Building The Customer Proposition Through Segmentation

In order for a business to generate new revenue opportunities or to encourage our customers to spend more with us, we need to examine who our customers are. If you haven't done a segmenation exercise in your business it can be quite challenging, especially when the segments seem to blend into one.

I recently completed one for my business, in the end I chose to break down the market by size of business, as I am working in a B2B environment. It took a while to find some useful market data, but a good trawl across the internet can usually uncover some interesting stats. The UK government typically has statistics on major industries, otherwise look in trade press and other internet sites to find what you are looking for. Esentially you are looking for a supported analysis of your markets. (Here we seen a good example of how businesses make use of IT in day to day business. The internet can be an excellent source of marketing data and if you cannot find public domain information it can be a great way to source a supplier. )

Segmenting customers is vital in all businesse, but provides great opportunities for those with an eCommerce channel. Having identified customer segments you can attribute sales and enquiries to the various groups to build a picture of their value. This then allows you to focus your resources on the most valuable groups.