Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Market Segmentation is the process of grouping a market into smaller subgroups. This is not something that is arbitrarily imposed on society : it is derived from the recognition that the total market is often made up of submarkets (called segments). These segments are homogeneous within (ie.: people in the segment are similar to each other in their attitudes about certain variables). Because of this intra-group similarity, they are likely to respond somewhat similarly to a given marketing strategy. That is, they are likely to have similar feelings about a marketing mix comprised of a given product, sold at a given price, distributed in a certain way, and promoted in a certain way. The requirements for successful segmentation are: homogeneity within the segment heterogeneity between segments stability of segments segments are measurable and identifiable segments are accessible and actionable segment is large enough to be profitable The variables used for segmentation include: Geographic Variables region of the world or country country size climate Demographic Variables age gender sexual orientation family size family life cycle income occupation education socioeconomic status religion nationality Psychographic Variables personality life-style values attitudes Behavioural Variables benefit sought product usage rate brand loyalty product end use readiness-to-buy stage decision making unit When numerous variables are combined to give an in-depth understanding of a segment, this is referred to as depth segmentation. When enough information is combined to create a clear picture of a typical member of a segment, this is referred to as a buyer profile. A statistical technique commonly used in determining a profile is cluster analysis. see also: marketing, target market, consumer behaviour List of Marketing Topics List of Management Topics List of Economics Topics List of Accounting Topics List of Finance Topics List of Economists This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.