Segmentation: The Forgotten Stepchild of Marketing
The most critical decision in marketing often gets skipped, rushed, or simply ignored. Then everyone wonders why the launch stalled.
During one of my corporate stops, our executive team was reviewing a go-to-market plan for a new product that was still months away from launch. Partway through the presentation, the product manager paused and sheepishly apologized for his team’s decision to omit some features from the initial release.
He thought he was admitting a weakness.
I saw it as a strength.
His team had made deliberate tradeoffs—cutting features that weren’t essential for their target segment. Not everyone. Not every possible customer. Just the specific group of people at the center of their design.
And that’s exactly what good segmentation enables.
Let’s back up for a second and look at the textbook definition (hang in there, it’ll pay off in the end):
“Market segmentation is a strategic marketing process in which a heterogeneous market is divided into smaller, homogeneous groups of consumers or businesses that exhibit similar preferences, behaviors, or needs. This enables firms to develop and deliver more targeted value propositions, positioning, and go-to-market strategies.”
Sounds great, right?
The problem is, most companies either skip segmentation entirely or treat it like a box to check—usually with a couple personas, a catchy name, and no real data. Then they wonder why the campaign underperforms, why sales keeps chasing the wrong leads, or why no one’s quite sure who the product is actually for.
Segmentation isn’t glamorous. It’s not something you can show off in a board meeting. But done right, it quietly powers everything else—product design, messaging, targeting, pricing, growth.
Done poorly? It guarantees wasted time, wasted budget, and missed opportunities.
But We Want to Sell to Everyone, Right?
Companies resist segmentation because it seems limiting. They fear that by choosing one audience, they’re turning away all the others. Rather than “leave money on the table”, they default to trying to serve everyone.
The result is almost always the same:
Too many product features
Slower development timelines
Vague messaging
Bloated support infrastructure
Sales teams chasing low-conversion leads
In trying not to exclude anyone, they end up connecting with no one.
No Segment = Wasted Sales Time
When you don’t have a clear, defined target segment, your sales team ends up flying blind. Reps default to chasing customers based on size or location, but who were never part of the core audience. Conversion rates drop. Messaging gets diluted. Time gets wasted on the wrong prospects.
But the damage doesn’t stop with direct sales.
It also makes channel development and management almost impossible.
How do you choose the right distributors or partners (or retailers in a B2C model) if you don’t know who you’re actually trying to reach? What capabilities should you prioritize? Which regions matter most?
I once worked with a country manager who had deployed 80% of his sales team in a region that didn’t align with the actual location of the target customer segment. Why? Because the local team had glossed over the segmentation section of the marketing plan.
The result: a costly, disruptive scramble to redeploy the field team before the product launch date.
Segmentation isn’t just a marketing slide with a bullseye on it. It’s the map that tells your entire organization where to go and how to win.
What Segmentation Actually Means
Let’s clear something up: Focusing on a specific segment doesn’t mean you can’t sell outside of it.
It just means you don’t build for everyone. And you don’t promote to everyone.
A focused segment tells you whose needs take priority. It drives product decisions, messaging, sales enablement, and launch planning. And it gives the entire organization clarity on who you’re serving and why.
You can absolutely be opportunistic when customers outside your segment show interest. But their needs shouldn’t drive your roadmap. Not at the start.
Segmentation isn’t about being exclusive forever—it’s about starting smart.
Wrong Question, Wrong Segments
One of the most common mistakes I see: teams trying to repurpose a segmentation that was built for a completely different goal. Maybe it was designed for pricing strategy, or post-sale support. But now it’s being used to drive product design, messaging, or channel strategy.
That rarely ends well.
Segmentation only works when it’s designed to answer a specific question. What drives satisfaction with support may have nothing to do with what drives purchase decisions. What helps optimize pricing might be irrelevant when it comes to positioning or feature design.
Just as bad: when segmentation is based on internal assumptions or the loudest voice in the room instead of actual market research. If your segments are born out of wishful thinking, don’t be surprised when they collapse in the real world.
That’s why I’m a strong advocate for using a third party to lead segmentation efforts. An external team brings structure, objectivity, and distance from internal politics. Internal teams should absolutely guide the work—but they shouldn’t invent customer segments from gut feel and guesswork.
Segmentation Enables Smarter, Faster Growth
When done well, segmentation accelerates everything:
Product teams make better tradeoffs
Marketing speaks directly to the audience that matters
Sales focuses on the highest-probability leads
Launches land with more impact
And once you’ve earned traction in one segment, you’re in a stronger position to expand—because now you’re learning from success, not guessing from the sidelines.
Focus First. Broaden Later.
You don’t need to serve everyone on Day 1. You just need to matter to someone specific. You can still welcome other buyers when they come along—but don’t let their needs dilute your focus.
Growth doesn’t come from trying to be everything to everyone. It comes from being exactly right for the people who matter most.
Pick a segment. Stick to it. Earn the right to grow from there.
And ignore segmentation if you want.
Just don’t act surprised when the stepchild sets the house on fire.