Dissecting the Segmentation Syndrome

Abstract

If there were but 500,000 potential customers for a given product in the world and a decision of how much to spend on wooing each of them had to be made, upon what basis would the decision be made? Once upon a time a measurement of their relative needs or abilities to buy provided a satisfactory guidepost for the decision. But today there are other factors that must be considered. In this article the author traces how such decisions have been made in the past. He then proposes a method of market segmentation that will be of interest to marketers in both large and small firms.