Learning How to Make Market Segmentation Work Again

The Harvard Business Review Blog has a short article by the head honcho of strategy consulting at IBM Global Business Services. With a title like that you must know what you are talking about.

A couple of quotes

If your firm is still doing traditional segmentation using demographic details or psychographic profiles, you may be wasting your money. Worse, your old segmentation may distract you from major shifts in customer behavior that could cost you your customer base.

Your location, age or sex are no longer reliable proxies for what you consume. Nor are these details, especially age, reliable indicators of your technology savvy. The straight line that once linked a person's demographics to their buying patterns today looks more like a crack in the windshield, a meandering path marked with more than a few dead ends.

So there you go. Whilst I agree with the conclusion about age I am not so sure about how the author is able to substantiate his opening statement. Worth a quick read. Dick Stroud