Using market segmentation enables you to create your own target market profiles.

Create Your Own Target Market Profiles

My matrix market segmentation process uses matrices to visually separate market segments so you can easily see characteristics that are repeated across segments.

Then my market segmentation process utilizes secondary research about different market segments and combines all relevant segments into target market profiles.

The process is simple and relatively quick to use with the secondary research provided in my e-book: Know ‘em Sell ‘em: How To Discover The Best Appeals for Your Target Market. To read more about my e-book, click on the link in this paragraph.

Get Completed Target Market Profiles

StrategicMarketSegmentation.com also offers completed individual target market profiles. Some of these target market profiles are actually in-depth looks at a particular market segment. For instance, all four adult generations in America today are included as individual profiles.

Other profiles use the matrix market segmentation process to include characteristics across segments and to provide information on the target market not available elsewhere through secondary research.

To read more about any of these target market profiles, just click on the title below:

1. Targeting the WWII Generation,
2. Segmenting Baby Boomers,
3. Targeting Generation X,
5. Targeting Generation Y,
4. Targeting the Upper (Elite) Class,
5. Targeting the Middle Class,
6. Targeting the Working Class,
7. Targeting African Americans,
8. Targeting Asian Americans,
9. Targeting Hispanic Americans,
10. Targeting Native Americans,
11. Targeting Arab Americans,
13. Targeting College Students,
14. Targeting University Faculty,
15. Targeting Professional Boomer Women,
16. Targeting Mid-Life Men,
17. Targeting CEO’s,
18. Targeting Investors,
19. Targeting State Legislators,
20. Targeting Retirees.

Read more about target markets here - Target Market: Eight Questions To Ask About Yours, 1-4

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Posted 4-30-08: Market Segmentation -
Target Market Profiles

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Market segmentation reveals the best appeals for marketing to people in your target market.

Once you know your target market’s age, occupation, income, gender and race, you’ll have acquired a vast number of characteristics to use in your market segmentation and to discover your best target market appeals.

Using my matrix market segmentation process, you put these characteristics into a matrix to reveal the characteristics that are most repeated across segments. The four or five characteristics most repeated provide your best target market appeals.

However, my matrix market segmentation process isn’t limited to target market appeals, it also enables you to determine the best marketing messages and design all of your marketing activities and messages around the appeals.

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Posted 4-29-08: Market Segmentation:
Target Market Appeals

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Market segmentation can help you learn about your target market?

Market segmentation provides a way to identify your target market with demographic (factual) information so you can infer other information from the demographics that is more helpful in reaching and selling to your target market.

Gather Demographics On Your Target Market

Demographics like age, education level, occupation, gender, and race, each provide personality and behavioral characteristics to use in the market segmentation matrix for your target market.

The more of these characteristics that you know about your target market, the better my matrix market segmentation process works. So get as many demographics for your target market as you can.

Even if this takes a little research, it will pay off by preparing you to market better to target market members and to sell more products and services by knowing how to best influence their buying decisions.

To illustrate this step using my matrix market segmentation process, suppose you are marketing a book for mid life professional men to help them improve their careers. You can use demographics like age, education, occupation, and social class in your market segmentation.

>Infer Other Information From Demographics

Knowing that they are in mid life provides you with generation and life stage psychographics. Knowing that they are professionals provides education and occupation psychographics that enable you to determine social class and other characteristics.

With my matrix market segmentation process, this information enables you to place your target market into market segments, and then look for shared characteristics across the segments to reveal the best appeals for your target market.

The characteristics repeated most across the most segments will provide the best appeals for your target market.

To use my matrix market segmentation process, you will need the 17 matrices that come with my e-book, Know ‘em Sell ‘em: How To Discover The Best Appeals for Your Target Market. The matrices make market segmentation quick and easy.

You can also access more about target markets through the following link:
Market Segmentation: Target Market Appeals

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Posted 4-28-08: Market Segmentation -
Learn Your Target Market

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This final post on the marketing product life cycle covers the decline stage.

If you missed my articles on the first three stages, you can access them by clicking the links below:

Birth and Growth Stages

Mature Stage

Marketing Product Life Cycle: Decline Stage Introduction

Sales always decline in this stage. Understanding the decline stage will help you to keep your product producing sales longer.

In the decline stage of the marketing product development cycle, product owners lower or discontinue marketing efforts and expenses. The trick is for you to lower your marketing efforts while your competitors discontinue theirs.

Similarly, if you continue to sell your product while your competitors pull their products from the market, you can squeeze out the last few sales for your product.

Marketing Product Life Cycle: Why Sales Decline

Sales decline during this stage of the marketing product life cycle because:

• the market has become saturated,
• the technology has become obsolete, or
• the trend creating the demand has ended.

The result is that unless your product is perishable or consumable, few customers still want or need your product. Market segmentation can enable you to find those few customers and to out-market your competitors to get those customers’ purchases.

Marketing Product Life Cycle: Using Marketing Research Can Slow Decline

To continue making enough sales to earn a profit, you need to use market research to determine:

• how much you need to lower prices,
• which distribution outlets you should use at this stage, and
• how your other products can benefit from brand marketing from your declining product.

Just as you want your child to have a long life and live well into senior years, you want your product to extend its life through the decline stage of the marketing product life cycle.

Market segmentation can provide extended life to your product by revealing the last remnants of customers needing the product and by discovering new uses for your product. So you can increase your profits through this final stage of the marketing product life cycle.

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Posted 4-25-08: Decline Stage Of
Marketing Product Life Cycle

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Handbook of Market Segmentation: Strategic Targeting for Business and Technology Firms by Art Weinstein provides loads of helpful information about market segmentation, but it is written so that it’s relevant to small as well as large businesses.

Although, this market segmentation book targets technology, industrial markets, and large businesses, the information is relevant, understandable and usable for small business owners.

It covers market segmentation for business-to-business companies as well as business-to-consumer companies and provides a through list of characteristics to segment business customers. It explains how to use firmographics in B2B market segmentation similarly to how demographics are used for consumer market segmentation. It even provides a list of resources for finding firmographics for business customers.

Handbook of Market Segmentation Covers Target Marketing

It provides a chapter on target marketing, which I consider the most important aspect of market segmentation for small businesses.

Handbook of Market Segmentation Includes Nine Chapters:

1. gives an overview of market segmentation,

2. specifically covers market segmentation for B2B businesses,

3. provides guidelines for business marketers,

4. covers geographics and firmographics,

5. explains how to do usage analysis,

6. discusses the role of benefits in market segmentation,

7. considers purchasing behavior and business psychographics,

8. covers implementing market segmentation strategies, and

9.provides techniques to enhance market segmentation’s value.

In addition to nine chapters, this book also includes six case studies that small business owners may find insightful when considering market segmentation.

I found this book a quick read, a good reference and well worth it’s relatively low price.

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Posted 4-14-08: Handbook of Market Segmentation:
Strategic Targeting for Business and Technology Firms Review

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