Customer Profile:  A Great Introduction to Market Segmentation

When introducing a new topic, I’ve always liked the idea of starting with an activity that enables the students to generate business theory for themselves. This simple activity does just that.

As a starter I give the students a Customer Profile such as the one below:

• Male

• Mid 30’s

• Family (Partner, 2 kids under 8 years old)

• Professional

• Vegetarian

• Enjoys Music, Sport (taking part and watching)

Then, I ask them to identify what SPECIFICALLY this person is likely to spend his money on. These suggestions can then be put onto post-its, magic post-it notes or written onto the interactive whiteboard. The more specific, the better, so that they identify specific brands and where he would buy them from as well as, for example, where he holidays, what car he drives and so on.

All this creates a fantastic discussion. With further questioning on why the students think he buys that brand or that car, this can highlight the ways in which businesses segment the market.

We then go quickly into theory and examples of business segmentation, using other blogs such as

Success for Lego

Bics Pen for the ladies

The customer profile I give is loosely based on someone I know (me, actually - but don’t tell the students!) so that I can see how accurate the suggestions are. Some of the suggestions made by my students were spot on and they leave the lesson thinking they should go into marketing!