The New 2009 Green Job Guide previews jobs and business opportunities in the green economy. Business owners who embrace the green movement can carve out a place in the green economy that will pay off for decades to come.

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Market Research
Redshift provides clear and incisive business and consumer
market research and data analysis.

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Gravitational Marketing is worth its small purchase price. It’s an easy read although it really doesn’t break any new ground in marketing.

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Navigating The Marketplace: Growth Strategies For Your Business was written by business owners rather than professional marketers. But their understanding of using market segmentation to start and grow a business blew me away.

Although market segmentation isn’t a part of the title, this book deserves to be reviewed here because authors Wayne Lovern and Anna Lovern built their growth strategies around selecting the best customer segment for a business and developing a competitive strategy around the customer segment.

In other words, they implement market segmentation from a business owner’s perspective. Then they provide example after example of other business owners who built successful businesses using customer segmentation.

Navigating The Marketplace
Matches Customer Segments
To Competitive Strategies

The type of customer segmentation that the Lovern’s used was new to me, but really makes good business sense. In fact I liked it so much that I’m planning to concentrate my next post on it.

Briefly the three types of customers they use are prudent shoppers, selective shoppers and bargain hunters.

They match these three types of customers with five competitive strategies:

• Low-cost competitive strategy,
• Enhancement competitive strategy,
• Speed enhancement competitive strategy,
• Flexibility enhancement competitive strategy, and
• Reduction competitive strategy.

They then provide a short list of key success factors for each competitive strategy and distinguish these success factors from support factors. They note that continuously improving key success factors can determine the success or failure of a small business. But trying to continuously improve support factors can just waste resources.

Navigating The Marketplace
Helps New And Established Businesses

The first nine chapters of Navigating The Marketplace go into detail about each competitive strategy. These chapters provide a great foundation for new businesses or businesses that need a new start.

The remaining 7 chapters cover growth strategies for stable businesses, whose owners want them to grow or become more profitable. And chapter 16 ends the book with “How to Choose the Best Growth Opportunities.”

I found Navigating The Marketplace to be well written, easy to understand, and quite insightful. I particularly liked the many examples from the authors’ personal experiences and business relationships.

I highly recommend it. You can get it directly through Amazon. And if you want to tip me for this review, click the book image at the top of the page. You’ll still pay the same for the book at Amazon, but I’ll get a small affiliate fee for sending you.

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Organize Sales Prospects, Potential Customers Into 3 Types

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Posted 10-24-08:
Navigating The Marketplace
Review

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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:

I provide the basic purpose for each chapter below:

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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