Segmentation Strategy Development

Our experience reveals inadequate segmentation strategy is frequently an obstacle to growth. Segmentation has big pay-offs when used in strategy development, product and market planning and sales targeting. Each level of segmentation increases your customer insight.

Segmentation is a well-accepted concept. Many companies create a segmentation scheme to define their markets and direct product development. However, a common mistake is to try using one segmentation strategy for all decision sets, which leads to less than optimal product development and sales effectiveness.

Take a critical look at your current market segmentation strategy.

• Does it begin by identifying a business opportunity and go all the way to
  customer adoption behavior or does it fall short?
• Does it start too late or stop too early?
• Are you trying to use the same segmentation approach for each decision
  set you make?

Few companies utilize segmentation in all the sets of decisions that drive profitability. Segmentation drives three critical sets of decisions:

Sales-Effectiveness Segmentation focuses resources on prospects most likely to buy your product.

What are the results of inadequate segmentation? That depends on where your business is in its market life cycle.
 
If you’re deciding to enter a market, Structural Segmentation can help identify the markets that offer a higher than average return. Once you’ve made that evaluation, Needs-Based Segmentation drives your product and service development. Sales- Effectiveness Segmentation builds sales momentum by targeting early adopters and those customers most likely to switch.

Boost your success rate by using focused, qualitative research in the early planning stages. Sharpen your focus on customer needs and use that information to develop your support services accordingly. The enhanced services you develop, in turn, will act as a magnet to attract new customers. Next, use Sales Effectiveness Segmentation to look at your future customers. Once you’ve identified the hot prospects, you’re on your way to build sales momentum.

The ability of segmentation to improve the return on your investments for each type of decision is why segmentation research is so important. Identifying segments and measuring their potential produces insights and opportunities that would otherwise be overlooked and avoids costs that would otherwise be spent chasing low potential opportunities.
 

For solutions to your Segmentation Strategy challenges, contact Steve Bassill or
Mike Barr at QDI Strategies, Inc.

Steve Bassill -- 847-566-2020 Ext. 229

Mike Barr -- 847-566-2020 Ext. 225