Market Segmentation is NOT a marketing issue.

I believe market segmentation is one of the most powerful business tools a growing company can take advantage of. Yet when I discuss strategy with companies, I often hear  them say, "yes, and marketing’s handling that”…

A classic mistake we make is to dismiss market segmentation as solely a “marketing issue”.  Market segmentation is not about creating custom collateral for different industries, and it’s not about building web pages with different messages, although this is helpful. 

Market segmentation lies at the heart of the defining the company’s core business strategy.  It is the process of answering 2 fundamental questions:

1.  What markets to serve, and

2.  What products to offer.

Engaging the management team to explore the best possible answers to these questions in light of timing, trends, and business conditions helps to discover the where the REAL opportunity lies for the company. 

In the next few posts I’m going to share with you examples, tips, myths, and lessons I’ve learned from helping companies adopt this discipline. 

Hope you find them helpful.

Wendy

author/advisor/lady with the flipcharts!

www.wendykennedy.com

Comments

[Jeff Paul Big League Players Club]

I’ve been reading your post and found it interesting! Internet Marketing these days is spread almost everywhere in the IT world. I run a blog on Internet Marketing so I can use something from your blog as well.

[Tony Eyles]

Thanks for this. Its funny how these core considerations get relegated to marketing as a division. Maybe its because the term is so often interpreted to mean only marketing communications. Really, when you take away all the "P"s, what else is there in a business? the CEO is the actual head of marketing.