Better Business: Top tips on segmentation

“If you’re not thinking about segments, you’re not thinking,” said former Harvard Business School professor Theodore Levitt. Business consultant Steve Billingham puts the theory to the test…

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"If you're not thinking about segments, you're not thinking," said former Harvard Business School professor Theodore Levitt. Business consultant Steve Billingham puts the theory to the test…

Endless column inches have been devoted to ‘segmentation' over the last couple of years as advisers have wrestled with the challenges of identifying their most profitable client segments, or niche, and the prospect of disengaging sensitively and compliantly with lower value clients. Client segments can be as broadly or as narrowly defined you wish. Males are a segment. But so are blond, left-handed females under age 30 who live in Guildford and drive Volvos. As this example suggests, segmentation can, to quote Tony Putman, the marketing guru and author, "be an endless exercise in acco...

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