Marketing Segmentation is a critical building block in marketing strategy development. Proper Marketing Segmentation ensures the right prospects are being targeted, and that all potential market opportunities are identified so they can be exploited.
For many small and mid sized businesses, marketing and sales efforts are all over the map – chasing anything that moves instead of focusing on a group of prospects who are most likely to buy. Consequently, marketing efforts are spread too thin and businesses don’t gain traction or momentum.
Segmentation focuses marketing and sales efforts on those prospects that are most likely to buy from you – your sweet spots.
Market segmentation is the grouping of prospects that have similar characteristics, problems, frustrations, needs or requirements. Segmenting your market can be based on any number of criteria; geography, industry, size of business, consumer preferences or income level, etc., whatever makes the most sense.
A good place to start when developing market segmentation is your existing customer base. Ask yourself who are your ideal customers and determine what characteristics they have in common. This can be used as the basis for your segmentation strategy.
In general terms, the more specific the segmentation definition, the better. This allows marketing efforts to be much more targeted, and for marketing communications to resonate with a particular audience.
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