Segmentation - Before and After

As we move into the area of market segmentation, I want to emphasize a point that often is not clearly understood in this area. It is quite common for marketers and market researchers to make an assumption that our target audience is sitting out there, all neatly segmented, and it is just a matter of leveraging the right research and analytical tools to identify the segments. This assumption doesn't reflect the fact that, in almost all cases of (social) marketing success, segmentation occurs as a result of good marketing. In other words, people show up in neat little (or ideally large) clumps not because that's the way they are but because that's the way they could be.

Of course, if you are thinking of segmentation as solely demographic then there is not much we can do with marketing tools to affect the nature/size of the segments. But all marketers now recognize that segmentation should be attitudinal/behavioral. This is because these are attributes we can affect with marketing. So as you think through your segmentation process, you must do 2 things: 1) consider where people currently are in terms of their attitudes and behaviors, and 2) consider where they could be given your marketing efforts. Your ability to perform this assessment is a good measure of your skill as a marketer.