strategy. Divide the market into workable market segments -- age, income, product type, geography, buying patterns, customer needs, or other classifications. Define your terms, and define your market.
Segmentation can make a huge difference in understanding your market. For example, when a local computer store business defines its customer segments as "high-end home office" and "high-technology small business," its segmentation says a lot about its customers. The segmentation helps the company plan focus on the different types of potential customers. When I was consulting for Apple Computer in the mid-1980s, we divided the markets into workable categories, including home, education, small business, large business, and all others. Some other groups in Apple also focused on government as a specific market segment.
Segmentation is important and also difficult.
No comments:
Post a Comment