Home > CoreXpand Newsletters > July 2011 - Understanding Market Segmentation

When it comes to marketing, most businesses take a “shotgun” approach. That means creating materials that summarize every product and/or service you have, then "blast it out there" and hope for the best.

Unfortunately, not every product or service you have will apply or appeal to every business. And in today's marketplace, which lives in the age of convenience, you must get specific.

Because there's a problem with the uber-convenient, "gotta have it now" nature of the internet:

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What is Market Segmentation?

The answer to getting specific is to segment your market. Entire books have been written about the subject, but here's what market segmentation is in a nutshell:

Market segmentation is the process of identifying and organizing your prospects and customers according to specific niches, industries, or markets.

Segmenting your market allows you to...

1. Identify the context within which your prospects and customers operate, which allows you to target your marketing message in a way that appeals to them specifically
   
   
2. Adapt and adjust your e-commerce methods to serve prospect and customer needs in a more personalized and preferred way
   
   
3. Create a specific industry/niche/market e-business model that can be rapidly deployed dozens, even hundreds of times, for accelerated growth
   

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The Basics of Market Segmentation

To get started segmenting your market, start broad and then refine. You can do that with three simple steps.

1. Begin by identifying the business, market, and industry types that you serve (or would like to serve), such as government, educational, manufacturing, etc.
   
   
2. Then define the niches within each type you identified. Using the examples above, those might be city or county governments, middle schools or university educational institutions, and chemical or furniture manufacturers.
   
   
3. Next, identify the audience within each niche. Are you looking to communicate to buyers, to management, to salesmen? You want to identify that because each of those audiences would respond to different types of messages.

There are also some critical questions to answer within your segments, such as

• Who are the decision makers for each prospect or customer (managers, president, etc.)?
  
  
• Who are the segment influencers (blog writers, associations, etc.)?
  
  
• What does your audience read/follow (trade journals, blogs, forums, etc.)?
  
  

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I've Got My Segments, Now What?

Once you've defined your audience, your niche, and your industry/business type, what do you say? Here are the most effective steps you can take to capitalize on all that hard work:

Identify your Unique Selling Proposition - what specific problems can you solve, and what sets you apart from your competitors?

Segment your offers - identify which of your products and services are the most appropriate for a specific segment audience

Create marketing messages that can be replicated - it will save you loads of time, and make you far more nimble to respond to opportunities, if you create template messages within which you can insert segment specifics as needed

You can even investigate joint ventures within certain segments, but we'll discuss that in greater depth at a later time.

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Your Ultimate Advantage

As a user of CoreXpand e-commerce solutions, this exercise is like lighting the fuse on explosive growth, and absolutely dominating your competition.

Remember two of the things that segmenting your market allows you to do - adapt and adjust your e-commerce methods to serve prospect and customer needs, and create a specific industry/niche/market e-business model that can be rapidly deployed?

Well, there is no better, more effective, and more proven way to accomplish both of those goals than the use of the customer specific e-commerce sites you already use.

Private marketplaces... key account sites... PunchOut catalogs... company stores... they all allow you to specifically address and serve the needs of very unique audiences, niches, and industry types.

If you'd like some guidance or have any questions about how to leverage your e-commerce capabilities for specific market segments, just call our e-commerce experts.

As always, it's free and there's no obligation. We're happy to help you answer questions and help you create potent strategies for your success. It's what we're here for. Contact us today

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How to Gain More Segmenting Insights

If you'd like to learn more about market segmentation and see some real world examples, join us on our live webinar on July 26th, at 1pm EST. 

We'll dive deeper into the benefits of market segmentation and show you practical ways that you can turn segmentation into more business and massive business growth.

You can sign up for the webinar here.

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Editor’s Note: CoreXpand offers free market analysis and e-commerce strategy sessions. Be sure to take advantage of them. They’ll help you identify e-commerce gaps in your market, and help you implement advanced e-business strategies to land bigger customers and contracts.

They'll even help you close the deal by demonstrating your advanced capabilities for you. Take advantage of our dedication to your success and put it to work for you today. You'll be amazed at the results.