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Customer Segmentation; Why It Could Make Such A Difference To Your
Bottom Line
Customer segmentation is
all about understanding the people you sell to and who you would like to
be your customers. Once you have an understanding of this then you can
ensure that you build your products and services to meet the demands of
these markets and become a market orientated company, which in turn
should lead to greater profitability.
Understanding your
customers, and more importantly your most profitable customers, means
that you can target your marketing effectively We all know it's easier
to sell to an existing customer than a new one so customer segmentation
will also allow you to identify additional products and services you can
sell to your existing customers.
The 20th century was a time
of mass markets, in the 21st century there are global markets but
perversely these global markets can be smaller and self selecting.
Segmenting your customers will make your messaging razor sharp and your
product development more effective making sure you become the solution
of choice.
You can break customers
into different markets; typically the simplest market segmentations are
geographic, vertical, horizontal and size of company but you may want to
consider other factors such as infrastructure or applications used
depending upon the type of solution you are offering. It is also worth
considering more esoteric factors such as membership of certain clubs or
institutions perhaps e.g, do 70% of all you customers come through
referral from one customer or from a business networking club you are a
member of?
Once you have your
different market definitions then you can categorise all your customers
against these factors to get an idea of your typical customer. You
should also define your ideal customer, which may of course be
different. You can then use this information in your prospecting and in
your marketing activities to target your messages effectively and win
more ideal customers.
Winning highly profitable
business rather than just winning any business will have a massive
impact on your revenues so understanding who these customers and
prospects are i.e. customer segmentation, really can make all the
difference to your bottom line.
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Cheryl J
Ashbrook has nearly 20 years of technology marketing experience
working for both small start-up businesses and large corporations.
Cheryl now runs the marketing consultancy
http://www.montrose-edwards.com which provides advice,
support and
outsourced marketing services to small and medium sized
technology companies. |
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