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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Discovering the best business market segment for your B2B business has been the subject of this blog since last week. Today’s post will cover personal characteristics of purchasing decision makers. Tomorrow’s post will summarize the material on selecting your best business market segment.

Business Market Segment Based On Personal Characteristics

Personal characteristics also influence purchasing decision makers. This includes their personal background, their demographics, and their needs and values.

Have Personal Conversations With Decision Makers

The more you know about the decision maker’s personal background, the better you can relate to and sell to the person. Thus, having personal conversations with decision makers is good for more than just making them comfortable. It serves an information gathering function because the more you listen to what they tell you about themselves, the more you will learn about that personal backgrounds that influence their purchasing decisions.

If you are not contacting them face-to-face, it can also provide you with demographics about them. People divide into market segments based on age, education level, occupation type, gender and race. These demographics also reveal generation, life stage, social class, lifestyles and other psychographics that influence purchasing decisions.

It the decision maker’s demographics are similar to yours, you will likely relate well to the person without even trying. However, if they are different from you, knowing characteristics by segments can provide you important insights that will enhance your ability to relate to and sell to the decision maker.

Know Their Needs and Benefits

Their personal backgrounds, demographics and psychographics influence the needs and benefits that they want from a purchasing transaction. If the decision maker is the owner, those needs and benefits will represent the business’ needs and desired benefits. For instance, an owner is likely to want a positive working relationship with vendors, seeking, the best price, great quality and excellent customer service.

But if the decision maker is an employee, needs and benefits may be far more personal. Employees often base decisions more on what best serves their career or personal needs than on what is best for the business. The two don’t always go together. Thus, you need to know what the employee wants to gain from a purchase.

Business Market Segment: Decision Maker Characteristics: Conclusion

Knowing as much as possible about decision makers for your present and potential business customers will help you to select the business maker segment that can provide you the most sales. It will also help you to develop more long-lasting relationships with your customers and insure their loyalty to your business and product. So don’t overlook decision maker characteristics as you select the best business market segment for your B2B business.

To link to the next post in this series, go here: Business Market Segment Summary.

To learn more about keeping your employees happy and a marketing asset see

Employee & Service Marketing & HRM

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Posted 4-22-08: Business Market Segment:

Decision Maker Characteristics 2

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Selecting the best business market segment for your B2B business includes segmenting purchasing decision makers as well businesses.

Although you are selling to businesses, it’s people that make purchasing decisions and it’s people that you have to build and maintain mutually beneficial relationships with.

Former posts and my recent article on selecting a business market segment have dealt with organizational, product and past purchasing characteristics.

This post takes a different look at your business customers and target market by concentrating on the people that actually decide to, or not to, purchase your B2B products or services.

It includes three main categories of decision maker characteristics:

• Business Market Segment Based On Purchasing Function

• Business Market Segment Based On Risk Acceptance

• Business Market Segment Based On Personal Characteristics

Business Market Segment Based On Purchasing Function

The business culture is a major influence on the purchasing function and all purchasing decision makers. It specifies the roles of purchasing decision makers and determines how much freedom and responsibility they actually have in purchasing decisions.

For instance, some business cultures require working with a select few vendors that have a long-term relationship with the business. In that culture, the only real choices that decision makers have is which long-term vendor to use for a particular product or service. In this culture, purchasing from a new supplier is risky for the decision maker, and, thus generally avoided.

Other business cultures encourage purchasing decision makers to constantly be on the look out for new vendors, new products, new services that can better meet the business’ needs or save the business time and money. In this culture, purchasing decision makers have far more freedom in purchasing decisions and take less risk when they do so. In fact, they may be rewarded for finding new solutions to the business’ challenges.

Thus, the roles of decision makers in these each business market segment are very different as are the number of decision makers in the purchasing unit. If all purchasing does is complete paper work for the same orders over and over, it takes fewer people. But if the purchasing department is responsible for finding new vendors, products and services, it needs many more people.

Business Market Segment Based On Risk Acceptance

I spoke to risk above, relating it to the business culture, but risk is also a personal characteristic. Some people are naturally risk takers while others are risk avoiders.

Ideally the risk takers will be in the business culture that encourages new solutions and the risk avoiders will be in the business culture that basically requires just ordering the same items frm the same B2B vendors again and again. But, this is not always the case.

Thus, you need to know the person as well as the business. You may know that the business culture welcomes new vendors, but if your purchasing contact in the business is risk averse, you’ll have a hard time getting a purchase from the business.

Seniority of decision makers also influence a decision makers’ risk tolerance, but differs by two distinct business culture. In a business that values seniority and past accomplishments, a high seniority decision maker can take more purchasing risks than a newer one. In a business culture that values youth and new blood more than seniority, the opposite will be true.

Thus the first thing you have to consider when analyzing the best business market segment based on decision makers is risk tolerance and the how business culture and personal characteristics influence it.

Tomorrow’s post will cover personal characteristics that influence purchasing characteristics and your selection of your best business market segment.

To get to the next article in this series, click below:
Business Market Segment: Decision Maker Characteristics 2

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Posted 4-21-08: Business market Segment:

Decision Market Characteristics 1

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