Market Segmentation

Market Segmentation This document prepared and presented by
            Business Resource Software, Inc.

      Market Segmentation
      The purpose for segmenting a market is to allow your marketing/sales
      program to focus on the subset of prospects that are "most likely" to
      purchase your offering. If done properly this will help to insure the
      highest return for your marketing/sales expenditures. Depending on whether
      you are selling your offering to individual consumers or a business, there
      are definite differences in what you will consider when defining market
      segments.

      Category of Need
      The first thing you can establish is a category of need that your offering
      satisfies. The following classifications may help.

      For businesses:
        Strategic - your offering is in some way important to the enterprise
        mission, objectives and operational oversight. For example, a service
        that helped evaluate capital investment opportunities would fall into
        this domain of influence. The purchase decision for this category of
        offering will be made by the prospect's top level executive management.
        Operations - your offering affects the general operating policies and
        procedures. Examples might be, an employee insurance plan or a corporate
        wide communications system. This purchase decision will be made by the
        prospect's top level operations management.
        Functional - your offering deals with a specific function within the
        enterprise such as data processing, accounting, human resources, plant
        maintenance, engineering design, manufacturing, inventory control, etc.
        This is the most likely domain for a product or service, but you must
        recognize that the other domains may also get involved if the purchase
        of the product or service becomes a high profile decision. This... [continues]

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