Market Segmentation: How to Do It and How to Profit from It, Revised and updated 4th Edition

Chapter 2

Preparing for segmentation – additional guidelines for success

Summary

In addition to knowing where you are heading with your segmentation project and what the route map looks like, both of which were addressed in the previous chapter, it is also important to know what you need to get there. The main purpose of this chapter is to provide you with this information.

Other factors that also need to be considered in order to ensure your segmentation project is successful are also covered.

This chapter is organized as follows:

• A brief discussion about the objective of this book and the need to ensure that internal company structures relate to external market segments
• How companies vary on being customer driven and organizationally committed to segmentation
• Issues concerning organizational structure
• A brief review of the impact on companies of the ‘postmodern’ customer and where the three main issues this identifies are covered in this book
• A look at the bases for international market segmentation
• Views on who should be involved in the segmentation team
• A summary of the data required for segmentation
• The rules for segmentation
• A summary of the advantages of segmentation and the additional benefits of the approach detailed in this book
• Three short case histories illustrating the impact of market segmentation
• A review of the chapter

Objective of this book

The objective of this book is to provide a logical process by which managers can explore whether there is any potential ...